The Making of an Intellectually Handicapped Society

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Recommended: Effects of technology to education

Tomorrow’s future is in the hands of today’s students. As a society, we have blindly allowed computers into our educational system in hopes of making learning fun. When in reality, learning takes hard work, discipline, and responsibility; by incorporating these do-it-all machines into our school system, we are hindering our students and our future. Hence, the making of an intellectually handicapped society. Computers are negatively impacting our students in countless ways; the internet has conveniently made plagiarism a part of many students academic lives, they have opened numerous new windows for distractions from homework, and are diminishing students social skills.

In David Gelernter’s essay, Computers Cannot Teach Children Basic Skills, he argues that computers are unnecessary in the classroom for children in grades k-12. Gelernter argues that computers should not be used as an educational tool because of ineffective software; they are being overused, and are replacing real teaching. He believes computers are both aiding and hindering our educational system; with supervised computer use and better programs our students will reap the benefits without becoming dependent on the technology. This widespread computer problem is affecting our young students who are our future leaders.

Computers internet capabilities have allowed students to easily locate, copy, and paste answers into their homework documents. Although some students do not see the wrong in this behavior, the fact of the matter is, they are not doing the work for themselves and limiting their learning and creative thinking. Internet search engines like Wiki Answers, allows students easy access to countless answers to homework problems, no work involved, all th...

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...nal copy the day before the project was due. Although, her team successfully finished the project, they did not learn how to work together instead, they learned how to collaborate with a machine. As a result, each member learned their share of the information for the project. However, none of them came away with a full understanding of the assignment, due to the individualized “group work”. Our students are not acquiring the necessary team working skills because of the use of computers in our schools.

In a couple years, computers will be the educators and our future will be in the hands of a machine. The students of today are being molded by our educational system and computers; computers are allowing plagiarism to be the norm in homework assignments, are distracting our students from doing their work, and are hindering the chances of future social able adults.

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