The Problem With Technology

A couple days ago, on Facebook, I started to notice these Facebook groups designed specifically for the students of a future graduating class of a college. "University of Illinois Class of 2018" would be an example. At first I thought this was really cool. I mean, its like opening a gift up the night before christmas, its very exciting. But at the same time, your just ruining something that is meant to be a surprise. To me, it just doesn't sound right. That is why I feel like technology is, in school at least, a ridiculous and unnecessary strain on the mind. Maybe Im just bad with technology, but to me, I can honestly say that we don't need it, and we should have little to none of it. 

For math class this year every single student in any math class had to purchase a 200 or so dollar calculator. The TI-NSPIRE. Which is apparently the calculator of the future. The only problem is that none of the teachers know to use them or want to use them. Neither do the students. Well I bought the calculator by the first day of school, unlike about a third of my class, and I didn't use it once for 3 months after that. We had a long term substitute teacher and she never checked, so nobody used them. Now, we are strictly required to use them everyday, which nobody knows how to do, and it has resulted in me learning much less math and hearing many more complaints about the calculators. Thats probably the result of the higher power telling them that they need to use the Calculators because they were getting so many complaints. I also couldn't use it on any tests or quizes.

In 8th grade math class my teacher and all of her colleagues received their very own SmartBoards. These 3000 dollar costing chalkboards were written on with this expensive pen that could connect with the internet in the SmartBoard or something. She once actually made a phone call to the SmartBoard hotline to ask a question in class. It was little things like that that added up to a huge waste of time in which I barely learned the Pythagorean Theorum. 

There are smaller things too, like having to turn papers in online, or only seeing your grades online, no physical report card, feel unnecessary as well. The last thing a high school senior needs is stress, and that is what technology causes in high school.