The Lowdown On Longhand By Alnissa Ramirez

Technology provides students with easy access to information which otherwise would be difficult to obtain. Before technology, students had to read a book in order to look up what they needed. This would take hours, sometimes days. According to Edmund J. Gleazer School of Education, “Students can look up specific information or questions from a teacher, find answers, and do more research without even leaving their desk” (Edmund J. Gleazer School of Education). Technology provides students with a wide range of libraries and sources to enrich their learning.

In the 1950’s, Senator Joseph McCarthy turned Americans against each other by installing fear in the people regarding toward Communism. During this time, in fact, people were getting blacklisted even if they weren't communist. In an incident at the Republican Women’s Club of Wheeling, McCarthy delivered a speech. The situation involving the Senator escalated when he stated that the State Department is infested with Communist. In this point in time, due to the false allegations, people went on a decade long period of witch hunts. Sam Roberts, the author of “A Decade of Fear” stated that in fact, “...thousands of alleged Communists in the U.S. were arrested and deported during what became known as the Red Scare.”

In Michaela Cullington’s article “Does Texting Affect Writing?” she addresses a superstition that the older generation of today believes to be a possible issue. This issue is the potential for texting via cell phones to negatively affect young peoples’ abilities to write correct, formal papers. In her writing, she logically dismissed these accusations by providing proof against this believe while presenting her defense in a persuasive manner.

America lies in the wake of the impending presidential election, which has been shrouded in controversy from its infancy. FBI investigations, leaked emails, private recordings, rape allegations, and indubitable untruths have pledged both front-runners. Despite the foul taste left in the mouth of many Americans by Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton, they have come out victorious in their campaign to represent their respective party as the nominee for president. While it was once widely believe that the American people democratically elect the president of the United States, through current influences such as the media, Internet, and growing population an exuberant amount of Americans believe that their vote no longer counts, thus posing the question who’s really in control of the electoral process? In the past, the call to question of the integrity of the electoral processes was strictly reserved for the most devout conspiracy theorist, but with the pullulating concerns over super delegates, average sound mind Americans are not sure the full truth is being told. Has America been fed at noble lie? A simple answer yes, a more complex answer America has been fed a misconception disguised as a lie.

of taking pen and paper notes. However, this paper will tell you, from a student's point of view,

The First World War was a global war centred in Europe that lasted 4 years. More than 9 million soldiers and 7 million civilians died as a result of the war, a casualty rate aggravated by the technological and industrial sophistication of the nations at war. It was one of the deadliest conflicts in history. Trenches and life within them have become a lasting topic since World War One. Throughout the war, millions of soldiers experienced and endured the horrors of trench warfare.

I think Birkerts is right when he says education has changed. In school teachers are showing power points and slideshows to their students, which is very hard to write down notes. The advantages of having slides are the students can listen to their teacher instead of writing down notes which saves

Although technology is denying us the privilege of upper cognitive analysis, our minds still know the acceptable times to use and not use formal writing. In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” Nicholas Carr examines the human dependency to the Internet while in “Does Texting Affect Writing,” Michaela Cullington studies the possible effects of “textspeak” and its connection to current writing skills. “Textspeak” is the language of texting that has considerable amounts of grammatical error. The individual organic computer in the human skull known as a brain has been slowly changing its organic makeup. The brain has begun to change its primal neural pathways (thoughts), which has had a negative impact on memorization, concentration, and addiction; the only scientific correlation between this alteration and time is the human population and its advancements in technology.

Some believe that everything is better when it is done electronically. Taking notes by hand is believed to be old-fashion and slower than using a laptop. In “ Attention Students: Put Your Laptops Away, “ the author informs the readers about the benefits of longhand note-taking strategies and outcomes.

The article “The Writings on the Screen” by Tiffany O’Callaghan talks about how this generation reads more frequently, and the style of writing has changed immensely. Tiffany also talks about how taking notes by hand rather than a computer will help you understand the topics of the lecture, and also help you retain the information. She emphasizes on the fact that using a laptop for an educational purpose is problematic, and distracting, not only to yourself, but to others around you. This article also talks about how writing by hand forces your brain to process the information you heard.

The research article “The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking” was written by Pam A. Muller and Daniel M. Oppenheimer, and published by the Psychological Science in 2014. The article focuses on a series of previous research on the topic and studies with the goal of providing evidence to answer their two main questions. The first question is which one the two note taking strategies works better and increases academic performance longhand note taking or laptop note taking. The second question is how verbatim overlap (word for word) affects our learning. In the article, three studies were conducted similarly but as the studies were made something new was added to explore new aspects of learning.

Cursive writing is essintial and has been proven to be good for our minds. Phychologists found students learned and processed material better when using the cursive method. It help students summarize idea rather than just typing the words their teachers say. A study showed that over a week of taking notes, those who typed their notes did worse than those who took note with handwriting. I believe this to be very true. I think that handwriting involves using your hand, eye,

I start to forget what I am about to write or even what i am about to say if i am doing something else at the same time. In the article “No”, the director of research google inc. says that “the new technology of writing will create forgetfulness in learners’ souls because they will not use their memories.” He is pretty much describing me when he says that we won’t use our memories, because it’s not that i don’t want to, it’s that it is sometimes difficult to, like when I am writing I can forget something that is really important just because i am so focus on what is being typed instead of the words that i’m typing. In the last article “the toll for children” in the fifth paragraph, the author basically says that the researchers are worried about the consistent technology and they think that it is causing attention problems and I very much agree because like i have stated I forget things easily from being distracted with something

Furthermore, as communication and writing skills diminish our school performance begins to be affected. The entertainment of mobile devices distracts nearly every student in the classroom whether it is texting, or playing games, or surfing the net. Mobile devices also play a big role in communication by making it possible for students to easily communicate with each other when they should not be. The power to communicate with virtually anyone is a major distraction. Some teens are so attached to their technological devices they sleep with phones on and wake up to answer text messages they get at night. When kids have cell phones in their classrooms they are extremely distracted from what is actually being taught. They are looking down and playing their games or going on social networking sites instead of listening to their teachers. With the constant distraction of technology and teens short attention spans reading and writing skills have suffered significantly and vocabularies are shrinking. This relates to their education and their ability to do well in school. Another problem is that technology provides students with the ability to explore numerous search engines for any problem they come across and copy them word for word. It seems that students don’t spend time thinking; they are simply repeating information instead of learning concepts and ideas. When students do this, they do not actually learn the

In a college setting, it is common to see students with a laptop computer taking notes during a lecture. On the surface, it is easy to see why students would prefer to use a keyboard for typing