With the advent of technology, the world developed at a great speed, enabling a more convenient means of communication and interaction among people. Technology has been beneficial to us in various ways, whether that might be for entertainment or for academics. They say nowadays, the speed at which technology is developing is accelerating, and this can be mainly attributed to how fast students nowadays can search for information and use it for their learning. The internet, regarded as one of the influential inventions of the 21st century has precipitated the gathering of information, and thus benefited students.
Firstly, it is the great speed of internet which makes everything so convenient. Not more than a century ago, if one had to write a report about the characteristics of amphibians, he had to go to a library and search for books from the non-fiction section relevant to his topic. Then he had to search inside every book to determine whether the information is helpful. This was very time-consuming and therefore, an inefficient way of learning. On the contrary, nowadays, one can just type his research topic on a search engine, and with few more clicks, he will have the precise information which he requires, ready to be used. The speed which the internet provides us simply tells that given the same amount of time, we would be gathering so much knowledge compared to the past, and therefore, the speed of learning will accelerate.
Secondly, nowadays, there are various types of tutoring through the internet. Students who often live too far away from school, or are not able to attend school due to their own private circumstances, make use of internet classes which consists of videos of teachers teaching a specific topic, such as vector in math. The main benefit about this is that whenever one is not sure of a concept, he can just rewind and watch only the parts which he has problem grasping. When I used this type of learning back in middle school, I found it convenient to learn only the parts that I needed, as I had to go through every single concept that I was already familiar with at school for the sake of other students. This method is time-efficient, thus it benefits the students.
Of course, there are no perfect methods of learning. Each method has its flaws, and for internet, its main defect is that there are too many information out there. Not every single piece of information guarantees true fact. Some distort important views and thus could be harmful to our learning. However, as we are trained to filter unnecessary or misleading information and look for the correctly cited sources, it is not too much of a burden to actually check whether the information is adequate to be used. Still, compared to the past, internet has undoubtedly quickened students to learn more quickly.
To view internet as the only beneficial example of technology is very myopic idea. There is a variety of technology such as digital cameras that for example, helped us to take still images of diverse plants and study further on botany. However, internet is the prominent example of technology which is user-friendly and redefines the term “convenience”. Let’s think of two students – one dressing up to go to the library to find resources for his thesis due tomorrow, and the other turning on his computer to research for his project. The latter will surely know what the “world has come to” with a mind full of content. |