Kyle's final draft paper
From Mizzou Wiki
Students today have a hard time managing there time between class, work, friends, and many other things that involve time. In college it is about using the right amount of time on certain things that students do while in there studenthood at college. Wesch’s video is very accurate about how students spend most of there time during college. Students today are always on Facebook or Myspace or they are playing video games or watching TV when they should be focusing on doing there homework. In the video it showed students holding up signs of how much time they spend on certain things like talking on the phone or watching TV. One thing that stood out to me most was the amount of time the average student watched TV which was 2 hours. Another thing was one girl who held a sign saying she would read 42 pages of a book but 3000 e-mails and 1281 facebook profiles. It is astonishing at how much technology has changed the way students spend there time in and out of class. The advancement of technology is supposed to be used to help better oneself and make it easier to do things like maybe search information for a class assignment. This technology we have today was not anywhere close as to the outdated technology of our elders and it is a gift to have such technology to benefit us. Other problems that surround students is the issue of money and becoming in debt after college because of student loans. In order to make enough money to support themselves in an apartment with utilities and food they must work a lot which become’s stressful over time and causes some people to fall behind in school. Students need to use there time more wisely in and out of class with the technology they have available to them and other time consuming activities.
Facebook has become one of the largest websites for social networking and almost every student in college has a Facebook profile. I know I have one and I am always checking it for new messages or new applications to add to my profile. Facebook has become one of the most addictive websites on the internet and that is why people bring their laptops to class or use the computers given to them in class to view there friends or other people’s profiles and to send there messages to there friends. Students waste most of there time on the internet searching meaningless things unless its information for a class project which is unlikely since most students hardly pay attention in class and don’t know what the assignment is because they were on facebook checking there mail. Every day when i go to my math class there are several people multi-tasking between IMing on facebook and doing the homework assignment that is do the next day as well as writing down notes that the teacher writes up on the chalkboard. I can't help but look around and see the number of people multi-tasking during class which becomes a distraction sometimes and i lose my focus on what i should be doing. In today's culture students must be able to multi-task because that is what they do. In the video a girl held up a sign saying that she was a multi-tasker and that she had to be in order to get through college. Students are so used to being on the internet that they communicate through e-mail or instant messaging instead of writing a letter. In Wesch’s video one girl had a sign that said she only pays attention in class 40% of the time and that the other 60% is spent on her laptop on facebook or other unrelated websites. I know that when I am in class I have a tendancy to check my facebook or instant message during class when I should be paying attention to what the assignment is or what I am being taught. Having access to a computer in class only creates a distraction for students because it gives them the opportunity to get on facebook or other websites and lose focus in class. This is one of the reasons some students do so poorly in class because they are not focused on the assignment being given because they are lost searching video’s on youtube or chatting with there best friends on facebook. This is possibly the reason why some student's homework is being done and turned in on computers because students are so used to being on their computer that it makes it easier for them to do the homework. Way different from high school when students wrote on paper with a pencil or pen, and when you turned in hundreds of pages of homework on paper. Tests are also being taken on computers as well in college as to the 5 page tests that I and my classmates were used to taking in high school.
In today's culture many students during college work a lot in order to make money to pay rent and other expenses for college just to stay in school. Some students don’t have to worry about working because they are either rich or there parents have saved up money so they can go to college without having money being an issue. For those other students it means working almost 30 hours a week to make the money to live on your own and pay tuition. In Wesch’s video a man held up a sign showing the average number of hours a students works. Two hours a day was the average which for some students is a lot of time that is taken up each day and it makes it hard to find time to study or do homework. I work 5 hours every time I work during the week and usually 4 days out of the week so roughly 20 hours a week and it is time consuming. I usually work night shifts until 9 and it causes me to stay up late and work on assignments that are due for class at the last minute because either it was something I put off or was assigned that day and due in class the next day. It is especially difficult when you have a huge final to find time to study when you have to work late at night or work at all for that matter it takes that much time from you and then it causes people to stay up until 3 in the morning studying because of the time lost at work. It is hard for the average student to manage there time because they don't make their own work schedule and it is difficult to work around it. Except in today's culture money is important with the constant rise in gas prices and other items due to inflation. It is important for students to work, but at the same time students need to be able to find the time to study for school.
Watching television has become one of many things that college students do to waste time. The average student watches at least 2 hours of TV a day as seen by one of the students in Wesch’s video. Television has become a problem for students in the past because so many new shows are on all the time. TV shows like Scrubs, Family Guy, Grey’s Anatomy, and Lost which have been on for quite a few years attract the attention of college students for the comedy in them or the action packed drama. When these shows are on almost every night like Family Guy is, students just like to watch them and laugh. Each show is from half an hour to an hour and when student's favorite shows come on at different times during the day they choose to watch them. Television is just about as addicting as facebook. I know I watch at least 3 hours of television a day mostly watching my sports teams or shows like family guy or scrubs. TV becomes a distraction to students while they're doing homework because they know you need to do the homework but their favorite show is on so they put it off until sometime later on. Many of my friends watch television for hours every day and if they get bored with that they resort to video games when they know there homework is due by the end of the night or early the next day. Often students lose track of time when they watch TV and forget about there homework and end up putting it off until the next day. I have been one of those students that puts things off until the last minute and watches TV instead of doing homework. It is a bad habit and it has often lead to me doing poorly on some assignments or not even getting graded on an assignment. In today's culture watching TV has become more popular in today's society because there are many different types of shows that appeal to many students. For example i have a brother that just graduated from college in may and when he wasn't working or doing something with his wife he would watch episodes of friends or king of queens because he had bought the first couple of seasons to those shows. When he sits down and watches them he loses track of time and watches episode after episode. For him it wasn't a problem because he made sure his homework was done but for the average student it could cause him/her to forget about their homework until it is to late to do it.
