Tech Literacy: The Ultimate Problem With the Modern World
Technology. It is the fastest growing application in today's modern world. It has made mankind able to do some amazing things however it has also led our society into a world of smart phones and computers that have made our youth more and more socially awkward. Nobody even knows how to hold a conversation in person anymore. Everyone is constantly on their phone distracted by something else. Although this technology seems like a good thing in the sense that people are now able to socially interact with people from around the globe, it is also hurting us. Many people have become technologically literate which already is leading to the decline of newspaper and magazine use around the country. My personal experience with technology and literacy has opened my eyes to what lies ahead for the future. My focus of this impact will be on the educational aspect of technology. We rely way too heavily on technology that it is even translating to that way in the classroom. In high school especially, teachers try to get out of explaining things better to students by telling them to 'look it up online'. Simply looking something up online, sure, could be helpful to some degree, but wouldn't that eventually make teaching in person obsolete? If this is the case, the upcoming generations will be the laziest we've ever seen, leading to obesity, not listening to authority and never needing to leave their bedroom. It is scary to see that our world as we know it could be leading to this. If this problem is ever going to get fixed, we need to go to the source of the problem, and that is the classrooms today. These problems stem from the poor teaching styles and failure of teachers to help students in their time of need. Students, in order to fully understand material, need reinforcement on what they learned in class. However, if they didn't learn it in class it is extremely difficult for them to reinforce this material. This leads to them having to self-learn from reading and watching videos online. This is no way to learn, especially if they are going to spend all day in class anyway, they should be getting something out of going to school. Throughout my personal literacy narrative in high school I have learned many things about not only technological literacy but also about society as a whole. Teachers nowadays rely heavily on technology, telling students to go home and check the homework instead of simply telling them in class. This technology is not only making students lazy, but the teachers as well because they don't want to do their job. I know this from self- experience, as way too many times during high school I found that the teacher was awful at teaching and instead told us to go online to find lectures on the topic. I would have to listen to another teacher online as compared to my teacher in person. I was constantly led to question ‘isn’t that what they get paid for though? To teach us?’. Teaching in this country has to change or technology will take over. Although it is enhancing the learning environment for many, particularly in college, high school students are exposed to an environment where everything is done for them. Looking up answers online isn’t learning and it is why we are so lazy. Why do we need teachers if there are videos of teachers teaching the material better than the ones in class, online for free? And why is college so expensive if many times people can be self-taught? There are many questions that need to be answered about the educational system in todays society and unless changes are made there could be consequences later on. Education is just one example of how smart technology is actually making people dumber. It is leading our society right into the ground and if we don't stop it now, our kids will start off at rock bottom.
Technology. It is the fastest growing application in today's modern world. It has made mankind able to do some amazing things however it has also led our society into a world of smart phones and computers that have made our youth more and more socially awkward. Nobody even knows how to hold a conversation in person anymore. Everyone is constantly on their phone distracted by something else. Although this technology seems like a good thing in the sense that people are now able to socially interact with people from around the globe, it is also hurting us. Many people have become technologically literate which already is leading to the decline of newspaper and magazine use around the country. My personal experience with technology and literacy has opened my eyes to what lies ahead for the future. My focus of this impact will be on the educational aspect of technology. We rely way too heavily on technology that it is even translating to that way in the classroom. In high school especially, teachers try to get out of explaining things better to students by telling them to 'look it up online'. Simply looking something up online, sure, could be helpful to some degree, but wouldn't that eventually make teaching in person obsolete? If this is the case, the upcoming generations will be the laziest we've ever seen, leading to obesity, not listening to authority and never needing to leave their bedroom. It is scary to see that our world as we know it could be leading to this. If this problem is ever going to get fixed, we need to go to the source of the problem, and that is the classrooms today. These problems stem from the poor teaching styles and failure of teachers to help students in their time of need. Students, in order to fully understand material, need reinforcement on what they learned in class. However, if they didn't learn it in class it is extremely difficult for them to reinforce this material. This leads to them having to self-learn from reading and watching videos online. This is no way to learn, especially if they are going to spend all day in class anyway, they should be getting something out of going to school. Throughout my personal literacy narrative in high school I have learned many things about not only technological literacy but also about society as a whole. Teachers nowadays rely heavily on technology, telling students to go home and check the homework instead of simply telling them in class. This technology is not only making students lazy, but the teachers as well because they don't want to do their job. I know this from self- experience, as way too many times during high school I found that the teacher was awful at teaching and instead told us to go online to find lectures on the topic. I would have to listen to another teacher online as compared to my teacher in person. I was constantly led to question ‘isn’t that what they get paid for though? To teach us?’. Teaching in this country has to change or technology will take over. Although it is enhancing the learning environment for many, particularly in college, high school students are exposed to an environment where everything is done for them. Looking up answers online isn’t learning and it is why we are so lazy. Why do we need teachers if there are videos of teachers teaching the material better than the ones in class, online for free? And why is college so expensive if many times people can be self-taught? There are many questions that need to be answered about the educational system in todays society and unless changes are made there could be consequences later on. Education is just one example of how smart technology is actually making people dumber. It is leading our society right into the ground and if we don't stop it now, our kids will start off at rock bottom.
On the other hand, during my literacy journey,
technology played a major role in enhancing my learning and ability to excel at
understanding, interpreting and coming up with conclusions based off of other
literacy. Being around computers and smartphones during my journey allowed
for me to be able to learn things I never would have if I wasn’t around them. I
became literate in all of the programs that come with a computer and
applications that come with a smart phone. Especially on an iPhone there are
certain things you have to be able to know what to do like exiting out of the
apps, Siri, notification center, iMessage and everything else that comes with
being an iPhone user. Also knowing how to use certain apps have made me
technologically literate where I now know to use them and how to use the
information given to me to my knowledge. Although technology has made me
literate within its use, it has also made me impatient and even lazy. Because
this technology is immediately responsive where we can get feedback as soon as
we click, when it doesn’t load or something goes wrong we have no patience
anymore to simply wait for the technology to comply. We are even so literate in
technology now that we feel almost no need to use anything else to communicate
with others other than our technology. This makes us extremely lazy because we
feel we can do everything from this technology. We can work, study, read,
watch, and communicate all without ever getting up and actually even needing to
open our mouths. This in itself has made me lazier too. I have noticed that I
sometimes would rather sit at home and watch Netflix by myself than go out and
interact with other people. This notion on its own shows how throughout my
literacy journey I may have gained knowledge, but it in fact has hurt me more
than it has helped me. The more technology this world gains the closer we are
to becoming a society that no longer enjoys the world for what it is. I have
noticed that whenever I bring out my phone to take a picture of nature or of
anything for that matter, it never looks as good as it did in real life. This
journey has opened my eyes to the dangers of technology literacy and how in
fact we should actually be straying away from it. Technology is the way to the
future, but maybe the future is a lazy, disregarding place.
I like how you mentioned both the pros and cons of technology. The specific examples you gave made it easier to understand and relate to your point. I think your wording and syntax has improved compared to your draft. I enjoyed reading this, but just to give you a suggestion to make it even better, I think it would be much easier to read if you break it into paragraphs so that it's not just one huge one.
ReplyDelete-Joanna Park
I agree with you that we replace technology with important socializing skills. I also like that you addressed the issue of some teachers using technology as a scapegoat to teaching. The only advice I have is to try to use alternative words to the word lazy because it seems a little over-used in same parts. Overall, you had great ideas and I enjoyed reading your post.
ReplyDelete-Amy Chasse