Narrative Argument About Education
Reading the web is not the same as reading in the book or magazine or even newspaper. The information that you read from the internet may not stick with you as long as it would if you were to read a book, newspaper, magazine, or journal. This can’t be a hundred percent accurate for everyone, but according to most people that I have questioned, the information that they read from the web/internet doesn’t stick with them as long as it does when they read an actual book, newspaper, or magazine.
Personal computers can be empowering tools in a way of learning about technology, but in my opinion they do no good for learning when it comes to critical thinking skills and gaining accurate information for yourself. Most of the web pages that are out there are not even filled with accurate information. If there is no context on the web for the research you are looking up, then neither is there any history for it.
Nothing online has been indexed before 1980, so therefore; the information is not completely accurate and gainful knowledge.
According to Judith Levine, most of the data her students net are like trash fish, and by that I feel like she means that the information that they get is worthless and will not help them in any way. I would have to say that I can agree with her statement because as a web surfer myself I don’t see how it helps me. Yes, it does give me certain education in the information that I am surfing about, but it does and will not help me as much as it would if I were to read a book about that very same subject.
I can gain more knowledge and keep it memorized with a book much easier than I can surfing the web.
Judith talks about her students not being able to concentrate when she asks them to organize their impressions into coherent stories, and I find that to be due to the lack of critical thinking skills from not reading books anymore and using this computer technology for all of their research and surfing articles. I feel like students don’t get the full education of the subject that they need when they shortcut it by using the web for their papers. I agree with Judith’s statement about the diagnosis of an epidemic attention deficit disorder. It can be caused by the casual clicking and pointing that has come to stand in for intellectual inquiry.
Technology may empower, but when will the power of it be used? Students don’t read anymore and so their critical thinking skills are not as great as they could be if they would just read instead. They should be reading books like literature, history, poetry, and politics so they can be listening to people who know what they are talking about. Otherwise, the information they get will be of no use to them. “The search engines that retrieve more than 100,000 links or none at all, they will be awkward at discerning meaning, or discerning at all” (Paragraph 14).
After reading the story of Judith Levine’s argument about using the web for research papers versus reading books, I can feel like I totally agree with her on every aspect. “Because reading makes you use your brain. While reading you would be forced to reason out many things which are unfamiliar to you. Reading improves your vocabulary: Remember in elementary school when you learned how to infer the meaning of one word by reading the context of the other words in the sentence? You get the same benefit from book reading. While reading books, especially challenging ones, you will find yourself exposed to many new words you wouldn’t be otherwise.”
“Reading also improves concentration and focus. It requires you to focus on what you are reading for long periods. Unlike magazines, internet posts or e-mails that might contain small chunks of information, books tell the whole story. Since you must concentrate in order to read, like a muscle, you will get better at concentration” Just like Judith talked about in her argument, she feels like the etiology of attention deficit disorder is due to the fact that students these days are not reading books anymore, but are only surfing the web which doesn’t help the brain to focus and concentrate.
When students surf the web for answers there is no way of them being able to know if any particular fact is accurate or not. But when they read books it gives them better information that is sure to be accurate. So, when Judith Levine argues the point that she feels reading books, magazines, newspapers and etc. “are better that surfing the web, I would have to agree with her because it help us in our comprehension, practices our fluency, and many others. But nowadays, because reading books is boring and you have to read for almost a week or month, students today are so lazy to that and they always have the speech of, it’s a waste of time”
“Using Computer is widely practice today’s generation. It is almost needed in the society. You can also be called an illiterate when you don’t know how to use it, because even a 7 years old kid can use the computer. Computers are easy to use, reliable, fast, and consume a short period of time” I believe that is why in the beginning of Judith’s argument she quoted Bill Gates statement after he bestowed a $200 million gift to America’s public libraries so they could hook up to the internet and I understand why he would feel the way he does about computers because of how popular they are in today’s society, but in my opinion I feel that they are not as empowering as people seem to think that they are. They will not give you the education and critical thinking skills that you need like books will do for you. So, therefore; I would have to agree with her argument towards Bill Gates decision and statement.
