Courtney Neal

Adam Padgett
UWRT 1102-067

Neal1

Lets get Digital

I have always, ever since I can remember, been a hands-on learner and
needed a lot of visual aids to help me learn quickly and effectively. In grade
school, charades helped me learn new vocabulary. In middle school writing
algorithms out on the white board helped me learn algebra. Then I hit high
school. Right about the time when older projectors were being replaced with
the newer ones where the students could physically see what the teacher
was writing as it was projected onto the board. Ever since then all I can recall
about technology in high school was that whatever the school could afford
that year; they bought it. It was all about the vastly growing technological
industry because the school board believed that technology was the key to
success. Hand-written tests became Scantrons and were simply inserted into
a machine and coded to spit out correct/incorrect answers in red ink. So, I
would like to know, does technology hinder or enhance high school students
learning abilities? In my opinion, technology is taking away from the
traditional ways of learning and gearing it more toward the future. The
incorporation of technology in the classroom has, and will continue to, be
detrimental to the growth of students socially.
Think of the generation before you, your parents. Sure, they have been
on this Earth longer than you have, but regardless of their time spent living,
they are so much wiser than I see myself ever being compared to. They are
creative and crafty and think of ways to do things in which I would be lost on

Courtney Neal
Adam Padgett
UWRT 1102-067

Neal1

unless I could use technology. I was raised with technology, and thus I rely on
it a lot more heavily than my parents do. I still, to this day, struggle with
adding and subtracting fractions. Whereas my mother can solve them in her
head, whilst I pull out my calculator and plug the information into it. There is
a certain feeling of helplessness I sense whenever I feel I must turn to
technology in order to do something that quite honestly, could be done
simply by the human brain. High school is a crucial time to teach students
the value of only relying on themselves, as they are about to embark on an
entire new journey when they graduate and leave for college. In an article
written by Sherry Turkle titled Always On, she discusses visiting MIT and
encountering students who carried computers and radio transmitters in
their back pockets and keyboards in their pockets. She went on to say:
They called themselves cyborgs and were always wirelessly connected to
the Internet, always online. (Turkle 154). After reading Turkles article, I
began asking myself: Is this what I want my future kids to be? walking
computers? Not experiencing the world around them because they
supposedly have all the knowledge they could ever need right at their
fingertips? I fear that if we, as citizens, and teachers and people in
educational professions do not start taking the reliability away from
technology, that humans themselves will evolve into cyborgs and not know
how to function at all in society without supplemental help from technology. I
believe this issue could be averted through education and allowing students
to think for themselves instead of persistently being exposed to technology.

Courtney Neal
Adam Padgett
UWRT 1102-067

Neal1

Lets elucidate a few things before going any further: I am NOT against
the growth and adaptation of education. In an article written by Timothy
Koschmann and Janet L. Kolodne, they discuss the idea that no matter what,
education will always increases as technology does the same. I agree with
the two authors that growth in education is inevitable and we as humans
cannot help but to adapt to the ever-growing technological industry. However
I do disagree with Koschmann and Kolodne as they continue in their article to
talk about the need to restructure our educational systems. (Koschmann &
Kolodne). I understand that as the world progresses, education needs to
progress as well. However I believe education will still be able to progress
without heavily influence from technology. I am concerned that as
technology continues to advance, humans will lose crucial skills that cannot
be replicated through technology, such as decision making for example. It is
important to instill such skills into students so that when they go off to
college and into the real world, they are able to make decisions for
themselves and survive without technology if need be.
Aside from the fact that human reliability on technology poses concern
for the future, additionally, according to Neil Postman, there is an issue with
what he calls information overload which essentially refers to the fact that
sometimes too much information is a bad thing. He says in his article:
Technology giveth and technology taketh away, and not always in equal
measure. (Postman 1). This is a powerfully true statement. Here, Postman is

Courtney Neal
Adam Padgett
UWRT 1102-067

Neal1

discussing the idea that technology can do some good, and it can do some
harm, but not always equally. Sometimes it inflicts more harm than it does
good, and vice versa. In the sense of technology within education,
technology is giving extra tools to help teachers grade faster, and to help
students be able to look online and see their grades faster. However, it is
taking away from the old-fashioned way of a teacher physically grading a
students test and seeing exactly what that student is struggling with and
taking that knowledge and applying it to her lessons in order to make her
information more lucid. Thus, in return, the student has lost some valuable
feedback that which could only come from a teacher grading a test
personally and closing the gap between the teacher and the student.
I am fully aware that most people would argue against me and say that
technology is in fact beneficial to educational and social growth. For
example, Litowitz and Warner wrote an article about how after they
published an article including everything they found beneficial to
incorporating more technology in education, that they then received an
email from a reader who highly disagreed with their information and insisted
they were incorrect to feel that way about technology in classrooms. Litowitz
and Warner responded to the concerned reader with the following statement
with what they use to describe technology: the main expression of human
activity on the planet Earth(Litowitz & Warner 520). Although they are
entitled to decide however they want to define the term technology, I have

