The Problem of Modern Technological Development - Essay Example

G17 UNIT3 7/7/15 Technology Enhances Education The problem of connection between modern technological development and educationis being widely discussed not only in scientific circles but in nowadays society in general. Ever since technologies started developing extremely rapidly, people have become more educated, as now they have free access to wide range of informational resources; the rates of modern informational expansion would have been absolutely unbelievable for people who lived even 30 years ago. However, there is the other side of the story. Together with the enormous progress society has received huge problems engaged with quick spread of information, like informational wars; wide access to educational resources has created a newly-formed generation of lazy students and broadened the problematic of intellectual property. Still all new things create both improvement and hazard for the society; that is why the problem of technologies and their role in the society (especially in education) is so contradictory. Even though appearance of technology enhanced education, all the problems that occurred with technological progress are engaged with people’s willingness to learn or lack of it, but not in technology itself. The very first thing that must be mentioned within the scopes of this absolutely controversial topic is literacy and how has it either improved or corrupted with appearance of technologies. Thus the essay “Literacy Debate Online: R U Really Reading?” by Motoko Rich sets a lot of troublesome questions in the discussion around literacy of modern children. The essay begins with the examples of two kids who are not really into reading. The author claims that with the fast growth of technologies children prefer spending more time chatting, playing, and watching entertainment programs instead of reading books and using the newly-appeared m-technological studying resources in learning purposes (Rich, 384). The main problem is that technologies provide children with so many entertaining opportunities that it is not an astonishing thing that children prefer having fun instead of learning, which appears to be a quite common for all children – they love having fun. Thus some scientists mentioned in the article argue that children’s reading even for fun is also reading and it may improve their literacy, even if it happens unconsciously, as children indeed read (Rich, 385). Hence is it possible to say that reading just for fun is also reading and it can improve children’s literacy? The author reasonably notes on this issue, he says: “The question of how to value different kinds of reading is complicated because people read for many reasons. There is the level required of daily life – to follow the instructions in a manual or to analyze a mortgage contract. Then there is a more sophisticated level that opens the doors to elite education and professions. And, of course, people read for entertainment, as well as for intellectual or emotional rewards” (Rich, 386). The passage probably pours some light on the main point of the literacy problem, as the core reason for reading or non-reading lies in children’s (and adults’) willingness to learn and their need to obtain new information. As far as children often don’t understand what education is for, they don’t like it and they don’t want to use the terrific range of resources that modern technologies provide them with. Of course, they prefer choosing to have fun, so they mostly use social networking services to communicate and share information. Although a good thing is that modern children are constantly aware of the fact that the information is always available online once they will need it, so they are advanced in so-called “digital literacy” (p. 385). Digital literacy is definitely underrated by those scientists, mentioned in Rich’s essay, who claim that technology worsens children’s literacy. Thus when modern adults may be more educated from the point of view of “classic” literacy and erudition, most of them may not even know how to use Internet; for instance, they don’t know how to use Google or retrieve information they need from multiple informational resources available online. It turns out that these adults may only improve their literacy and erudition from the sources that are left in Internet-less world; in the meantime, more and more information is getting digitalized these days, so it opens wide opportunities for those who know how to use the Internet resources, filled with bulk of information (all the possible literature, news, databases, interactive channels etc.). In this situation the representatives of the newly-formed digital generation are more advanced in the opportunities that can open the entire world to them. Even though not all people may be aware of availability of the bulk of information and resources that exist online, or even if they are, still there are a lot of people who just don’t want to use the information people indeed should admit the fact that technology enhances education by learning opportunities. Internet provides people from all around the world with bunch of free-accessed E-books, scholarly articles databases (for instance, the JSTOR, a huge online database of scholarly journals and books), massive online open courses like Coursera and Future Learn etc. Thus it turns out that children don’t need to learn everything by heart, as they can go online through their mobile gadgets and get any information they need any time they want. It is obvious that such accessibility of knowledge produces learning laziness. This kind of unwillingness to study is described in Ellen Laird’s essay “We ALL Pay for Internet Plagiarism”. Her story of a student of hers, Chip, who completely plagiarized one of the papers he was supposed to submit to the author, as she was his teacher, describes the