How technology has positively impacted my experience in the classroom by Shaleigh

How technology has positively impacted my experience in the classroom by Shaleigh - November 2025 Scholarship Essay

Those heavy textbooks that strained your back all day at school are no more; now we have technology that's a click of a button away. Having long, boring lectures on a whiteboard and heavy books that were hard to read were always such a struggle growing up. As I have grown, so has technology too. Now all I need to bring to class is a laptop, and I am set. Having technology in the classroom is such a game-changer and makes things so much easier. No more textbooks, a greater variety of online resources, and AI tools that can help you learn.
​
Having a lot of classes can be very stressful and hard to keep up with. Those large textbooks that were boring and not easy to read always made me even more stressed in school. But now that it is all online, it is so much easier to find what you need. Online books are so much better because it has so many different features that make learning more fun and less stressful. From simple things like being able to search certain words, highlighting with different colors, and making side notes to come back to have made a huge difference. It is a lot easier to also take home and be more productive outside of school as well.
​
Online resources like Khan Academy and Quizlet are also a better improvement in the classroom. Khan Academy is like an online tutor, and it shows videos explaining things from math to language. It is a great way to really understand things visually and be able to practice too. Quizlet is an online version of flashcards, basically. Using Quizlet has helped me so much in school and makes learning so much easier. Using those practice tests and games they give you is so helpful when studying for a test or trying to memorize important concepts. These are just two examples of the many different resources online that are so easy to find and use.
​
There is a lot of debate about AI, but I think if it is used in the correct way, it can be very helpful. AI can create personalized notes and drawings for you if you ask it to. Rather than using AI to just look up an answer for you, you can use it to explain things to you in an easier way. An example is if you were learning Shakespeare, you could ask AI to break it down for you in more casual words so you can understand things in an easier way. AI is just a really good way to get a personalized learning experience, because everyone learns in a different way.
​
In conclusion, technology has a very positive impact in classrooms, and it has really helped me to learn better and more easily. Using online textbooks rather than the old-fashioned paper ones, the many different online apps and websites, and the AI tools that can personalize learning for you are all great ways that technology has changed things for the better. I use these in my classroom, and it has been a really good way for me to learn and understand things better.