Unit 2 Portfolio

The Impact of Technology on Students' Learning in College

    Technology is an extensive and rapidly growing branch of knowledge constantly producing digital discoveries. It has impacted all facets of the world, but a community that we are all apart of that it has impacted is education and specifically the college community. Technology has largely impacted students and the way they learn in college due to the tools constantly being created and therefore the opportunites, yet also the distractions and misinformation constantly circulating too. It is important to be aware of both the positive and negative aspects of technology and how they affect students' learning in college, and to use this knowledge to be self-aware and make sure we are staying self-sufficient students and members of society. A large motivation for technological discoveries is the conveniences that it allows us in everyday life, therefore improving our quality of life. It can also make us capable of more and expose us to things we wouldn't have known about otherwise. This allows us to find realms of the world that we are passionate about and can make an impact on in our lives. Specifically relating to learning in college, it also gives us the opportunity to utilize tools used in professions we may be interested in for post-graduate and adult life. Technology allows us to research any and all topics that we have curiousity about or passion for, and we can be involved in those subjects without being necessarily present. We must be grateful and aware of these minor and major conveniences that technology has given us because modern life would be vastly different without it. On the flip side, technology has done a lot of damage to society and the general health of people in several ways. While technology has given us a digital space to communicate with each other, this can also be isolating and limit the drive for human interaction, which is essential for a true quality life. This can also negatively impact peoples' physical health by promoting stagnant lifestyles through isolated work and communication. When we come to this realization individually, we have to find the balance for ourselves between convenience and physical and mental well-being. This is especially important in school because part of college is academic learning but it is also a large maturation point in human life. The period of life from roughly 18-22 years old, there are several liberties that we are granted yet challenging roles we take on. While everyone goes or will go through this phase of life at a different point in technological advancements, that need for balance stays consistent. 

    I think that it is firstly most important to address that the covid-19 pandemic was a great representation of why digital learning is so useful. Without technology, we would not have been able to continue learning from individual isolation. Technology allowed us to create digital classrooms, harness essential 21st-century technological skills, and even social media acted as a space to commiserate yet stay united. Moving forward, hopefully, teachers have learned that digital learning is an excellent tool for education and not just a form of crisis management. An article by American University's School of Education online program discusses how technology is important in education, and they highlight immediately that, "Many of today’s high-demand jobs were created in the last decade, according to the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). As advances in technology drive globalization and digital transformation, teachers can help students acquire the necessary skills to succeed in the careers of the future" (AU School of Edu.). Teachers can also use technology as a tool to facilitate collaboration and foster inclusive learning environments. An aspect of the covid-19 pandemic that as a society we have built upon is inclusivity; by continuing remote learning for students, a new pool of individuals has been granted opportunities to learn. An underrepresented population of students is those with mental, physical, or financial struggles that prevent them from traditional school. Digital learning is a tool that used properly by students and educators can expand and renovate the realm of education to support every student, their accomodations and future aspirations. 

    The previous article mentioned that during the covid-19 pandemic, social media acted as a space for people to come together and find common ground or pursue relationships even from isolation. This is true, and a TedTalk by Michael Wesch discusses how social media, "is what allows us to connect with one another, and connect with each other in different ways depending on the medium" (4:43, Wesch). Without technology we wouldn't be able to communicate with each other in any location on our planet instantly like we can now. However, in this same TedTalk, he explains way that social media has a negative effect on in-person learning. He explains that he is a professor at Kansas State University, and one day in class they did a survey about it, and a common response was something along the lines of, "I facebook through every class", or "I bring my laptop to class, but I'm not working on school" (2:38). These quotes represent the distraction that social media can cause to students. A computer or iPad or some digital device is basically imperative to college today, but on the same device that school requires, there is the ability to search the internet or access social media platforms at all times. In this case, it is up to the students' self-dicipline whether they focus in class or scroll on their device. This is extremely harmful to learning because as young adults, especially since traditional lectures in college are at least 50 minutes long, but most students' attention spans are only 10-15 minutes long. An article published to the American Physiological Society discussed this exact topic and recounted, "[The established lecture format] is criticized as being too long to hold a student’s attention based on several authors’ claims that a student’s attention span declines precipitously after 10–15 min. Such observations would support the TED approach of an 18-min limitation. If, as is contended, a student can mentally focus only in 15-min increments, it would seem not only unreasonable but also grossly inefficient to subject students to a 50-min lecture. Thus many authors would make the case that a lecture session should last no more than 10–15 min to accommodate the biological set point of a student’s attention span" (Bradbury). This quote further supports what was previously stated, that the combination of lectures significantly longer than a human's attention span in conjunction with the temptation of distraction, it is almost unreasonable to expect students to focus for the entirety of a lecture without a break to regain focus and satisfy the "need" to check social media. It is still true that social media is a great space for collaboration and communication, but it is important to be wary of its downfalls and how attached we as a society have become to it. 

