Robnolte 1

Justice Robnolte

Marisa Enos

ENG.111.W03

25 March 2018

Grabbing Technologies Attention: AMS Proposal 2

Since the mid-2000s, technology has been integrated into schools to help students learn

more inside and outside of the classroom but has proven to also be a big distraction to learning.

When surfing the web trying to find sources, students can also access a number of websites that

cause distractions to students, i.e. Facebook, coolmathgames.com, and YouTube. The problem is

students aren’t wanting to pay attention either, which is no one’s fault but the student’s. Matthew

B. Crawford, scholar and author of “Attention as a Cultural Problem,” believes that it is because

they are given the distractions. Although there are these distractions, ed.gov explains that

technology helps students learn more and gives a list of helpful tools to further education with

technology. Mike Rose is the author of “In Search of a Fresh Language for Schooling” and gives

an insight of how it is a student’s attention problem and how the issue is also how we force

education upon students. This isn’t the only issue, however. Technology is a distraction students

are choosing to pay attention to.

Technology has given students a chance to learn more inside and outside of their

classroom and is giving teachers more tools to help teach their students better. Without it, there

wouldn’t be online classes - like the English 111 class - and would be a lot more difficult to

complete degrees while working. In the 1950s it would seem unrealistic to be able to do

schoolwork at home, having answers at your fingertips at all times. The U.S. Department of
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Education gives examples and the reason that technology was integrated into U.S. schools at

their website www.ed.gov. There they explain,

“Technology ushers in fundamental structural changes that can be integral to achieving

significant improvements in productivity. Used to support both teaching and learning,

technology infuses classrooms with digital learning tools, such as computers and

handheld devices; expands course offerings, experiences, and learning materials,” (Use of

Technology in Teaching and Learning).

The DoE states that technology integrated classes can help with productivity, but how many

times has a student heard a teacher ask their class to put their phones or computers away? Simply

because the students chose not to pay attention to their instructor? The DoE also states that the

use of digital resources can help students and teachers alike, like online grades, and learning

games such as Kahoot to help instructors teach students in different ways and to give feedback at

a faster pace These systems do help students learn. But are handhelds like tablets completely

necessary for every student to learn? Matthew Crawford explains in his article that a person

cannot go anywhere without finding an advertisement in it. Recently, one could find shows or

movies with subtle advertising in the background, but it is a personal choice to pay attention to it,

“The content of the stimulation almost becomes irrelevant. Our distractibility seems to indicate

that we are agnostic on the question of what is worth paying attention to,” (Crawford 38). If

students continue to find school irrelevant – which is another issue that has been occurring

recently – there will be no drive to them as an individual or as a learner.

Students are losing focus of how education can help them further their growth as

individuals and that it could help them overcome future boundaries in education. Technology has

taken over almost the entire world with social media and advertisements, even flowing into
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education. Students can’t seem to keep something electronic out of their hands long enough to

pick up a pen and paper to write out their thoughts and would rather not pay attention to their

education. Mike Rose agrees with this, explaining that technology is blinding students from what

an education really is, “But what I want to consider is how this economic focus, blended with the

technology of large-scale assessment, can restrict our sense of what school ought to be about: the

full sweep of growth and development, for both individuals and for a pluralistic democracy,”

(Rose 126). Although Rose agrees with the above statement of technology taking over the

classroom, he also takes into consideration how everything pressures students into education,

making them not want to attend at all, “I worry that the dominant vocabulary about schooling

limits our shared respect for the extraordinary nature of thinking and learning, and lessens our

sense of social obligation,” (Rose 127). If schools, parents, and the media were to not push

education so hard, there might be a rise in the want of an education and could cause a break in

academic boundaries that are constantly shared through higher education.

Technology in the educational system has proven helpful but has seen many downfalls

from the amount of attention given to education by students. They pay more attention to the

advertisements and are finding school to be pointless, causing them to lose interest in what really

matters in school: growing and overcoming. Although technology was a helpful tool to further

future education, it seems to be hurting the young generation of learners with the amount of

access they have. And although technology seems to be the main issue, it is also what the student

chooses to do with their time and education, and the use of technology is what students decided

they would rather pay attention to.

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Works Cited

Crawford, Matthew B. Attention as a Cultural Problem / Exploring Connections. New York,

Pearson Education, Inc., 2016, p. 38.

Rose, Mike. In Search of a Fresh Language for School / Exploring Connections. New York,

Pearson Education, Inc., 2016, pp. 126-27.

U.S. Department of Education, Use of Technology in Teaching and Learning, 6 July 2006,

https://www.ed.gov/oii-news/use-technology-teaching-and-learning. Accessed 18 Mar.

2018.