Response to Michael Wesch's video text by, Daelynn

            It has become common today to dismiss the thought of how technology could overall be driving us away from learning what we should be in the college classroom.

            In Michael Wesch’s video, “A vision of Students today,” the students imply that technology has taken over their time to learn in the classroom properly.  We see in this video, almost a “silent” portrayal of what students feel their lives are like in class with the use of technology right in front of them or outside of class.  They show statistics that are somewhat shocking to what our ideas are when it comes to the use of technology in a classroom; especially a college one.   In one scene, we see a girl hold up a laptop that says, “I facebook through most of my classes.”  What Wesch is implying is that with the use of technology in classes, we see a decrease in the student’s actual learning from the classroom; we just see an increase in the use of social networking because students have the drive to try and relate to others.          

            In another scene of Wesch’s video, it shows a girl holding up a paper that says, “I complete 49% of the readings assigned to me, and only 26% of them are relevant to my life.”  From this, we can assume that Wesch is trying to say that all students want to do is have interest in studies that have relation to what they are dealing with or interested in.  They have to relate to be “relevant” to the students drive to learn with the use of technology.  This statement also implies that students just aren’t doing their assigned homework because they know that it isn’t going to be relative to what they are doing or interested in; I mean, why would you want to do homework that’s supposedly useless when you can connect with others and feel useful on technology like Facebook or twitter?

            I have to agree with what this video portrays.  We use technology almost as if our lives depend on a facebook update or a blog post.  When we are constantly on facebook and not focusing on what our studies are, we are bound to soon realize that we are wasting our time and money on trying to gain an education when we know we have the ability to focus and learn just as efficiently without the use of technology.  Yes, having a laptop with you in class is probably more helpful, faster at taking notes, and keeping yourself organized, but there is the option of focusing in class and learning the material without having to social network during a lecture.  We have the power to make facebook wait until after class and homework are done.  Personal writing is important to me, but I feel like the use of social networking in class distracts the whole purpose of gaining an education and knowledge: its distracting and takes away from what we really need to be paying attention to.  Our generation’s way of writing has become more efficient and more people are writing everyday; but these forms of writing aren’t the same as writing in class or academically.  There needs to be more of a resistance in students when they are in class and feel the need to just go onto facebook instead of taking notes or doing homework.