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Negative Implications of E-Books for Writers

March 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The spread of E-Readers and E-Books has created some concern among the writing community.  While these aspects of technology can be highly beneficial for learning, some writers are hesitant to publish their work in the form of E-Books or make their work available to those with E-Readers.  Here are some negative implications of this technology for the writing world.

  • No place for publishers or agents
    Many writers remain loyal to their publishers and agents, who are facing a number of challenges associated with online publishing.  Some writers will not consider leaving their publishing organization or agent to submit work in an online format, even if the potential for earnings is greater.
  • Limited input in design
    Poets and experimental writers are concerned with the increasing limitations when it comes to artistic and visual design of their work.  E-Readers often have features in which the reader can adjust the font, type size, and even color of the work, which can limit the ability of the author to communicate the artistic effects he or she wanted to achieve.
  • Decreased ability to protect work
    The spread of online books has made it easier for individuals to obtain free texts, decreasing the income generated for the authors and publishers.  The concept of ownership is becoming increasingly blurry, worrying some writers, agents, and publishers.

Despite these issues, many writers are embracing the freedom that goes along with publishing their work online; only time will tell what actions writers will take in response to the spread of reading technology.

Filed Under: E-Readers, Online Resources Tagged With: ,

Reducing Internet Distractions in Class

February 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The spread of Wi-Fi technology to the classroom has both benefited and limited learning.  While there are numerous advantages to internet and laptop use during class, internet distractions can be an unfortunately common occurrence in some classes.  Here are several tips for reducing internet distractions among students.

  • Don’t allow headphones
    Headphones during class will be used to listen to music or watch videos online.  Allowing them will almost definitely encourage students to cave into internet distractions.  Videos are some of the worst distractions, as they can distract other students sitting within view of the laptop screen.  By forbidding headphone use, instructors can help limit the likelihood of video distractions during class.
  • Require Wi-Fi to be turned off at times
    Another rule to reduce internet distractions is to require Wi-Fi technology to be turned off during class.  This will still allow students to use their laptops for note taking, but it will prevent them from logging into Facebook or surfing the net during class.
  • Engage student participation
    Walking around the classroom, soliciting student input during lectures, and posing questions to the class are all ways to encourage students to participate and pay attention in class.  If students are actively engaged, then they are much less likely to turn towards internet distractions to alleviate boredom.
  • Be clear about the rules
    On the first day of any class, instructors should be prepared to provide an overview of the course as well as clear expectations for student behavior during class.  Internet use should be covered during this time, and instructors should clearly communicate the rules for when the internet can and cannot be used.  This will reduce the temptation for students to use the internet for personal purposes during class.

These strategies can help ensure that the internet is used for educational purposes during class.  Students will be better able to focus with a decreased risk of distraction.

Filed Under: Internet, Online Learning Tagged With: , , ,

Getting Further in Life

February 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Some people think that without a degree, you don’t have much of a future.  Honestly, though, there are plenty of people who never got one who have done fine.  Think of Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Oprah Winfrey, and a whole host of other people throughout history.  If Andrew Carnegie had gotten his degree, he may not have had time to basically create the American steel industry.  It isn’t every day when a person can say, “Yeah, that industry pretty much only exists because I built it.”  However, most of the people in the world are not good enough at business to actually create entire industries.  People like Bill Gates, John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie only come around so often.

For most of the world’s population, just getting a great job working in one of these great companies (or building a company that works on the technologies these industrial titans founded) is about the best one can do.  And in order to get further in those kinds of pursuits (as well as life in general), you need to consider taking your education to another level.  A master’s degree may yet be in your future.  But of course, not just anybody can simply walk up and ask a university to let them in.

Technically you could do that, but you still have to take entrance examinations and be accepted before much will come of it.  This is why some wise person (who is probably now wealthy) invented GMAT class online.  Without these kinds of courses, getting into a good MBA program (and getting further in life) would be even more difficult than it already is.  And since it isn’t exactly easy on its best day, we should all be pretty grateful that we have these options to make it a little bit less of an ordeal.

Filed Under: E-Readers, Online Learning Tagged With: , ,

Class Twitter Accounts Promote Learning

February 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Twitter doesn’t have to be all about celebrity gossip!  Creating a class Twitter account can help students connect course concepts to the wider world through a simple format, and it can get them thinking about the class material as they’re logging into social networking sites at home or at the library.

  • Benefits of class Twitter accounts
    Twitter helps connect both students and instructors to the rest of the world.  Not only can they make connections with other classes, organizations, or academic institutions, but they can also discover new online resources that pertain to the class.  Often, classes using Twitter will discover new articles or websites that can be incorporated into the course syllabus the following year.  Instructors can also use Twitter to receive the most up-to-date information on their subject.
  • Twitter assignments
    Twitter makes it easy to create short, relevant assignments for students.  Requiring one to two Tweets per week from each student is a good place to start.  Many times, this will simply involve posting a link to another article, or posing a question to the rest of the class.  From there, students can look into other interesting users to follow, leading them to more information.  The convenience of these assignments will likely be a huge benefit to students, as they will be able to complete the assignment from virtually anywhere–including on their cell phones.  The short character limit forces students to be concise; this will limit the amount of stress experienced and increase the time that they spend researching when compared to the time they spend writing.

