Clive Thomsen summary

The article by Clive Thomsen addresses the argument of whether or not literacy in students today is being affected by the way that they are writting in their free time. A university professor, John Sutherland, states that powerpoints and video have tasken the place of well thought out essaysand texting as "bleak sad shorthand". I can see how their may be some who think that about these new methods of communication but because they are different, and yes argueably simpler and need less thought, does not mean that they have no meaning. Andrea Lunsford, a professor at Stanford, says that on the contrary all these forms of writting are imporving our literacy. She claims that with the help of the internet our writting is being pushed into a revolution. The amount of writting that young people do nowadays is so much greater than what previous generations did is astonishing. I myself write at least a few emails a weeks as well as conversstions on facebook and message to friends. If the current generation does all that writting in addition to what is already required in school then I would say that students have a huge literacy advantage because of the quantity of writting done. Writting is still writting and i think those professors could not argue that, even though it may be personal writting where spelling or grammer is not neccessarily an issue, the thought put into the writting must come from somewhere. If we use our minds and communicate our ideas through any form of writting i believe it to be more beneficial than if none was done at all.

Video response

The video 'A Vision of Students Today' addresses whether or not the methods of teaching used still have validity. In the video students point out many truths about what goes on in the college level classrooms of today and how the majority of practices may now be arbitrary. Because of the continuing increase of technology students now have the ability to communicate on a level much, much greater than past generations using the internet. This new tool has not yet been applied to education as far as anything that would make a significant difference in how things operate. Students have to pay money for tuition and books which coincide with a class that may not have any benefit to them. Why are we communicating our increasingly complex learning through old fashioned methods such as books, classrooms, and chalkboards? Granted these definetly work; a classroom environment can be a good place to learn. Even though they work it does not mean that they cannot be altered, and it would make sense that if that alteration has benefits then we would only be hurting ourselves if we didn't impliment it. The technological revolution has began and I guess the education system is just a little slow to catch on. Unfortunatley for the students that when, which could be soon, technology is applied to it's fullest potential, then what they have learned will mean close to nothing in terms of what our world demands.