The Conservative and Sophisticated Touches in Teaching & Learning _Part 1

By Venny Tania Winarta / 1st year student

Some decades ago, students were not given textbooks as their learning medium. Instead of textbooks, the teachers in that era were considered as the main source of knowledge . It is believed that the teachers in the past had more contributions in the educational system as knowledge could not be discovered by way of other sources. However, in 1960, the sophisticated system was first applied in the educational life as the first high-technology learning system was introduced by Illinois University with a computer named PLATO. Even though, the paper-based learning system still could be found easily, there is no doubt that technologies have been the essential issues for the educational life. As the development of technology is affected by globalization, many numbers of educational experts enlighten that technology could not be dismissed in the educational system. Both paper-based and high-technology learning systems are advantageous to provide the knowledge, especially for the learners, however, these two learning systems have many differences according to their popularity, advantage, and disadvantage.

As what has been illustrated by Dobo (2015), thousands of students in fifteen different schools that are located in four states and the District of Columbia have tried to apply this new learning system for their educational days, especially for their Mathematic subject by the “Teach to One” learning method. On the other hand, this illustration also means that the high-technology learning system has not been the first choice for every schools nor universities. Patela (2012) hypothesizesthis high-technology learning system could only be “the second” medium to provide educational learning and still could not replace the conservative learning system.

This issue is a debatable topic. According to Paduraru (n.d), the significance of paper-based learning system is that it gives students the motivation to continue their studies to the higher learning level. This circumstance could be occurred since teachers in this conservative learning system have more contributions to their students. Similarly, this system also provides students the chance to interact with the teachers and the other students. However, Bork (1984) claims that the high-technology learning system is adequate enough to alter the “passive” learning in paper-based learning system when students only become the spectators. He also holds the view that the high-technology learning system could shove the paper-based learning system in the future and could be spread in the further ranges of educational system.

TO BE CONTINUED