Reaction: I'm an old-school kind of person. I believe in the boring reading assignments in an English language as unfamiliar and unrecognizable as if it were in Swahili; tests must be given regularly to access the knowledge and understanding of the student and I agree that the dreaded term paper is a good way to make sure the student knows know to find out information he or she doesn't already know.
However; the reading assignments could be translated in today's English, the tests don't have to be all memorization and the basis of our grades, and term papers don't really have to be 10 pages long of things we are just re-wording straight from the webpage the information coming from (and who cares if we get the information from a book, article, or the internet..as long as we get the info right?)
I'm the "in-between" generation. On one hand I have my dad who can barely turn a computer on, on the other there are elementary school kids with cell phones and ipods. Obviously this is a generalization but my point stands..the college-age people are in-between the age of paper and the age of screen.
But there is no disputing that we're entering the Screen Age. They have electronic books and everyone and there brother has a facebook. Just the other day at the dentist I saw a sign asking you to "like" the practice on facebook! Just like the Stone Age, the paper age will soon be replaced and forgotten about.
But, being the in-between age makes this difficult to accept. All my life in school it's always been books, term papers, tests...but now here I am in college required to write a blog! So what does that say to how I should be teaching in a few years? The old and true method that apparently worked well for me...or this new idea of incorporating technology.
Term papers. My parents got all their information from books (what other option did they have?) I get some from books but mostly all my info comes from websites. Will there be a day where, when citing sources, a URL is all that is required? I think there will be...and soon. But does it matter? If someone had a brilliant idea and wrote an article about it..does it matter if I find those words on a page or on a screen? But if we allow this then what else must we compromise? Textbooks for e-readers...white boards for smart boards...paper assignments for blogs?
As you can see I'm having a bit of a difficult time deciding how I feel about this article and this issue in general, as I imagine others in the "in-between" generation are. I agree that education needs to move into the Screen Age since that's the direction the world is heading...but I just can't quite let go of the Paper Age that I've come to know and love.
Reference:
Heffernan, Virginia. "Education Needs a Digital-Age Upgrade - NYTimes.com." Opinion - Opinionator - NYTimes.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Aug. 2011. <http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/education-needs-a-digital-age-upgrade/?hp>.
Reference:
Woodward, Tom. "Education Today and Tomorrow - YouTube ." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. . N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Aug. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnh9q_cQcUE>.
