Here is the link to my interview with my Mother, I hope you enjoy!
I decided to chose the journal article called “New Medias Transformation of Education” written by Peter Lang. I chose this article because I found that it was easy to make connections between Richard Restak’s article and the way he talked about technology and people who struggle with it. The article written by Lang is about how education and technology can be drastically changing. This article is a great addition to Richard Restak’s opinions on how technology is evolving at a concerning pace. I’m choosing to use this article because I will be able to integrate the ideas of education and how young minds are developing. This addition will allow me to broaden my ideas and have Restak’s arguments flow together with that of Lang’s.
Peter Lang’s discussion on the progression of technology and the transformation that is taking place gives readers a refreshing view on how our younger generations are changing. The introduction of technology and the increasing amount of screen time, may alter the minds of developing children. When this is used in school, it gives children even more of a chance for students to change how they think and process information. In this article, Lang states “using expensive technology is not necessarily a better way of engaging students; it is a different way” (185). While this statement gives a good taste of what the article represents, I know Lang’s ideas will generate an even better paper. Lang then goes on to discuss the stimulation that goes on in a younger adults mind when exposed to technology, “an animated, media-richuser interface may stimulate student in a way that a human voice or hand gesture cannot, but it does not engage a student any more reliably” (185). This argument allows the reader to ponder all of the times they were connected to technology. Lang offers great discussions and gives his reader and in depth look into what the dangers are of technology in the developing minds of people.
This is a credited sources because it’s copyrighted and the author gives credit to other authors and writers that he references through this article. This article by Lang took a while to find but I feel that this is a great article to reference and discuss in my next paper. I am optimistic about this paper because of the rich information that Lang produces in his paper. The new medias do indeed transform our education that seems to be changing every year. The more discussion that occurs about technology in younger minds will inform those who may not see the dangers of using too much technology.
Below is the link to the paper!
http://www.jstor.org.une.idm.oclc.org/stable/42982133?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=modern&searchText=technology&searchText=distraction&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3Ffilter%3D%26amp%3BQuery%3Dmodern%2Btechnology%2Bdistraction&seq=3#page_scan_tab_contents
After getting my peer review back, I realized the changes I would need to make after my peers pointed out the weakest points in my essay. After discussing what I needed to work on I knew exactly what my plan would be. My biggest problems surrounding my paper were the following:
- run on sentences
- getting off topic
- finding a position statement
- a few grammatical/wording errors
- not introducing quotes
- not introducing authors and introducing my ideas more clearly
- After my group and I talked, they gave me some tips on how I should change up my paper. One of my peers said that I need to fixate on who I am talking to in my introduction. I looked back and saw that this was a big problem and I had said “we” way too often, this gave it too much of a generalized feel to my readers. I immediately knew I needed to change that. I also knew that it was a major problem that I had failed to introduce my authors so I knew that it was something that was essential to work on. Throughout my paper, I felt confident in the quotes that I had used to back up my statements but I realized I had failed to introduce them properly, or even explain why I was talking about them!
- I find that when I am writing, I tend to just write whatever comes to mind. Because of this, I often had run on sentences. I plan to fix this by reading more out loud or even having someone proofread my rough drafts just to make sure there were none. I have a problem with getting off topic and jumbling up where I want my main arguments to me. I felt my paper had good arguments but at times I jumped from one idea to another.
- Thankfully my peers helped me get through this process and showed me good ways to alternate my paper so it would read smoother than it had before
While reading through the article by Richard Restak called “Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era” in the book Emerging, it was evident to me that he and Sam Anderson who wrote “In Defense of Distraction” that they had correlating ideas and thoughts. Anderson talked about the drugs that were and are being used to treat people with attention deficit disorders, stating that “… and pump it up to superhuman levels with drugs originally intended to treat Alzheimers and narcolepsy. Restak similarly listed the traits that could be seen when a person is diagnosed for having ADHD or ADD. Both Restak and Anderson touched upon how certain drugs, that are known to be stimulants – are commonly used to help focus. Anderson stated, “it would be like requiring employees to take a few hits of opium throughout the day, then being surprised when it becomes a problem”. Similarly, Restak stated “…with their accelerated movement, aunt the change in dug use at the time from sedating agents like opium to the newly synthesized cocaine…”.
Anderson and Restak had similar standpoints in saying that because of technology, our world is becoming more of a distracting place to be a part of and that we are losing our focus. Both authors also stated that through multitasking, we are not giving our full attention to all but to only one task. Authors Anderson and Restak both had compelling information that supported their arguments that the world as we know it is changing.
My name is Carolyn Gray. I come from a small town in Maine that most people have never heard of and quite frankly, I’m not sure if I would know of it either. The best way to explain to people from where I live, usually ends up in me saying “it’s an hour away from here” or “have you heard of famous fair” to me resulting to “you’ve never heard of it, I live in the middle of the trees in Brownfield and we still have a landline”. I come from this small town but have always had big aspirations to getting outside of these woods and to make something more of myself. Being able to attend my dream college and exposing myself to what my parents may have never had is something I cherish and remind myself to be thankful of every day.
I’m not much of a writer but I do think of myself as being creative. I am a quiet thinker and although I may keep to myself, I am observant of what is around me almost always.
This is a photo of my best friend, my Dad!
This is a photo of my pupper, my best friend too!
My first impressions of the ePortfolio is that of confusion and mystery. I have had a hard time grasping the techniques that could possibly be used within this site but I still remain hopeful. I find many new technological things challenging but with time I am sure that this website could be of use to me in the near future. I believe that this ePortfolio has a variety of customizing tools that will allow a blogger/writer to express their thoughts and personalize their writing and posts. I am deciding to be positive about the use of this website but navigating it will only take time and patience.
The positives to this website have been apparent to me thus far. It is evident that there are certain customizations that were made available so each website is clearly the writers content. I do believe there are things that online writing and blogging can do compared to writing on pen and paper, but personally I like using the basic google documents writing platform. There is am able to be comfortable with the formatting and being able to share with peers and have them comment on my writing. On this format, people are able to look at my posts and pages and make comments but I don’t feel as if it feels the same as what I am used to. In past experiences for classes, I created my own google portfolio page for a place to collect all of my writings. There, after some time I got used to the tools that I needed to select to customize certain pages and menu bars. I found that it was useful to collect all of my work in one place. It’s useful to collect all of the information together so it’s easier to refer back to. There is always a positive into trying new things so I will remain willing to work with ePortfolio
