Why The Essay Pass/Fail Fails Itself The essay “Pass/Fail” by Ron Srigley has valid points and claims within the essay, however, the use of hasty generalization, and appeal to emotion heavily undermine the valid claims of the essay. The claim that universities need to stop treating themselves as businesses and start acting like academic organizations, to better both themselves and students. However, the hasty generalization with the topic of technology and the appeal to emotion undermine the essay’s valid points by making the essay more about the way the author is being ‘attacked’.
To begin with, there are valid points made. For starters universities need to stop considering themselves as businesses and stop putting business first, and
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The issue with this essay is the way it handles its negative views. It’s handles in a very black or white situation with only negative views being shown, ”Entertaining, and successful participation requires no real effort and no real accountability. Serial use of YouTube clips, Prezi presentations, films, and “student-centred learning activities” continues to be peddled for pedagogical relevance (Srigley),” depicted in the essay, technology is the big scary monster going after and attacking the teacher and making his students ignore him, and inconveniencing his everyday life, ”That’s when I understood that there were several entertainment options available to students in the modern university classroom, and that lectures rank well below Twitter, Tumblr, or Snapchat (Srigley)” The essay also attacks online courses without showing the positive side to them. Shown in the essay, they are worth nothing and teach nothing, ”online courses are perhaps one of the most complete expressions of the denigration of university education (Srigley),” there is no good side of online classes shown. There is nothing to show how online learning is making learning accessible,”work online with no direct support from a faculty member. Digital lectures for live classes with real students? Sounds expensive. How about no lectures, no students, and, best of all, no professor (Srigley).” Overall, if the essay were to show the second side of technology as a whole, the argument against technology within the essay would be stronger, and appear to be more of an argument based in logic, rather than a person who refuses to come to the reality of the times and just attacks technology for this failure to understand
One idea that I disagree with is the idea that colleges themselves have sold their soul. William Deresiewicz tells us that it is neoliberalism and the way it impacted society pressure students to major in fields that typically provide more money. Such as business or STEM fields. In my opinion, the role of a college is to provide a higher education for those who want to pursue a certain career. Just because students prefer STEM and business fields doesn’t mean that colleges have sold their soul to the market. Many students want to major in STEM and business fields so colleges provide more classes to accommodate them. That doesn’t mean colleges have given up on liberal arts. Colleges still provide liberal arts majors and there are
The Digital Age sparked the booming shift towards the media and entertainment for the past few generations. The current societal paradigm that technology has molded within many first-world, and even some third-world cultures, emphasizes the flourishing bond between the humans and technology. Although the status of the relationship between the public mass and technology has been seemingly ever-changing; it’s clear that the humans are becoming increasingly dependent on technology as it advances. To elaborate, as society advances, technology will follow, and the production of new machinery will eventually replace today’s conventional products. The essay, Are Too Many People Going to College, written by Charles Murray, touches on this subject and notions the possibility of the Internet taking over physical learning-institutions. With the rapid growth of technology, online learning will replace present conventional learning-institutions because of the current state of education,
As the article suggested there is an increase in the requirement of a higher education to maintain a well-paid job although, there is an “avalanche of over-qualification” (177) in the workforce. The author indirectly indicates his audience, as being academics of all ages in the university system. The author evokes emotional stimulation from his audience as he stated, “[t]here’s still a reason to get an education! It’s just not anything to do with education” (177). Further indicating a debate regarding the stance of the education system being a business rather than pleasure organization. Through playful language, the author is able to maintain the audience's interest and persuade them into solely seeing the education system as a system with bearing resemblance to the democratic system. Relying on all three rhetorical appeals, the author truly utilizes his language to convey a distinct tone and voice from his argument. Appealing to his audience, the author uses this article to inform them of a false consciousness many academics seem to have, as it is the tendency to believe and define oneself in support of the very system which oppresses them. The bases of the authors argument are to grasp the view of the majority of the scholars and push them to think the same way he does as a
In her essay “Technology and Literacy: A Story about the Perils of Not Paying Attention,” Cynthia L. Selfe notes that “technology is either boring or frightening to most humanists; many teachers of English composition feel it antithetical to their primary concerns and many believe it should not be allowed to take up valuable scholarly time or the attention that could be best put to use in teaching or the study of literacy” (Self 412). Looking around campus it takes little time to verify Selfe’s caution about indifference to computers: except in its uses as “a simple tool that individual faculty members can use or ignore in their classrooms as they choose” (Self 414), computer use has been, and for the most part still is, nascent within the humanities. As computers increasingly become an irreplaceable part of daily life in modern culture, however, more and more instructors attempt to carry out the task of incorporating technology into the pedagogical techniques of their disciplines. Over the past four months I’ve had the invaluable opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes look at one particular attempt to integrate computers and writing instruction. In Dr. Will Hochman’s English 101-43 (SP 2003) classroom I’ve learned much about both the process and underlying philosophies involved in making computers a productive classroom tool.
Studying a university degree is one of the biggest achievements of many individuals around the world. But, according to Mark Edmunson, a diploma in America does not mean necessarily studying and working hard. Getting a diploma in the United States implies managing with external factors that go in the opposite direction with the real purpose of education. The welcome speech that most of us listen to when we started college, is the initial prank used by the author to state the American education system is not converging in a well-shaped society. Relating events in a sarcastic way is the tone that the author uses to explain many of his arguments. Mark Edmunson uses emotional appeals to deliver an essay to the people that have attended College any time in their life or those who have been involved with the American education system.
