"A Vision of Students Today" Response

The opening credits begin with a quote by Marshall McLuhan in 1967, “Today’s child is bewildered when he enters the 19^th century environment that still characterizes the educational establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns subjects, and schedules,” that starts the tone, while walking into an empty classroom. The high keys from the piano play in the background, which soon follows a consistent repetitive beat. The music helps to set the mood, drawing the viewers in. Ideas are expressed by handwritten notes on the walls, desks, and chalkboard. “Of course walls and desks cannot talk.” “But students can.” Students fill the room, each with their own voice to share. Their voices are shared and heard through technology. The question “What is it like being a student today?” is posted. Within seconds, the students are communicating their thoughts onto one interconnected document, allowing everyone to share their thoughts in a fast technological realm. Each of the students engaged in the topic. The students begin to confess their reality of what being a student is like, handwriting their confessions on notebook paper raising it for others to see. Reality sinks in. Technology seems to take up a large percentage of the students’ lives (TV, Facebook, using cell phones, general time online, etc.). One student spoke of how she will read 8 books this year, compared to 2300 web pages, and 1281 Facebook profiles.

The students speak of how their lives are affected by technology, the reality of old style schooling, and how this will affect their future. A student wrote, “I complete 49% of the readings assigned to me.” Then the same student held up a paper that said, “Only 26% are relevant to my live.” The old style way of learning isn’t engaging the students, not nearly as much as technology can. Learning the old style way can’t always be relevant to the students’ lives. This causes fewer students to care, and therefore fewer who succeed in the classroom and beyond.

Money and time are being wasted. The students continue to share how much time they spend doing certain activities in a day. By their calculations, they have 26.5 hours a day dedicated to the various daily activities they listed, such as being online, sleeping, eating, studying, etc. Roughly 8.5 of those hours are spent using or engaging with technology. A student shares, “I am a multi-tasker, I have to be.” With all these activities going on, there is no time to fit it all into one day, proven by the activities that calculate to more than a full day.

Yet another student lifts up an SAT answer sheet saying, “Filling this out won’t help me get there.” This speaks towards getting a job. The whole classroom goes on to say further that filling the SAT answer sheet out won’t help with “war,” “poverty,” “pollution,” “hunger,” and many other real world issues. This is reasoning for making the learning relevant, learning for a purpose; a purpose that goes beyond just getting a good grade and succeeding in school. The video comes to a close by posting, “Some have suggested that technology can save us…Some have suggested that technology alone can save us.” The chalkboard is shown yet again, as the teacher writes what the chalkboard can’t provide, photos, videos, animations, and network. Technology offers all of these methods of learning.

I feel the message behind this video is to awaken the ideals behind conventional learning, and prove technology can be used as a tool to stay relevant, to stay connected, and engage with the topic being discussed. By using technology, our minds will expand and we will be able to reach a level of reality where we can put our knowledge to good use. What we will learn will be applied to our own lives by engaging with technology.