Chefeceline Anne L.

Dimaano
BTVTE-2A
Education in the 21st Century
As the waves of technology submerges our country, it has brought changes that affected

the lives of Filipinos. From entertainment to news, from communication to finally hitting our

education has made technology a need rather than a want. As we began to drown in the depths of

technology, our millennials and gen z embraced it. As we are studying to become professional

teachers of the 21st century, we are to let students dive into learning with the help of technology.

However, there are disadvantages according to a study of Iringa (2015), resulted that students who

use smartphones affects the academic performance of higher learning students, in which the

findings revealed that using a smartphone had a negative impact on the progression of pupils'

academic performance. Still, the use of the smartphones are stated only to be as distractions rather

than used as a tool for learning. As a future teacher, integrating the use of technology in has benefits

which increases the student’s motivation, student engagement, teacher and student collaborations,

and increases the student’s technology skills, (Costley, 2014).

In the 21st century, it has become more of a student-teacher interaction, rather than just the

teacher teaching the students. Thus, the implementation of the 4C’s are introduced for learning

plans. The 4C’s stands for, communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity where

students can be tested and engaged at the same time. As it is mentioned, communication is valuable

in teaching and uplifting the student’s confidence to thrive hard. That is why synchronous meetings

are provided in the pandemic because it is engaging to communicate. As said, students are at the

center of our attention, thus collaborating and helping them out is useful to have a successful

learning development. You can include online games that can be interacted with one pupil so they

can enjoy and be engaged into learning. As these games also provide critical thinkers to answering
and solving. Then finally, creativity, whereas students enjoy visuals presented by the teachers. The

more we put effort and creativity to our lessons, students become more entertained and involved

too.

In the 21st century, our means of education has been revolving about technology. As a

future teacher, we are to integrate technology and the 4C’s all together to create great ideas for a

successful learning. There are a lot of useful sites and applications that can enhance the student

and teacher collaborations. Some example of these are the ClassDojo, GoNoodle, Kahoot!, and

more. Other applications for teachers to enhance their creativity and productivity in providing the

students with interactive PowerPoints are the Canva and Adobe Photoshop. These applications

will help the teachers think outside the box in either online or face to face setup. Not only that it is

an easy access but it is also easy to use. Now that we are into online class, our way of interaction

is through our mobile phones, we then use video conferencing apps such as google meet or zoom

meeting.

For millennials and gen z have embraced technology throughout their lives, we as teachers

are to use it as well. For we are adults that should take the lead and guide the students to their

betterment, we must not put all these to disadvantage. Technology in the 21st century has either

made us or break us because of what we see on the daily basis. But for us teacher, we are to become

the literates that guides them to a good and prepared learning development. And now that we have

tools that makes teaching at ease, we should always be reminded of taking it slow and absorbing

everything so that we cannot be absorbed by technology.

References
Costley, K. C. (2014). The Positive Effects of Technology on Teaching and Student Learning.

Iringa, T. (2015). Smartphones’ Effects on Academic Performance. Journal of Multidisciplinary

Engineering Science and Technology (JMEST), 779-782.

Osborne, J. (2018, May 14). Lessons for 21st Century learners. Retrieved from edutopia:
https://www.edutopia.org/article/lessons-21st-century-
learners#:~:text=Three%20ideas%20for%20fostering%20collaboration,to%2Duse%20apps%20a
nd%20tools.&text=Collaboration%2C%20critical%20thinking%2C%20communication%2C%20an
d%20creativity%20are%20the%204,Part