American Education is Lacking in Technology

American Education is Lacking in Technology

A summit hosted by the Foundation for Excellence in Education was held earlier this week in Washington, D.C. to discuss the U.S. education system. Among all topics presented, one in which figures from all political parties and CEO's from prominent U.S. corporations agreed on was that technology was not utilized enough in the classroom.

New forms of technology have had a great impact on the everyday lives of Americans. The way we share information has been forever changed by devices like smartphones and iPads, and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. But summit attendees agreed that technology has not been used to its full potential when it comes to education.

Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education finds it interesting that technology has impacted the way that people interact socially with one another but has not fully made its way into U.S. schools. "It [technology] has transformed how we do business, but technology has yet to transform how we provide education," he said.

Today's students are not learning about technology in the classroom and are failing to meet the expectations of tech-savvy employers when they enter the workforce. William Simon, CEO of the U.S. division of Wal-Mart said that young workers often lack the ability to "adapt to the ever-changing technology that surrounds them on the job." Wal-Mart, the nation's largest employer has begun offering discounted rates for its employees to take online courses through the online school American Public University. At the summit, William pointed out the benefit of training students to use technology at an early age so that they will develop the skills to use new forms of technology that are developed in the future.

Decreased funding, a long-time hot topic in education, has a clear effect on technology education and was addressed at the summit. Inadequate school funding could prompt education reform that does not benefit students, Duncan said, like the elimination of art or music programs and extracurricular activities, or shortening the school year. But a better solution might be to create an education system that is more productive and efficient by using technology. Duncan predicts that education will change drastically in the near future, maybe even with the next five years. "Paper is going to disappear," he said. "I think we're on the cusp of that."

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