What ever happened to good ole paper-and-pencil assignments? The last time I had an assignment like this was in high school, and the only problems I can remember was when the teacher couldn’t tell the difference between a “t” and an “f” on true and false tests. But now it seems like the more technology we use, the more problems we have. For example, I have had many classes cancelled because the professor could not get the overhead projector to work. It was great for us because we got out of class extremely early, but it was still annoying to sit there and wait just because of technology.
In some of my classes, professors will simply put up power point slides, read directly from them and then post them on WebCT just for students to read again. So answer this question for me: why should I go to classes like this when I can get the same exact information at home on my own computer?
I don’t think that using this technology is a bad thing at all. In fact, I think it’s great. The one thing that I have a problem with is a professor not having anything else to add to the slides or not having any backup for when things go wrong.
Technology can also put a damper on getting credit for homework and quizzes. In a math class I took last semester, students had a deadline for quizzes, and as long as the quizzes were started before the deadline time, students got credit for them.
So if it was due at 10 p.m., it doesn’t matter if the student took the quiz at 9 a.m. or 9 p.m. as long, as it was started before 10 you were in the clear.
I specifically remember one time when I started the quiz five minutes before ten o’clock and the Web site we used to take the quiz wouldn’t work. When I and other people in the math lab said something to the teacher she quickly told us that it was our fault for waiting so late to take the quiz.
I don’t think that’s fair when the rules are simply stated that it doesn’t matter as long as you start before the deadline. If the quizzes were still done on paper and the same rules applied, there wouldn’t be a problem.
Although all this technology is very convenient for us, especially for catching up if you miss class, I personally feel I learn better in classes when professors use their own wording to teach instead of stripping sentences straight from a textbook.