In the past, teachers relied on blackboards and textbooks to teach lessons. Now, most teachers use smartboards and computers to teach their students.
Smartboards and computers are among the technological innovations that have been embraced in the past 25 years by the Archbishop Carroll community and the world at large.
Many technological innovations embraced by the public in the past 25 years were invented in the last century. Smartboards, invented in the late 1990s, became more universally adopted around 2010. Around the same time, Google launched the Chromebook, a small, relatively affordable laptop, which led many schools to put a computer in every student’s hands.
Another technology that gained wide appeal in this century although invented in the last one is the smartphone, which was invented in 1992 but was not really embraced by the public until the introduction of Apple’s iPhone in 2007. Websites and search engines have been around since the early 1990s but didn’t become popular until the dot-com boom in the late 1990s and early 2000s. That’s the same with online banking. Artificial intelligence has been around since the 1950s but didn’t gain widespread public use until around 2022. Drones date to the middle of the last century, too, but were for the military; the public began using them around 2010. Global positioning systems (GPS) were available in the 1990s but didn’t gain widespread public use until after 2000.
Other popular technologies were invented in this century. Social media sites came into being in 2003 with MySpace and 2004 with Facebook. YouTube was the first video streaming service available to the public, launched in 2005. Netflix, which began in the 1990s as a DVD-by-mail service, launched as a video streaming service in 2007. Music streaming started with Pandora in 2005 and broadened to include Spotify in 2011 and Apple Music in 2015. Wearable technology gained public traction with the launch of Fitbit in 2009, followed by the Apple Watch and the Oura fitness ring, both in 2015. Video conferencing became available to the public via Skype in 2003. Zoom, the video conferencing tool used widely when businesses, schools, stores, and social activities shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic, came into being in 2013. The pandemic also led to the invention of mRNA vaccines in 2020 to combat the COVID-19 virus.
Mrs. Diane Gimpel, the moderator of The Carroll Times and a former 12th grade English teacher at Carroll, is a video conferencing user.
“One of the newer technologies that made my life easier, both when I was a teacher and now that I am a tutor and freelance writer, is Zoom,” Mrs. Gimpel said.
Mrs. Gimpel used Zoom to teach her students when schools were shut down because of the pandemic from March through June 2020. She continued using it during the next school year when Carroll had a hybrid schedule in which half of the student body came to the school building one day while the other half attended class online and then they switched the following day. Back to school night and parent-teacher conferences also were conducted on Zoom. Now, Mrs. Gimpel uses Zoom to meet with students she tutors and to interview people for the freelance stories she writes.
The World Wide Web and web browsers are what help Mr. Andrew Cavara, the school’s college resource officer, do his job.
“There are almost 4,000 degree-granting colleges and universities in the US, so gathering information on colleges can feel overwhelming,” Mr. Cavara said. “The technology that has been most helpful to me and students is the search platforms and websites that help in finding the right school for each student. This includes such websites as Naviance and College Board.”
The education videos widely available online help Mr. Ronald Cummings, who teaches engineering and chemistry, pass information to his students.
“YouTube and YouTube music have made my job easier by allowing me to find educational videos for my classes and music that is used in school ministry and prayer groups,” Mr. Cummings said.
The technologies teachers use inside the classroom are not necessarily the ones that affect them outside the classroom.
“Innovations of the past 25 years that have changed my life include mRNA vaccines and smartphones,” Mrs. Gimpel said. “My smartphone has changed my life because it connects me to the world. I also use online banking. It is a time-saver, but not as much of a life-changer as mRNA vaccines and smartphones. My smartphone is the technology I use most.”
Mr. Cummings said he wouldn’t go far as to call the newest innovations life altering, but he is a regular user of a couple of them.
“I can’t state that these innovations have changed my life, but I do enjoy watching a streamed movie from a subscription service on my OLED TV,” Mr. Cummings said. “The technology that I probably use the most is the music streaming services because I love listening and relaxing to all types of music whenever possible.”
Both Mr. Cummings and Mrs. Gimpel agreed that not everything new is rosy.
“One technology that made my job as a teacher more difficult is artificial intelligence,” Mrs. Gimpel said. “Another technology that has made my job as a teacher more difficult is the use of smartphones.”
Some students used AI to complete writing assignments, Mrs. Gimpel said, which negated the object of those assignments — for the students to use critical thinking skills and improve their writing. Smartphones made teaching more difficult because students would try to use their phones in class — until they were required to put the phones into cellphone pockets at the front of the classroom.
Mr. Cummings said smartphones got in the way of his teaching, too.
“The smartphone has made my job harder because they have become more of a distraction than a useful tool among high school students,” he said.
