The Student Perspective (Technology)

The following blog was written by Mrs. Maggie Behrooz. She is a Math Teacher and serves as the JCHS Math Department Chair. 

As first semester comes to a close, it gives me time to reflect on the past eighteen weeks. There were of course many changes teachers and students faced, the biggest being the laptops. Last week’s blog, written by Karie Houck, featured the advantages to using the laptops and what resources we use in the math classroom. To piggyback off of Mrs. Houck, I thought it would be interesting to get students’ perspectives on the laptops. I asked my students to tell me their thoughts. I have two Math 2 classes and one Honors Math 2 class, so my students range from freshmen to juniors. 

The overall consensus from my students is that the laptops are a benefit, but only when used in the proper way. The majority of my students talked about opportunities the laptops provide for creativity and research. Several students said they enjoy making presentations or projects because the laptops provide more resources. Students do not have multiple notebooks and textbooks, but are able to stay organized because everything they need for each class is in one place. In most classes, note taking has been easier for students. Rather than writing every thing down, it saves time to type and annotate. Also, a student who is absent can access the missing assignments through each teacher’s website. 

The honesty of my students showed that although the laptops offer an overall positive opportunity, there are still negative side affects as well. Every student who gave his or her perspective spoke about the distractions the laptops can be to students. The most common distractions students mentioned were games, videos, Facetime, iMessage, and non-instructional websites. One student said, “The opportunity to have the laptops has been abused by some students”. As far as the math classroom, some students said they had difficulty taking notes because of the symbols used in math and the need to show work in solving problems. 

It was interesting for me to get my students’ perspectives on the laptops. Generally, I believe students are grateful for the laptops and the educational opportunities they provide. There were some surprising responses that caused me to look at how the laptops will be used differently in my classroom next semester.

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