In regards to technology, I don't think we realize how much we take for granted in our lives. Our reliance on the convenience of technology has just become something that is normal to us. I went camping this weekend and all the adults were telling stories about their college days while we were sitting around the fire. Almost every single story ended with, "And that was before we had cell phones or anything." It reminded me of this youtube clip. I never really think about how far technology has come and how easy it seems you can do pretty much anything with a click of your mouse.
It seems like everything we do and everywhere we go today has some influence of technology. In most cases this is a good thing. For example, look at the way the classroom has changed. It has gone from blackboards, textbooks and a pen and paper to smartboards, textbooks with CDs and laptops. Most teachers or professors include some form of medium in addition to their lectures. Selecting more than just one approach to communicate can prove to be much more effective. A slide show, poster, video clip or other type of visual aide engages more learning styles than just auditory learners. Without advances in technology it would not be as easy to do this.
On the other hand, the availability of technology can sometimes be a bad thing. The internet makes plagiarism extremely easy. It can be very tempting to do a quick edit copy edit paste, cut out a few words and replace them with your own. You have changed the sentence but not the original idea. Many students don’t realize that this is plagiarizing. The increase of internet plagiarism with advances in technology among just college students alone is significant. The fact that it is so easy to take ideas you find right at your finger tips can really weaken your ethos in writing. Another problem with information found on line that affects ethos is credibility. You may have sited your information right, but as the clip proves it is easy for anyone to come in and edit what is on the page.The ending of the video really hit me. We do need to rethink things; what we are reading, what we are quoting and what we are sharing. Technology has advanced but are we advancing with it in the right direction?
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