Twitter accounts can be a great way for one class to reach new information, or even connect with another class following a similar educational format.  Signing up is simple and can be done in class, allowing the students to help pick the name of the account.

Filed Under: Online Learning Tagged With: ,

Segregation and Local Education

February 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The negative effects of segregation, seen in its various manifestations, have devastated local education and school zones in certain areas. White flight and gentrification, among others, are specific examples of the mechanisms that can work in this manner. Follow along as these elements are approached in search of positive ways to fight them.

A couple of these terms serve as examples of segregation, in some form. Gentrification is seen where wealthier people acquire property in low-income areas, which can have negative effects on other individuals. White flight refers to the moving out of Caucasians when minority population increases in an area.

The effects can undermine the area in various ways. Specifically in regards to local education, changes in the socioeconomic status of the population can leave out certain population areas. For instance, in cases of gentrification, lower-income individuals can become stressed – in a number of senses, including economically – causing negative effects.

In any of these types of segregation, a common factor is that the local school district is unable to keep a diverse population. When certain populations dwindle as a result of these effects, local education suffers. Without a diverse population, the system can become segregated, which gives way to a number of difficulties in the school district.

Proper planning can significantly help. Charter schools, school choice, and planning in the area (to avoid these sociological concepts) can positively affect the local school area. As seen in a Mesa property management firm, these types of companies can help in the design and operations of a school, which can help maintain a diverse school population.

With the dangerous consequences of segregated areas, school systems and other elements of the community must take action. The aforementioned forces can certainly help to maintain a diverse and healthy population and a good school environment.

Filed Under: Modern Education, Online Learning Tagged With: , , ,

Disadvantages of Laptop Use in Class

February 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

While laptops are incredibly beneficial to many classes at the high school and college level, there are a few disadvantages to widespread laptop use in class.  Here are the main issues with this practice.

  • Distractions
    Wireless internet use can be one of the leading causes of distractions with laptop use during class.  Students who are checking their email, logging into social networking sites, or accessing work from other classes will have trouble paying attention and taking effective notes.  Additionally, laptops give students the opportunity to write assignments for other classes while appearing to take notes for the class they are attending at the time.  Many students will not be able to overcome these distractions for effective learning.
  • Availability
    Not every student has a laptop, and not every student can always bring his or her laptop to class on any given day.  If an instructor plans for laptop use during class, the simple lack of availability of student laptops could be a problem.  While this can be partially fixed by having students share, that could lead to additional problems if students are not interested.
  • Note taking limitations
    Sometimes laptops are not as convenient for certain types of notes.  Diagrams, drawings, and graphs, for example, can be easily created or copied from the blackboard into a notebook; however, laptops make this feat somewhat difficult for students to accomplish if they’re used to taking notes on a word processor instead.  Students in certain types of science classes that require a fair amount of drawing, such as biology or physics, might not be able to take adequate notes in class by using a laptop.  While certain computer programs might help, they can be expensive or difficult to find at times.

If these potential disadvantages of laptop use can be avoided, then students will be able to largely benefit from bringing their laptops to class.

Filed Under: E-Readers Tagged With: ,

Advantages of Using Laptops in Class

February 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Laptop use has become a common occurrence in most college level classes, and it’s even beginning to appear in high school classes.  Here are some of the benefits of allowing and promoting the use of laptops during class to improve learning.

  • Convenience for the students and instructors
    Laptops not only offer a faster method of note taking, but also a more convenient method for integrating and storing these notes.  Students can type much faster than they can write, so taking notes in a word processor can allow them to record more information at faster speeds, improving their studying capabilities and the amount of material they are able to learn from the course.  Similarly, instructors can take advantage of this increased speed and convenience as they lead their classes, providing more information to the students, or spending more time reviewing the same information.
  • Integration with PowerPoint presentations
    Laptops also allow for easy integration with PowerPoint presentations and lectures, as many students are now able to download the PowerPoint document directly onto their laptop during class.  This allows them to take notes on or near the document, and read fine print more easily than on a large screen.  Taking notes on the slides also helps students organize their thoughts and questions based on where they are in the lecture; they can note any questions on the particular slide.
  • Interactive learning with computer programs
    Many instructors are now encouraging laptop usage during their classes, as it allows them to teach with new programs.  They can hold tutorials to demonstrate how to use these programs, as well as implement in-class learning activities using these programs on the student laptops.  This feature is incredibly helpful for math and science classes, as well as engineering classes, in which students will need to build or observe structures in three dimensions.

