In Chapter 10 of Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman discusses how television is not a fitting medium for education. He believes that it cannot convey the seriousness of learning because it either lacks complex thinking or turns it into entertainment.
While television still has a strong influence in our lives, I believe that the internet has grown beyond it in the 21st century. With the presence of it reaching all forms of discourse, it was bound to reach education. The question is whether the internet has yielded benefits for learning. The internet has vast, almost infinitely amounts of information stored we so easily use, but it also has many distractions. According to Carr, these distractions are diverting our focus and our brains have adapted to it as so. Also, it seems that it's only a matter of time until computers are used in the classrooms. I would have never thought that blogging would become homework. I believe that learning should be assisted by the internet, but I don't think learning should be from the internet. My point being said, what is your opinion on educational web surfing and making computers a part of school? Is there a difference? Will it yield evolved learning or will it be another distraction from meaningful education?
I believe that the internet is significantly helpful when it comes to educational web surfing. It provides me all the information I need to complete a research paper, essays, and other homework assignments. Using computers in school would be a very convenient change; however, I do not encourage it.
ReplyDeleteI do not encourage it because the internet has many distractions that will divert ones focus. In addition, learning from a computer will be no where the same as learning from a book. Students will begin to put less effort into work and take learning less seriously since they have the internet: a quick and convenient answer key. Students will be able to skim important documents more easily on the internet instead of taking the time to read it like one would do with a book. So overall, I believe that this electronic education will be a distraction from meaningful learning.
Like you said, the internet has a vast amount of information. I agree with you that learning should be assisted by the internet, but not become it. I think that the internet can evolve learning if you use it for educational purposes. We use the internet to gather research for practically every subject we learn in school, but the internet can also be very distracting. I admit, that every time I check this blog I tend to get distracted by Facebook and other social networking sites. This is because on our own home computers we have access to these sites, so we use them. At school, internet sites like these are blocked, and without access to these sites we are able to concentrate more on the educational purpose of the internet. I think it is a good idea to keep computers at school because the internet carries many facts we may need to know.
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