digital blog post #d

     While reading chapter 5 there were a few concepts that I found very interesting. The first concept was about students usage of e-readers and online e-books. Students usage of these types of reading materials has increased over the years which seems to simply correlate with the growing popularity of the devices, increasing variety and availability of e-books, and the ease of access to obtain both the devices and online books thru programs like kindle and e-reader. It does not surprise me that the popularity has been passed from adults to students with these items. They are light weight, rechargeable, and contain access to hundreds of books in varying genres in one place instead of having to carry around or buy multiple physical books. But with the growing use of these items the less that seems to be going into actual print. This does not seem to help keep places like libraries and book stores in business, which does not benefit those that cannot afford said devices. This seems to keep the digital and literacy divide growing instead of shrinking. There are pros and cons to both sides of these devices, but somehow we need to find the median ground that can benefit all in this area.
     The next concept that I found to be good was about electronic note-taking. I find both pros and cons to this concept as well. The book talks about how programs can make note taking easier, keep them organized and some can even record audio for later reference. While these are great tools to help students, I feel like these are still skills and abilities that students need to physically learn and master as well. Learning organizational skills with school work can and does cross over into other areas of their lives. Organization skills will be needed in all job fields and is part of time management skills. An electronic device will not be able to organize all aspects of ones life and relying on a program to keep school work and notes organized from as early on as elementary school, such as suggested in the text book, does not assist in teaching a student to do this for themselves. I believe the same types of cons go with being able to take notes as well. For instance, during a college lecture, which is still the most common form of college learning, a student would either go through a terabit of storage trying to record all lectures or spend the entire class trying to type in their notes words for word if they haven't learned how to properly take notes. If a student does not learn to discern important verbal concepts from other conversational audio during a lecture or how to write/type shorthanded then they will spend hours re-listening to the audio tracks or pouring through pages of written information to find and learn what they need. Especially since, at least so far in all of my on-campus classes, you are not allowed to bring in or at least use a phone, computer, tablet, or kindle device during the class. That leaves one to listen and remember the lecture word for word or write physical notes on paper. If a student has never done so in any grade before, this would be a very time consuming a difficult concept to master quickly enough in college to stay up in their assignments.
     The last concept I found interesting was about plagiarism and cheating. These have been issues ever since I can remember, even before electronic devices. The growing problem is that electronic devices and the internet make these two things easier to do. Having so many different resources at ones fingertips for writing papers, copying word for word information is very easy to do and a bit harder to catch without a program to do so. And quick and simple things like texting or sending pictures via cellphones for answers on tests between students makes cheating easier and quicker to do without getting caught. The book has a few suggestions to curb these activities but most seem to point towards preventing plagiarism more so than cheating. I found some of the suggestions to be helpful but a bit obvious. I found the suggestions from a previous source, '6 Pros and Cons of Technology in Your Classroom', to have better, more precise, and usable ideas.

Citrino, J. (2015) How to Curb Cheating and Plagiarism. Via Piktochart. Https://magic.piktochart.com/editor/piktochart/8096720#

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O'Loughlin, Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park.(2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston,MA: Pearson Education,Inc.

Montano, Jean. (Mar. 6, 2015). 6 Pros and Cons of Technology in Your Classroom. Tophat blog. http://www.blog.tophat.com