These advantages of laptop use during class can help students more fully take advantage of their education if they are able to avoid the common distractions associated with laptop use.  Instructors can also benefit from laptops, as they can expand their lectures to include interactive technology.

Filed Under: Benefits, Online Learning Tagged With: , , ,

Potential Problems with Digital Archiving

January 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Digital archiving is becoming a growing practice for data storage in universities and libraries across the country.  While promising, there are still several potential problems with digital archiving that could interfere with efforts to store information and streamline the storage process.  Here are a few problems that archivists have encountered that make digital archiving more problematic than many have anticipated.

  • No clear system
    Since digital archiving is a relatively new practice, there has not yet been an established system for it; instead, each library, school, and academic institution has a different method for digital storage.  The lack of clear protocol or direction could create problems, as digital information stored in one manner might not be readily available for an individual at a different institution that uses a different storage method.  This problem is being witnessed at various libraries, each of which uses a different method–or avoids digital storage altogether until enough funds are raised to devise an archiving system.
  • Mixed storage media
    Another recurring issue with digital archiving is the wide range of storage media being submitted.  While some information is stored on CDs, other information is being submitted in the form of DVDs, flash drives, floppy disks, or even computer hard drives themselves.  This makes it incredibly difficult to integrate all of the information on one storage system, especially because newer computers might not be able to read the older floppy disks.  Additionally, older computers might not have internet access or the same word processing programs, limiting the ability to translate the archives into another format.
  • Physical decay
    Physical storage media, such as floppy disks, CDs, and DVDs, actually decays at a much faster rate than paper archives.  This could create problems in later years if libraries and universities keep their digital records on these forms of storage. Given the current problems with integrating all of the different types of information storage, many educational institutions are, in fact, keeping the physical storage for the time being.

Although these problems might remain in existence for some time, progress is being made towards developing a clearer methodology for digital storage.

Filed Under: Internet, Modern Education Tagged With: ,

The Changes in Learning

January 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

As technology improves, many industries experience improvements as well. The fields of learning, education, and research are also changing due to improvements in technologies. The ways that students research their papers have changed now that the Internet provides a myriad of new resources for information, for example. Technology has changed and continues to change the face of education as we know it, and this is really only the beginning. As technology sees improvements, education as a whole is only going to see vast improvements as well.

The surge in online degree programs from sites like elearners.com is another example of how technology has greatly changed the education landscape. It’s a phenomenon how more and more people are relying on the internet for all aspects of their education, not only when researching topics for assignments but also for their actual education as well. There are many things to consider when it comes to how technology impacts education though. For example, the Internet has made plagiarism easier, and so instructors must keep up with the changing face of education technology in order to keep students honest.

For the most part, technology is definitely benefiting learning. Now that every student has such a vast array of resources at his or her disposal, students can find the things that they are interested in at any moment and can learn about any topic that they are interested in on their own time. Online references come in many different styles and types, and so there is no shortage of information available for students to peruse. The Internet has made it significantly easier for students of all ages to find the information that they need, whether they need it for a school assignment, a paper, or personal interests. The Internet has made learning easier and even more enjoyable in a wide variety of ways.

Filed Under: Online Learning, Online Resources Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Avoiding Plagiarism with Online Resources

January 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

With the growing number of online resources, it’s becoming increasingly simple for instructors to check student work for plagiarism.  By having students submit their work online, instructors can encourage original research and avoid plagiarism in their class.

  • Clear Communication to Students
    While teachers may catch more plagiarism by not communicating to the students that an online plagiarism checker will be used, the ultimate goal of these programs is often to limit the incidence of plagiarism.  Clear communication to the students is important, as it will make them completely aware of the consequences of plagiarism, prompting them to devote enough time to the assignment and to avoid any type of plagiarism.  Communicating the intention to use a plagiarism checker will ultimately benefit both the teacher and students, decrease the likelihood of plagiarism, and increase awareness of accidental plagiarism when students do not exercise enough caution when paraphrasing from their sources.
  • Student Plagiarism Checkers
    There are several student plagiarism checkers available online that students can use to test their papers before submitting them.  These do not always use the same database as the full plagiarism checkers for teachers, and as a result, they are best for checking the possibility of accidental plagiarism from online sources.
  • Resources for Teachers
    Turnitin.com and PlagiarismDetect.com are popular resources with large databases that instructors can use for a small fee.  There is also a large selection of free plagiarism checkers available for instructors; however, these detectors are also available to students.  Many universities and colleges also offer their own plagiarism detection software and student paper databases, limiting the cost and promoting accurate detection.

Not only will online plagiarism resources make it easy to check for plagiarism, but their presence will also encourage students to submit original work, as well as avoid paraphrasing too closely from their research sources.

Filed Under: Online Resources Tagged With:
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