Courtney Neal
Adam Padgett
UWRT 1102-067

Neal1

to ask: Is this really the mindset we want to instill into the students that will
one day be the future of this world? Do we really want them thinking that the
number one way to socialize is through technology? Do we want them to turn
into the MIT students, the cyborgs that Turkle mentioned, the ones that were
walking computers? I cannot imagine a world where communication happens
solely through technology and mankind forgets how to communicate on a
personal level with one another. I think Litowitz and Warner are portraying
technology as the most efficient and effective way to interact with mankind,
when in reality communicating on a personal level still remains to be the
most important form of communication. We do not want students graduating
from high school thinking that they can rely on technology to guide them
through life. There will always be instances where human interaction will be
necessary. For example, when high school graduates enroll in college and
graduate with their desired degrees, they will then go on to search for job
opportunities. First impressions mean a lot, especially to potential employers,
thus it is crucial to progress students communicative abilities in order to
ensure they are able to function professionally in their future work
environment.
Another important aspect of technology in regards to education is the
amount of courses that are now offered online. Although online classes may
be convenient, one study shows that they are not as glorious as they may
seem and that they are actually hindering learning abilities of students. In a

Courtney Neal
Adam Padgett
UWRT 1102-067

Neal1

study conducted by Lisa Kirtman, she lists multiple authors of various articles
that all discuss the implications of both teaching an online class and learning
through an online class. A few of the main issues she pointed out about
online classes are: The challenges of keeping students engaged in an online
course, the responsibility of the instructors to build a social environment for
the students, and the difficulties of keeping students motivated in an online
setting. Kirtman references Holmbergs theory by stating personal
relationships promote student motivation and learning. (Kirtman 104). Thus,
to sum up Kirtmans study, most of the concerns teachers reported were
about how to keep students interest in an online setting and most of the
students issues dealt with procrastination and not feeling socially involved
with their classmates, and more importantly, their instructor. Online courses
are convenient on occasion in order to fit into students schedules when need
be, however they still do not match up with the standard of traditional
classroom learning. Kirtmans study proves that students need to feel a
personal connection to their class as well as to their professor in order to
succeed in an educational environment, and it also proves that most
students do not feel or make that connection during their time spent in an
online class.
In conclusion, technology is impossible to avoid in everyday life, but
there are ways to prevent it from being detrimental to learning outcomes in
students. Technology should not be the determinate of what is taught in

Courtney Neal
Adam Padgett
UWRT 1102-067

Neal1

classrooms. Technology has given us a lot of useful features, but there comes
a time when it becomes too much of an influence and begins to hinder more
than it benefits. To again quote Neil Postman: Technology giveth and
technology taketh away. Technology has a lot to offer to education, but
when it offers something, it takes something away in return. In the context of
education, technology gives laptops, online courses, and Scantrons, but it
takes away hand-written assignments, personal teacher-student
relationships, and personal feedback on assignments.

Courtney Neal
Adam Padgett
UWRT 1102-067

Neal1

Works Cited
Kirtman, Lisa. (2009). Online versus in class Courses. P 104. Retrieved on
April 13, 2015.
Koschmann, Timothy & Kolodner, Janet L. Technology and Educational
Reform. Journal of the

Learning Sciences, Vol. 6, No. 4 (1997), pp.

397-400. Taylor and Francis, Ltd.

Litowitz, Len S. & Warner, Scott A. A Contemporary Perspective. Vol. 89, No.
7 (Mar., 2008),
pp. 519-521
Postman, N. (October 11, 1990). Informing us to death. Speech given
at the meeting of the German Informatics Society (Gesellschaft fuer
Informatik) in Stuttgart, Germany. Retrieved on September 18, 2007 from
http://www.mat.upm.es/~jcm/postman-informing.html
Turkle, Sherry. (2011). Always On. Pp 151-170. Retrieved on April 4, 2015.