Technology can come in handy in my career because I hope to become a college teacher and coach. I can create a page (possibly facebook) for class discussions online or questions or new information. It could be used in addition to email because many students now check their facebook more than their school email addresses. I have known a few people who have had this type of communication from their instructors and they said they liked it. It can also be used for the students to ask each other questions for any assignment or aspect of the class, especially for group projects. This would work really well if the class was being taught online and everyone wanted to get to know their class mates a little better. They can visit their classmates on facebook and add them if they want. I could also someday use Flickr or Youtube because as a coach pictures can be used to demonstrate certain techniques. The students might want to look at the pictures or videos to use the techniques when they are not at school.
Podcasting is being used more in the educational system and I think there are pros and cons to this. Podcasting is good just like some of the readings said because students can re listen to lectures or watch the videos online or from their smart phones. The cons of this is the attendance of students because they will rely on the podcasts. Just like the readings said, students will not go to class knowing the lectures will be online but the professors can have an attendance policy to counteract this problem. I have had teachers in my undergrad studies that would post lecture slides online but they would leave out important information so the students had to go to class and fill the slides in. This prevented students from skipping class and engaged their learning and gave them the opportunity to use the slides again later. On the flip side, teachers who posted their slides completed had worse attendance from what I noticed. A good attendance policy however could potentially fix this problem and make podcasts and videos very useful
My thoughts about being "always on" are a mix of positive and negative but leaning more towards the negative. Their study had 55% of people seeing the "always on" being more positive while 42% saw it as negative. I am in the middle because I think the AO generation will be quick thinkers and able to research quickly and efficiently. They will also be able to multitask more. On the downside, as the article states, they will not retain information and be distracted easily. They will lack face to face interaction and social skills, something I feel like is already becoming a problem. If they are unable to find something they need on the internet, they will not be able to solve the problem.
This will effect education because as mentioned above, if somehow the internet goes down, the AO generation will become useless since it has relied heavily on the internet. They will be able to learn quicker than previous generations because they have the internet but they will rely too heavily on it. They will also possibly be able to learn more than previous generations but I do not think much will be retained due to the instant access of being able to look up the information they might have forgotten. I had an idea that many college students spend a lot of time online every week but the study showed how many hours students actually spend online. I was surprised to see that 33% spent up to 8 hours a week online and 37% spent over 9 hours a week! That is an astounding number if you think it means about 1-2 hours a day online. It has almost become a drug for some students, constantly having to be online to entertain themselves.
I also noticed 65% of students reported they use social media to build/support interpersonal relationships. I can admit that I regularly use facebook to keep in touch with friends and what is going on in their lives. 60% of respondents answered that facebook can help enhance their learning process and make classes "more interesting." I agree with this, especially with an online class setting. It is similar to a sit in class learning outside on the grass on a sunny day. It gives the students a different setting to learn in and can make learning interesting rather than the same setting every day. The same goes in the coaching world and keeping ideas new and fresh to keep athletes interested and motivated. I also think that around half the students would rather post on facebook discussions rather than blackboard discussions possibly because they are usually more familiar with facebook in today's society. Facebook is easy to navigate about and could be easier than some discussion boards. |