Research on How the Web Is Good

An article written by Judith Levine gives her opinion on what the repercussions are for having computers around students. She thinks that students have lost all reading, writing, and analyzing skills. I disagree with her because students use these skills more now than ever. Students are lazy for other reasons and not because of computers. The world is at our fingertips and all we have to do is find it! I will discuss how my family has found the world and use it to educate ourselves every day. Good abstract

The Web is Beneficial in Education

When it comes to the web, everyone has their own opinions, especially when it comes to education. Teachers often complain of plagiarism and students not thinking when they do homework, they blame it on the web being detrimental to a student's education. I think the web is an excellent tool when it comes to education. I am a mother of eight children whom all get above average grades. I also attend college to fix, repair, and network computers with a 4.0 GPA. My family has a strong dependency on the web for everything that we could need it for. As do I!

Judith Levine mentions that almost everything her students get off the web is trash fish (Levine, 1997). I am certain this is true, but not entirely. If a student wants to take the time and research information on the web to make sure it is not trash then they will, like my children do. Although there is quite a bit of trash on the web, there is also quite a bit of knowledge, if the student wants to find it. Stating that students are not critically thinking when they use the web is making a poor assumption when that could be written up as sheer laziness. Some students take what they see at face value without doing any other outside research just to be done with the homework. I think the web should not be the blame on lack of education but the laziness of the students. The web cannot be the blamed for student laziness either because more work is involved when it comes to researching online to find out what is valid and what is not. A parent is responsible for teaching their children how to use the web so that they can benefit from it not become lazy from it. If parents and teachers would collaborate to make learning the computer and web more efficient there would be fewer problems. The web is not writing this opinion for me, it is all me and my opinion, I am reading, thinking, and analyzing as I write it. Part of the issue, I think, is that we often suffer from information indigestion, and are unsure where to begin looking. Some believe Wikipedia is a good place to start (it isn't)

I think that if a parent or teacher teaches a student how to use the web to enhance their education experience instead of downgrading the whole web in general students will learn more. In her article, Judith Levine states that students do not read because they are surfing (Levine, 1997). She goes on to talk about how no scholarly articles, books, magazines, are being read because students just click and point to surf the web. I can honestly say that I have never read a scholarly journal until I got the internet. I never even knew what a scholarly journal was for that matter. My children started reading scholarly journals in elementary school because of the web. Where does someone even view a scholarly article other than the web? The use of the web among students can be a great resource when it comes to educational benefits. I have had to read journals, etc. on the web, as well.

Online libraries allow students to read books that they would probably never read. My children are constantly downloading books to read on the web because I do not have time to take them all down to the library and check books out. Half the time the library does not even have the books the kids want anyway. My children know the importance of reading and understanding what they read. Reading is important because it is what feeds our brain with information and exercises our minds. Judith Levine believes reading magazines, books, and newspapers are important because these writings can be trusted and teach children about arguments and ideas (Levine, 1997). When I was a child I was always reading something, when my parents bought me a new book I would read it over and over. I can only imagine how much reading I would have done if I would have had the web. I do not have to buy my children expensive books or go to the library