   There is a fine yet blurry line between utilizing the tools that technology has given us and still being self-sufficient individuals or abusing that technology and relying on it too heavily. College is a pivotal moment in young adults' lives. We figure out what career we potentially want to pursue and take classes to prepare us. We also gain imperative life skills throughout the process. Technology in many ways acts as an asset to this phase of life and what we hope to get out of it. Probably very obvious but, computers, iPads, projectors, and digital textbooks are all normal in our lives, but take a moment to think about learning without all of them; school would be very different. We must be grateful for digital discoveries and the convenience it has given us, but just like how social media can be a distraction, there are tools that technology has given us that can be easily abused. AI technology is a great example of a recent technological discovery that if used improperly, can be detrimental to students' learning. AI technology is not limited to writing, but for the purpose of this topic, that is what will be discussed.  AI writing assistance is a very recent discovery in technology. It stands for artificial intelligence writing assistance, and for many platforms, it is simply described as a technology that helps users in the writing process with grammar, research, tone-checking, and localization. Grammarly is a popular writing assistance platform, and it is even something that I use in writing assignments like this or when writing emails to professors. However, an article by the New Yorker discusses how AI technology now has the knowledge to write entire essays including quotations and citations when given a simple prompt. The author writes about the newest project released by OpenAI, which is called, "GPT-3—the abbreviation stands for “Generative Pre-Trained Transformer,” —a pattern-recognition artificial intelligence that “learns” from huge caches of Internet text to generate believable responses to queries. The interface is refreshingly simple: you write questions and statements to ChatGPT, and it spits back remarkably coherent, if occasionally hilariously wrong, answers" (Kang). Like he says, the answers are not necessarily always "correct", but they are logical and at the same writing level as most average writers in America. He also addresses how the platform has recently gone viral on social media platforms and has caused people to catastrophize about what it means for the future. Based on this article, and how he explains that ChatGPT will only become more skilled, and could possibly take his job as a journalist one day, it is important to be aware of the power of digital writing assistance and not to abuse their power. Technology is an amazing tool when wondering how to sound more eloquent or string phrases together seamlessly, but we cannot neglect the knowledge we've obtained over the years by allowing technology to do everything for us. 

    We can see that technology has done so much for us, from enhancing our learning environments to continuing education through a global epidemic, we are so fortunate for the convenience it has caused in our lives. Nonetheless, we can also see that without discipline, technology can be detrimental to education and creating generations of self-supporting inidviduals. Why is this topic of technology affecting school important to us? As college students or professors, it is important to be self-aware of how we use technology and whether we utilize it as a tool for our learning or if it is hindering our abilities. It is important to be aware of what technology has done for us, including the ability to communicate cross-culturally instantantly and continually advancing research and learning tools, but it is also important to admit that aspects of technology like social media and AI if used improperly, can negatively affect our pursuit of knowledge. It is true, whether we realize it or not, that increased time is our main goal in life as a society. Technology is constantly improving to improve our quality of life, and create convenience in our daily lives, which therefore increase our longevity and allow us to be more productive to utilize time. This is incredibly important, so it is important to note that the negative side effects of technology do not negate these positive drivers of discovery. Though, like previously mentioned, there are side effects of technology, like anything else, that are important to be aware of. As long as we, as individuals are aware of our consumption of media, and our dependence on technology, we as a society will only reap the intended benefits. It is imperative for the future of our society and world to keep ourselves incheck purely to leave the world a better place than we found it. While that may sound like a daunting task, it starts with simple steps, limit our consumption of media, stay active physically and mentally, and be self-aware; as long as we can do those things, technology will only be an addition to our lives and future generations'.  

Works Cited 

Bradbury, Neil A. “Attention Span during Lectures: 8 Seconds, 10 Minutes, or More?” American Physiological Society, https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/advan.00109.2016.

Kang, Jay Caspian. “Could an A.I. Chatbot Rewrite My Novel?” The New Yorker, 9 Dec. 2022, https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/could-an-ai-chatbot-rewrite-my-novel.

School of Education, American University. “How Important Is Technology in Education? Benefits, Challenges, and Impact on Students.” School of Education Online, American University , 28 Oct. 2022, https://soeonline.american.edu/blog/technology-in-education/#:~:text=students%20and%20teachers.-,Increased%20Collaboration%20and%20Communication,work%20together%20to%20solve%20problems.

Wesch, Michael. “TEDxKC - Michael Wesch - from Knowledgeable to Knowledge-Able.” YouTube,                 YouTube, 12 Oct. 2010, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeaAHv4UTI8.