The New Literacy / Visions of Students Today

Many peope assume that technology is taking over the way our generation is communicating. In classrooms, student's are using their laptops for facebooking, emails, and other social networks instead of using them for school related work. Students are paying more attention, it seems, to texting their friends in class rather than paying attention to what they are supposed to be learning from their professor. Students claim that school work and what they are learning in class does not pertain to their everyday lives outside of the classroom, so why even bother with it? Their outside lives mainly consist of the new technology, such as computers, the internet, social networks, and cell phones, not lectures or textbooks.
Clive Thompson on the New Literacy written by Clive Thompson, talks about how our generation actually writes more often than past generationsdue to the new technology. First, Thompson shows the point of view of a professor that is against the new technology. Then he shows evidence from another professor that says the new technology is actually improving our writing skills, and taking it to new, undiscovered directions. We use the internet, emailing, cell phones, and texting as a major form of communication. It has somewhat made the world seem like a smaller place because it is easier to contact others. Using this form of communication makes people feel they can connect to others better and express themselves the way they want and share what they want to share quickly and easily.
In the video, Visions of Students Today by KSU professor Micheal Wecsh, scenes were shown of students holding up some interesting statistics about how students really spend their time in and out of class. Students aren't using technology for class as much as they are using it for facebook or myspace. Students buy books and laptops for school use that are expensive and don't even use them, when others around the world don't have enough money for an education at all. Being a student is expensive and a large portion of students take their education and opportunitey for granted. The bottom line is that technology has surrounded us and we need to figure out a way to separate it from our school work, or find a better way to intertwine the two.
As a student myself, I have heard many different opinions on the subject of technology and the dampering of our learning and writing ablities. I am someone who texts and is on the internet most of the day, however, through my experiences and observations I believe that texting is a great way to communicate but is hindering peoples ability to connect and socially interact face to face. Students should leave texting for outside of the classroom and manage their time between classwork and socializing. Teachers allow you to use laptops in the classroom, therefor technology is being used in the classroom already. Technology is a clear example of the growth of human kind, however there still needs to be that line drawn between the world of communicating through technology and the use of technology for educational benefits.