unpleasant situation of academic felony that indeed exists in modern education (Laird, 400). Even though the author seems quite frustrated concerning the fact that her student dared to steal someone’s intellectual property so easily, her astonishment is definitely strange. Thus the occurrence of the problem of plagiarism appears to be quite consequential. Why wouldn’t students use Internet resources with ready-made papers available for free if they have an opportunity to do so? Hence plagiarism as a consequence of easily-accessible information is quite obvious and the answer is quite logical: if children can get the information without making any efforts to write the papers by themselves, they do so. However, the author solves her own problem afterwards. She mentions that it was easy for her to find out that Chip’s paper was 100 percent plagiarism, as there are special tools that help to define this kind of cheating (Laird, 400). It turns out that along with existence of the problem of the academic felony, there also exist remedies that are constantly fighting with thieves of intellectual property. For example, some of these tools are Internet websites Turnitin and Grammarly, where either teacher or student can submit their papers in order to check them for plagiarism, even the unintentional one. Moreover, considering this issue, it would be unfaithful to claim that it was Internet that produced the phenomenon of plagiarism, as it had existed long time before Internet was even invented. Even though Internet has probably raised the rates of plagiarism, it also made it possible to detect it and punish those who commit academic felony. Thus it is technology that provides academic circles with quite a powerful remedy against plagiarism. Anyway, it is impossible to argue that appearance of technologies and the opportunities they provide for modern people are enormous. However, it depends on people whether they will use the resources or not; and this is another point of view on the issue of technology and its role in education. Internet addiction has become a very problematic issue for nowadays society, as most of modern youth consider their online lives as full-fledged substitutes of their real lives. This problem is stated in another essay “Fraternities of Netheads: Internet Addiction on Campus” by Kimberly S. Young. The author presents quite sobering statistics and real-life stories that describe the terrible situation of internet addiction among modern young people. For instance, the story of Kim (Young, 395), a student who used to suffer from severe Internet addiction seems terrifying for people who can’t imagine how is it possible for some delusional Internet world to replace the pleasures of real-life communication, educational involvement, and living in general. Thus Young lists the main factors which influence on students’ growing addiction to internet-engaged existence. Among them are constantly available Internet access on campuses, “huge blocks of unstructured time” (p. 395), social alienation, and desire to escape from problems, which is definitely possible through Internet living. However, the problem of Internet addiction seems to be totally dependable on a personality, as some people appear to be more inclined to the addiction than others. In addition, it is Internet we are talking about, so this is the kind of addiction which doesn’t include any physical attachment but is purely based on mental addiction. Hence, it turns out that each and every student holds responsibility for one’s own conduct and addictions, so once an Internet-addicted person notices having the problem, like Kim did, one starts looking for its solution, which also depends on the person. Actually, the problem of Internet addiction doesn’t contradict the fact that technology enhances education. Along with the Internet-addicted students we also can meet a lot of those who use all the learning opportunities their campuses provide them with. The point is that there are people who use 24/7 Internet access to communicate and post pictures on Instagram and there are those students who use this time to examine university databases, write their papers, and read. Thus the issue of Internet addiction and its interrupting of studying process is totally relative and is engaged with different kinds of students and their willingness either to study or to entertain. Moreover, as far as university and college students are considered to be quite grown-up and presumably mature people, they have their right to place their priorities any way they want, so if they think that having fun in social networks is more important to them than studying, no one can help them start loving studying instead of having fun. To sum up, the problem of technologies and their role in modern education, as well as in modern society in general, is very contradictory, because it is pretty much relative and depends on each and every personality. Internet and mobile gadgets open wide opportunities in terms of multiple informational databases with free access to the resources; in the meantime, it provides people with wide range of entertainment and unlimited communication, which interrupt people of all ages from studying process. Thus it depend on people which priorities they set for themselves and how they use the infinite possibilities of technologies. Works Cited Rich, Motoko. “Literacy Debate Online: R U Really Reading?”. Interactions: A Thematic Reader, 8th ed. By Ann Moseley and Jeanette Harris, Cengage Learning, 2011, p. 383-387. Laird’s, Ellen. “We ALL Pay for Internet Plagiarism”. Interactions: A Thematic Reader, 8th ed. By Ann Moseley and Jeanette Harris, Cengage Learning, 2011, p. 398-403. Young, Kimberly S.. “Fraternities of Netheads: Internet Addiction on Campus”. Interactions: A Thematic Reader, 8th ed. By Ann Moseley and Jeanette Harris, Cengage Learning, 2011, p. 393-397. Read More