Making a difference

Many times I've heard it said that there is no evidence that technology improves learning. This is a vacuous claim, based on ignorance of the research literature, and possibly borne out of a fear or dislike of technology in general. My usual retort to such a claim is that children with special educational needs are a classic example of technology improving learning. For children with special needs, especially those with physical disabilities such as deafness or vision impairment, technology not only improves learning, it actually enables learning. Without adaptive technology, many disabled children could not access certain types of education. But there is a mass of evidence to show that technology is not only making the difference for all learners, it is actually creating new and previously unattainable opportunities for learning. Technology does make a difference.

A recent research study at the Durham University in the North East of England suggests that multi-touch, multi-user surfaces can improve the learning of mathematics. 400 children were involved in the study, which demonstrated that 'smart tables' enabled better collaboration and problem solving during maths lessons. Class teachers receive a live feed of output from the children's interactions on the surface, and can intervene when necessary. Research has shown that the touch surfaces enable children to discover a range of alternative solutions to maths problems, simply through interacting with each other in new ways.

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Making a difference by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.