Enterprise Rough Draft

“Ladies and gentlemen. I present to you the class of 2011, next year’s college freshmen class. Congratulations on your graduation and best of luck next year!” Every spring, from May to June, some derivative of this congratulatory statement is spoken at commencement ceremonies around the country. Weighing down the minds of the graduates may be everything from “please don’t let me trip walking up the aisle” to “I need to start packing for moving into the dorms.” almost certainly the last things on their minds is the very real fact that in a matter of months, they will be faced with paper-writing, research, group projects, and tests, just as they were in high school. No worries, though. With the World Wide Web at their lightening-quick fingers, one may think this would be no problem for today’s youth. Yet the statistics signal something alarming. “Fifty percent of [ARCC] students are before college-level reading, 40% are before college-level writing, and 80% of students are below college-level math,” says Patty Wheeler-Andrews, who teaches a developmental reading and writing course at ARCC. Today’s college freshmen know how to text without looking, Google any topic conceivable, download pictures, incorporate fancy fonts, and are able to quote verbatim the most recent Youtube fad video. But can they spell correctly? Discern the important information in an article? Summarize? Today’s younger generation may be at both an advantage and have been done a great disservice thanks to modern technology. 

Granted the statistics can be due to other factors other than technology, but there is no doubt that the “distractions” from reading or true studying abound in today’s society: t.v. time per day, cell phones, video games, Wikipedia. Do we even need to mention the f-word? Rhymes with lacehook. “A lot of my students have never read a book,” Wheeler-Andrews notes. When asked about how technology has affected the reading levels of college students throughout these last couple of years, Wheeler-Andrews admits that, theoretically, technology should improve reading, given the wealth of information that readily exists to today’s students, the significant state standards that regularly test reading and writing and math. But what happens, she asks, when a person reads a chapter or paragraph and can’t remember what they’ve read? Has it actually been sustained thought? Thanks to Wikipedia and other bullet-pointed information sites, there have been effects on the attention span and retention ability of the young person’s mind. “There is research on the neurological effects of print versus screen, but there are no real findings yet because on generation hans’t yet been through” to accurately measure, she goes on. 

Perhaps the research will exist by the time the generation that is utilizing the iFrogz Tadpole comes of age. iFrogz is a third-party manufacturer of iPod accessories. The Tadpole is a portable iPod cover for infants to kindergarteners; two large side handles make these bright purple or green rubberized covers easy to grip. Accompanied by large headphones, the Tadpole allows for endless toddler entertainment anywhere and anytime parents need some quiet from their little ones, not to mention early immersion in Apple products.

Clearly, technology has an entertainment value; however, as Heidi Haageson, the coordinator for ARCC’s Academic Support Center points out, “we need to think of ‘technology’ beyond computers and cell phones. Think of fuel-efficient vehicles, medical and surgical technology...” Her list of assisting technology goes on, and that technology has saved lives, which is “hard to argue with.” 

In the academic world, Haageson continues, the benefits of technology far outweigh the hinderances to learning. The common argument for technology’s negative effect on students is the internet and simply its vastness, the amount of information available to studentdom around the globe. Regardless of quality (cough, Wikipedia, cough), the information exists for students to use at their whim. It’s true that it is becoming rarer and rarer for students to go to the library or to an encyclopedia to look something up for a research paper or assignment, Haagenson admits, but “the important issue now...is to help students develop the critical thinking and analytical skills required to evaluate the information they find on the Internet. Is it reliable? Is it accurate? Is it timely? Which is the best source? How can we build on this information?” This sentiment is seconded by Deborah Shepherd, an anthropology professor at ARCC, who defines some of the basics of education today as being able to “think critically, judge sources of information, acquire sufficient information, and [to] know how to find the facts.” 

It must be said, though, that technology doesn’t exist soley for fact-finding and research; the success of the recent film, The Social Network, about the creation and early days of Facebook, the world’s largest social networking site, is evidence of that. Haageson defends the benefits of more socially-driven technology, such as social networking and video gaming. With all technologies, she says, “it’s a matter of balance.” Facebook and like sites “not only connect the student socially” with those they may not otherwise communicate with. Video games, too, could potentially fall into the life-saving technology category. Studies have been conducted on the impact of video games on training military surgeons. Participants who played 3 or more hours per week of video games in the past or currently played performed 32-27% fewer errors in laparoscopic surgery. 

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