Is Technology Helping or Hurting the Minds of America's Youth?

People have discussed for ages the benefits of using longhand versus laptops in a classroom. Pam A. Mueller and Daniel M. Oppenheimer have done studies to try to the answer the question of, what is better? In The Pen is Mightier Than The Keyboard Mueller and Oppenheimer conduct three different studies that all conclude that in conceptual tests, people who have taken notes longhand have done significantly better than people who have taken notes on their laptops.

The question has always been, what is the more efficient way to take notes in order for students to do the best they can on a test? Longhand or on laptops? The real question is, how is technology affecting the students’ education? Is it helping or hurting the minds of our nation’s youth.

Some high school teachers feel as if technology is ruining the education system and the creativity of the students. Valerie Strauss, a writer for The Washington Post, shared a resignation letter that a tenured teacher, Gerald Conti, wrote to the superintendent of Westhill High school in Syracuse, NY. Conti had been teaching at Weshtill for over twenty years before he decided to resign. He felt that the education system was relying way too much on technology and that the Board of Education for Westhill has “distrust, dictating that teachers cannot be permitted to develop and administer their own quizzes and tests (now titled as generic “assessments”) or grade their own students’ examinations. “ Not only does Conti feel mistrusted to do his job he also feels like the creativity of the students is being limited by online classes and work. “This approach not only strangles creativity, it smothers the development of critical thinking in our students and assumes a one-size-fits-all mentality more appropriate to the assembly line than to the classroom. “

If Mueller and Oppenheimer’s results show that students perform significantly worse while using computers to take notes and Gerald Conti says that computers “smother critical thinking,” is it possibly that using a laptop in educational settings may not be as beneficial as educations had originally thought that it would be? There ideas together seem to answer the initial question of is technology helping or hurting the minds of our nation’s youth. Students don’t seem to perform as well with the media aspects in school probably because they are testing it on a generation that grew up learning off a blackboard or a dry erase board instead of a computer.  Online classes aren’t as common in high school but they are starting to take tests and do more things online that weren’t done before. Even though the results don’t seem to be where researchers want them, is it necessary for teachers to start using more computers based classes in high school to prepare their students for online college courses?

Many college courses are available online. Students take them because they generally seem easier to pass but are they learning from them or just receiving an A in the class? Bernard Schweizer is a tenured professor at Duke University. He enrolled in a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). In Confessions of an Unreconstructed MOOC(h)her he describes how the class works. He states that 60,000 kids can take this course and that they readings and video lectures are optional for the students. That shows that it isn’t all about learning, its all about how well you can do an assignment with putting in as little work as possible.  The class is graded by peer reviews, which doesn’t give the student the satisfaction of hearing back from a teacher why they did or didn’t pass an assignment. Online classes like MOOC make the possibility of cheating or plagiarism jump as well since students can work next to each other on their computers to complete assignments and test.

Mueller and Oppenheimer’s proved that laptop use to take notes isn’t incredibly affective so if that is put with Schweizer’s perspective of an online MOOC class with unlimited participation based on peer reviews, how is that an affective learning environment for college students? Student-teacher interaction is a big deal for many students whether they realize it or not; it makes the learning process more engaging and sitting through a class versus taking a class online could help improve test scores since people aren’t skipping around just to find answers to questions.

Without a doubt, the technology that has been brought into the classrooms with computers is absolutely mind-blowing but the question still stands, is technology helping or hurting the youth of our nation?

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