The use of technology should be high enough to ignite cognitive signals and low enough for students to make use of those cognitions in learning
Technology has been a mainstay for economic development for the last two decades. Technology is a tool to enhance productivity and efficiency. In the education sector, efficiency is certainly achieved, but may not be productive as expected.
Education in India has a deep meaning and importance. Education represents knowledge which is a result of cognitive effort that comes from experience. Therefore, experiential learning has no effective substitute. Such knowledge helps us prepare for difficulties in life, enhances common sense and helps us make the right judgment. What do we call a student who is hesitant to go to a bank branch to open a bank account? He is reluctant to face the personal banker! He would rather sit back and use the e-banking facilities or punch in the query (how to open a bank account) through a search engine. Similarly, a rank holder in engineering calling on an electrician to fix the tripped electric fuse at home is a result of traditional rote learning or modern technology-enabled learning; none of them provoke the brain signals adequately enough to make an impact.
The mind needs a trigger for cognitive signals to be evoked. The control centers of the brain can actually cause mental and physical alertness if triggered appropriately enough. Otherwise, they may hibernate resulting in the person being lethargic, falling into their comfort zone quite often. This may push a person towards a contended learning; the person loses the acumen to challenge the routine. The learning becomes ordinary.
The brain has a unique capability of controlling the nerves when thinking about moving without actually doing it (Vijay Jeyakumar, Alex Noel Joseph Raj, 2022). What is a human brain capable of? Around 2.5 million gigabytes of digital memory (Zauderer, 2023) and a processing ability of about 10000 trillion calculations per second (Tuarez, 2022)! Technology can complement this really well if used appropriately and must act as a catalyst for an effective education. On the contrary, it is pushing the brain towards digital slavery. Children today make use of gadgets just to make simple mathematical calculations.
Technology becomes redundant very quickly. We are often more excited by the features that they bring to the table. We are just happy about learning the science behind the technology, not the application part of it. Education institutes need to move in the latter direction. If the technology is expected to bring the necessary outcome, it is very important to use it to strengthen the process that brings that outcome.
The role of teachers is extremely crucial in making that happen. Besides knowing the technology, putting them to an effective use is important. From eliciting the subject curiosity among students to getting them towards subjective comprehension to helping them make the right judgments, the use of technology could be very handy. Teachers can help students make the right balance between depending on technology and using their brains to create the right learning atmosphere.
Senior Assistant Professor at Indus Business Academy, Bangalore
The use of technology should be high enough to ignite cognitive signals and low enough for students to make use of those cognitions in learning. Otherwise, it may defy the circumstantial logic. The human intelligence should complement the machine intelligence. For example, people get excited by the different outcome that software throws from the data fed to it for quantitative analysis; they get excited about different data representation that is possible through the software. Hardly few use the outcome of software for making meaningful decisions.
Therefore, technology can be used to nudge the initial ideas that human brains come with and to apply them in daily life. Technology-enabled experiential learning helps the institutes figure out the Goldilocks Spot, that prevents the next generation from becoming glorified tech enthusiasts and painstaking generalists.
