Sometimes, I feel like some old age guy because I have seen many things changed a lot, many latest technologies which were never heard of or seen. In other words, I have seen a whole new generation of computers since beginning and it rapidly kept on moving fast with latest technologies one after the other. Life is getting easier but is that the truth or it is making us more rely on things rather than on ourselves. This is a tough question to answer at the moment.
Let me check my childhood, hhmm I saw computer for the first time in 1995 and I was like what is this? Some kind of alien or what? Monster? It was not common at that time. We went to Nepal in 1996 and then we had our first computer at home. Luckily, I got admission in one of the best schools in Kathmandu, Modern Indian School, and they had computer lab. Not every school used to have computer labs at that time. I remember that I got to learn a lot of useful things in the school, mainly Power point and Paint Brush.
It was the beginning of computers and latest technology for me. I am not sure if they still teach Microsoft things and good softwares in school or not but in my time, Excel and word were very nicely introduced and these things helped me a lot to understand and work on computers. I used to make greeting cards in computers to wish my loved ones. As everything has advantages and disadvantages both, same goes for this new technology as well. I know where I went wrong, playing games a lot without any specific timing was not good at all. My time, I had too much fun learning computers and it was all good.
There is a big difference between my schooling and current schooling system. Now, its robotic world and every child is automatically attracted towards mobiles, laptops and new gadgets. What I fear is the talent of writing. Honestly, as I don’t write much now, doing office work on computers so I sometimes think my hand writing is getting worst and whenever I write something on notepad, my fingers get tired too quickly. So, I think we just need to make sure that we don’t lose writing skills in this generation. And that’s not just the responsibility of a teacher or school, we need to make sure as a parent, brother, sister that wherever this technology takes us, do not forget some of basic things of schooling. It’s just my opinion.
There is no doubt that technology has made life easier for students. I have graduated from a university which I never visited physically. Yes, its true and it was in 2009, when I was in Egypt with my parents. With the help of my Father, I took admission in University of the Punjab which is in Lahore and gave special examinations in Cairo. I was blank, don’t have books, nothing, no notes, totally blank. Then Google Baba helped me. I checked everything online, make my own notes, checked past papers. It was not easy but I tried to do my best. Once again, due to latest technology, I was able to graduate.
In Covid, whole world comes to know the importance of latest technology specially when it was about their kids and their studies which got affected a lot. Online classes saved the day. It was once again not easy but parents worked hard to learn many new things just for the sake of their kids and making them study without wasting their years. It was tough but then people gets used to it and now many people prefer online classes. I have few colleagues at work who still attend online classes. In fact, one of my friend graduated from virtual university. This is amazing and I witnessed it at work, he used to give exams at work having an hour break or so. Everything online, making it easy for students who work and wants to study.
Future looks bright with these new technologies added in the life of students. But we need to make sure and set some limits to them. As a child, there are things which needs to be practiced physically and mainly, I have some serious concerns about writing skills. We need to make sure that pen, pencil and notebook will not get disappear from our lives. Just like the concept of libraries is not much these days as everything is available on cell phones and laptops, students avoid reading books. My kids are too young for school so I have no idea what is going on in the school these days. Just hoping for the best when the time comes.