Technophobic teachers need to overcome fears
School pupils learn more when teaching is backed up by new technologies, but teachers are not generally familiar with the use of these new classroom aids, according to a recent survey by the Pedagogical Institute. Although all teachers polled said they felt that new technology helped the teaching process, 86.4 percent said they had no experience in its use. Greece has reduced the ratio of pupils per computer terminal (29.4 per computer terminal in primary schools, 15.2 in secondary schools) but the question of how these are being used remains. The gap between intention and reality in state education is confirmed by teachers’ requests for training. They believe that using new technologies brings teaching up to date, speeds up the acquisition of information (via the Internet) and supports traditional teaching methods. A small minority (10.9 percent) have doubts over the effectiveness of these new means. Four in 10 teachers (38.5 percent) said that all pupils benefited from using computers at school. Just over a third (34.1 percent) said the better students benefited most and 16.3 percent that the more mediocre students had more to gain. According to the survey, carried out by Katerina Kasimati, adviser to the Pedagogical Institute, and Associate Professor Vassilis Yialama of Athens University, 71.6 percent of teachers nevertheless believe that computers can never and should never replace traditional teaching methods, but should simply complement them. «Pupils should be made aware that the approach to knowledge should be an understanding of the world, rather than a series of calculations or a body of evidence,» said the report’s authors, who recommend teaching pupils how to make connections between various concepts and to acquire the ability to formulate and interpret new ones. Furthermore, uncontrolled dumping can slow down or halt the necessary process of decomposition, and even produce hazardous chemicals such as hydrogen cyanide, thus delaying restoration of the environment.