To understand why there would be a need for technology in the classroom you must put yourself in the student’s shoes. Let us imagine there is a student in a class full of two hundred plus people. This said student is listening to the prepared lecture for the day and the professor explains a concept. The student does not fully grasp the information so instead of adding to the numerous questions the other two hundred students are asking, she pulls out her laptop. Just a few clicks away is an explanation of the topic. She now understands and is able to continue paying attention to the lecture. If her professor had some sort of switch, similar to the one mentioned in Ellin’s essay, that stopped students from having internet access, she would have to continue the lesson confused. Instead of hindering our education, we should use our most valuable resource and progress. Technology seems to be both a blessing and a curse at times yet, college students should have the freedom to choose which one that should
...; nonetheless, it poses to be a great distraction to students and their peers. Bugeja, in his article, believes that until the ability to use technology is reassessed, issues regarding Internet use will only increase in higher education institutions. The rapid advancement in technology has taken over the classroom in a negative aspect and will continue to do so unless measures are taken to permit internet access for educational purposes only.
As what Paul Thomas says: “Teaching is a human experience. Technology is a distraction when we need literacy, normalcy, and critical thinking."
April Chamberlain once said, “Education is evolving due to the impact of the Internet. We cannot teach our students in the same manner in which we were taught. Change is necessary to engage students not in the curriculum we are responsible for teaching, but in school. Period.” Many people question why so many young adults are so addicted to their phones these days and wonder if the use of technology would even improve educational skills for students. Truth is that technology in this decade is more impressive than ever before. The issue should not surround the fact if it will helps students or not but should be about how well the professor can make sure the students stay engaged with the technologic items and help the students in a unobvious way to use the it in a proper way. Universities should require use of technology in classrooms with trained professors that will capture the students attention in which would lead to success for proper use of the technology.
For this essay, I read an Article called: The Netgeneration: Internet as a classroom and community. After reading the article I came up with some very good points on how the internet has effected the way school are ran compared to the pre-computer and internet age. My conclusions are that the Internet has changed school classroom for the good by making information widely available and useable to even the poorest of schools. The internet has made it possible for teachers to communicate and learn what other teachers are doing in other countries by talking to colleagues in other countries and reading reports and research studies findings before they read the teaching methods books. The Internet also, gives teachers the ability to teach a class online so that their students will be able to stay on task when they are not able to come to class. The online class idea has also made it possible for the average person to get his or her degree with out having to go to a college campus physically.
Technology has had a negative impact on education by causing distractions during class lectures and assignments. The over use of technology is leading to a loss in communication skills and troubles in reading. The use of technology causes many people to have the temptation for cheating in and out of classrooms, resulting in students not wanting to study. Not every student has the capability of connecting to the internet or have contact to technology. This creates difficulties for those students without connection to the internet to complete online assignments or have accesses to their school’s resources. Also, for online courses, students have to wait for an email response in order to get help or to understand a lecture that the professor is
Imagine someone born in the early 1900’s entering a modern-day classroom. They would likely be confused as to what televisions, computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices are. It is also likely that they would be overwhelmed by the instant access to information that the internet provides. Digital media has become a large part of people’s everyday lives especially with the rise of digital media in classrooms. Digital media is growing so rapidly that people who are not adapting to this shift in culture are falling behind and becoming victims of the “digital divide”, this is leaving people misinformed. Digital media has a large effect on the way that people communicate, this is especially evident in the way that students interact with
“Allowing the students to be given so much access to technology in the classroom may distract students from the students main goal potentially resulting in both lowered grades and lowered retention.” (Gonzalez) Gonzalez believes that social media should be used with precaution and limit how much college students should use social media or else it will affect their academic performance. Although many researchers are concerned with the negative effects that social media can have towards college students such time spent on social media or messaging their friends, there are still some researchers that believe that it is a balance between both student and teacher. “Although schools set rules that define appropriate behaviors with social digital networks, it appears that students and teachers frequently negotiate the boundaries and intersections of these tools and discourses through relationship founded on trust and respect.” (Charles) What Charles is trying to say is that there must be a neutral relationship between professor and student. The professor is the individual with authority inside a classroom then by setting the rules on the first day of class students could know if it is okay to use electronic
Teachers are trying to use the device that children use for fun into something to broaden their learning. The use of the internet in the classroom helps with faster learning and also helps in computer education which will be a great use in all of our lives. Grade schools, High schools, and some colleges are using online applications for learning like Moodle and Blackboard, these applications are useful because they allow students to see every agenda of their courses and the interactions between teacher and student. Inviting devices into the classroom is not a change for students because at this age students know almost every aspect of technology. In this situation the teachers become the students, technology doesn 't have to be seen as burden but as a helpful tool. The classroom has transitioned to the internet, "Curriculum and materials are slowly migrating to mobile and online access – ebooks are a great example, at 30-70% savings over printed books. However, until faculty feel comfortable and have the training and tools available to make use of LMS and mobile technology, students are going to be further ahead than educators." (2) Education has transformed from the classroom to the internet for instant access to student from home, but also for students from around the world. The internet is a great way for connecting students with education. Colleges are catching up with the use of technology in education, they are transforming courses into online courses to allow students to get their four-year degree online. "Higher education is catching up, and in a few cases keeping pace – we have more online courses than ever at UNG – but the rate of change is the issue. It often takes years to change a curriculum for a four-year degree, but a new fully-online, highly-regarded MOOC degree program from a
Technology has had a large impact on the field of education. The proliferation of multimedia resources and limitless amounts of information available through the Internet has fundamentally affected the learning process. Students no longer search through cards and stacks for magazine articles; almost everything is at the click of a finger. Multimedia resources are increasingly utilized in the classroom to help instruct students. Some professors are making conscious efforts to use new technology, so as to introduce and familiarize their students with it. The significance of technology in education is now being elevated to a new plateau. Education through the Internet, the great equalizer, may make it more widely distributed through the phenomenon of online courses. It is the thesis of this paper that online courses are not an effective means to educate traditional undergraduate college aged students (people from 18-22 years old).