Technology replacing COMMUNICATIONOne of my students recently told me about how she had e-mailed her Christmas thank you notes by using a fill-in-the-blank form. She was very proud of how fast she took care of the job. The value of a personal message seemed to be lost on her.
What worries me is the way language-dependent activities that help us form a community have disappeared or changed because of technology.
I see the effects all the time in my classroom. More and more students have trouble with traditional classroom activities that require listening and interacting with others. For some students, video games and online companions have replaced family, classmates, and friends.
A few years ago, it was easy to read a book to calm a class down or to inspire a discussion. I can still do that, but it’s so much harder. When I talk or demonstrate a task, I feel like a screen image. They can look and listen or not, as they please. They watch me teach or read as if they’re watching television or a computer screen.
Technology is also changing how students do their work. Research means cutting and pasting factoids from different sources, usually the internet. I think students are having a hard time assembling their own ideas. Volume and rapid recall are everything. Reflection and evaluation take too much time.
Many of the problems existed before computers. For the most part, they result from confining students to one room for most of the day, and from the ordinary growing pains we all encounter.
But today, these same problems tend to be more plentiful and more serious.
Do you think computers pose a problem with the way we communicate with each other?
5 comments:
Computers have a major impact on the way we are able to communicate and interact with others and I think that we really do need to realise that. Although I think that it is great to have all of this technology and to have the ability to do so much with it, I really think that, like I said before, we need to draw the line!!!
computers are a great way to keep in touch with people that you may not have much time to call or meet up with. i love ot email my friends in perth.soon i think everyone will end up having a computer to themselves..
i agree with livvie...sometimes computers and technology is great but someimes it gets to addictive and we need to draw the line at this ppoint
i personly agree with livvie (twin)
becoz sometimes computers can make students and even teachers out of focus but computers and stuff are a great way to be able to interact and do lots of important things like assingments and homework and things like that but they are also great to just play around with and relax!
I think that computers are good, when used in portion
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