Crawford - Blog Post #2

First of all, I’d like to point out that the SOL’s were not intended at first to be so vital for a student to pass a class. Their original purpose was to measure how well the students had learned the material the teachers taught them throughout the school year. They are updated every year so they are up-to-date for the most part. If it were up to me, I would not remove them completely, but change their purpose back to the way it was when they were first used. I feel like they would be much more useful that way. With the constant changing of technology, schools should incorporate the newer digital and analog technologies in the way they teach to better prepare the students for their future. In Virginia Heffernan’s article she speaks about a specific woman named Cathy Davidson who stated that the better question about today’s education was whether the way of learning of students now is current enough to prepare them for the ever-changing future. I feel as though the way of learning needs to change rather than what they are learning.

As for the Internet, Nicholas Carr stated that first it became easier to use the more you used it and was convenient when he needed to research for the articles he wrote, but later in his article he claimed that search engines such as Google were making us stupid although they are as convenient as they are. I completely disagree with the search engines making us not so smart. I believe that they actually help us grow smarter because that is what people are dependent on in this day and age. For example, a student might have a question about his or her homework that cannot be easily answered because he or she is not at school or a library. That student could simply go on Google and search for the answer and move on with his or her homework. The Internet is fast, easy to use, and convenient.