Internet & Education: Bane or Boon? | SocialExcerpts

Internet & Education: Bane or Boon? Jan 02

You should not be surprised if you catch a university student accessing the web and social networking sites during his class. Facebook and other sites are generally blamed when such incidents take place. But a recent study done by Harvard Crimson,a  student newspaper, might compel you to think in a different way.

According to the article published on Harvard Crimson, the time a student spends online during university classes, is directly associated with the quality of the professor. While interviewing university students, the research received quite a few interesting details.

Let’s find out what inputs the study provides to us:

• The professor says exactly the same things, which appear on the web.
• The professors give confusing instructions, which make the student look for additional information.
• The professor starts off on a haphazard tangent, which is either irrelevant or boring.
• Students always need a break from lectures and classes.

Regarding the study, some opine that it’s impossible for professors to compete with Facebook in the race of attention, no matter how engaging the professor is. However, there are people, who think that students waste their valuable time by spending it on Facebook. Some educationists reason that now students have really very poor attention span (thanks to web). And for this reason, the moment a professor starts giving lectures with a conventional way (reading through a notebook, or going through the PPT slides), he loses his students’ attention. Students know that they can access Google anytime and anywhere.

So, is the internet disturbing education? Or is the adaptation of new learning technology for good?

What is your take?

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