Growing Up Online

I read several of my classmates blogs including Emmanuel (http://emmanuelsciblog.blogspot.com/), Dustin (http://unoriginaloriginality-uiuc.blogspot.com/), and Kate (http://krutten2.wordpress.com/) and it seems like they have different ideas.

They all believe that technology is important in the classroom, but that it also presents problems. These problems are not limited to the educational environment either. Both Kate and Dustin touch on the issue involving Spark Notes and the laziness of students today, stating that students must do what they are asked to do. They should read the materials rather than rely on information that others provide them. In this way, the students can form their own opinions and the like. I agree with both of them. Spark Notes really does ruin literature. We may not always know what an author means, so for someone to interpret an author's words FOR you, takes some of the joy out of reading. Sure not everything a student reads will be easy to understand, but that does not mean that the teacher will not help the student out. The problem I have with the internet (as Dustin also mentions) is the fact that it allows people to take shortcuts. Not only are we not reading novels for school, but we write differently. We are not using formal language. Schools need to find a way to get students interested in reading, no matter what.

As far as safety on the internet, Kate and Emmanuel had two different ideas. Kate believes that kids, for the most part, know how to keep themselves safe, whereas Emmanuel recognizes the job of society to somehow prevent harm that the internet can cause. In my opinion, many kids do recognize where danger is, but there are still those who see the internet as a way to reinvent themselves and so they may do riskier things. As the age of internet users goes down over the years, we may have newer problems to confront due to the mentality of the younger kids. I do think the internet is dangerous, but it will be impossible to control children and there is really no clear solution to the problem.