The advancement of technology is a great thing when it is actually used to help better oneself in today’s culture. Students have the ability to search anything on the internet without having to crack open a book to get the information. Technology has made researching a whole lot simpler and more accessible to students to do well and get information fast on there research. Except students today don’t take advantage of that all the time, instead they are browsing the internet or on facebook. Today’s students have so much more than what there parents did when they were in college. The ability to have a laptop with wi-fi internet or a fast computer to search for information during class or at home to make doing homework that much easier. Computers with internet access become a distraction for many students and the just lose themselves in class and don’t pay attention to what is being taught. Wesch’s video tries to explain that if you write things on the chalkboard students have to pay attention to what he is saying or they won’t know what is being taught and that they should do away with computers in class. If students want to get the education that they are paying for then they should use the technology given to them more wisely and spend the right amount of time using that technology to help pass there classes. Even though Wesch thinks that the writing things down on a chalkboard than posting the assignment or lesson on the computer is better it is not. Using the Internet is faster and you have unlimited resources to look at to find information for an assignment for class. Except when your on the internet other web sites could become distracting and cause a student to focus on that instead of the assignment. Today's culture depends on using the technology we have to make things easier to do and to accomplish without frustration or having to work to hard. It not only makes it easier for students but for teachers as well when the computer checks the homework and tests for them and records the grades. Technology is the only way that our culture can be successful and students have to know how to use that technology in order to succeed not only in college but as well as life after college.
Stephen Toulmin is an English philosopher who created his own model to persuasive arguments by identifying elements in an argument. He came up with 6 steps of making a persuasive argument and those 6 steps are claim, grounds, warrant, backing, qualifier, and rebuttal. Toulmin's model helps prove that Wesch's video is good and bad about how technology helps us become cultutal literate and cultural competent. Toulmin became known for his ability to analyze and argue certain topics like Wesch's video. Toulmin would find a claim of an argument and he would find good information to support his claim not as a theory but with proven facts. Unlike rhetorical arguments where they find support to make a claim, Toulmin finds his claim first and supports his claim with background or data. His model is based on the logistics of an argument and not a theory that isn't proven. All of the 6 steps are key to making a strong claim and supporting that claim with strong support of information that relates to the claim. Through Toulmin's model anyone can increase there ability to become cultural literate and cultural competent.
In Wesch's video you could use Toulmin's model and claim that technology is bad and that it shouldn't be allowed in classrooms because it distracts students. In Wesch's video a student holds up a sign that shows the average student will only pay attention 40% of the time in class and that the other 60% is doing something on facebook or other irrelevant activities. Many students often text message there friends through there new phones and hardly pay attention in class. Students spend an average of 2 hours on there phone whether it is texting or calling. With this technology students become distracted and lose focus in class and suffer greatly because they are not learning and therefor will not become more culturally literate and culturally competent. Students are unwise about how they spend there time in class with the technology they have to be able to learn and to use in succeeding in class. Technology is available to those students who are in classrooms with computers and for those who have computers or laptops at home. Technology is accessable almost anywhere today. You could use your new iphone or your laptop with wi-fi internet or the computer at home. Almost everywhere you go technology will be there and it is easy to use, but how it used up to the person using the technology. Technology is meant to help people especially students to give them the ability to access information off the internet with unlimited sources to become more culturally literate and culturally competent in today's culture. Today's culture is dependent on technology and it is important that students understand how to use this technology to succeed in life after college. It is important that students don't mess around and lose focus of what they should be doing like researching information for a class project instead of watching a video on youtube or checking their profile on facebook. Technology isn't all bad but it is up to the student to use the technology to become more culturally literate and culturally competent or to use it for something irrelevant that gains them nothing.
In Wesh's video he finds a lot of information of how much time students spend using the technology they have and other related things that take up students time. He gets his information from students who responded to his blog about how they use the technology they have and what college is like. Through his collection of data from students who responded he was able to take that information and put together his claim that technology is spent unwisely and that it just becomes a distraction in class. He came up with the idea of using students with signs of the information he collected to show his claim in order to get students to understand how much time students spend on unrelated subjects than college. He uses the facts that the average student spends 2 hours a day watching TV and working and that during a students time in college that they will read more e-mail and check more facebook profiles than they would writing papers. The fact that 40% of students focus during class and that the other 60% is spent on facebook or other websites because computers are already in the classroom or students bring there laptops to class and multi-task, because that is what students have to be today. Wesch also finds evidence of how student life is stressful. Information like how students are taking classes for jobs that may not be available after they graduate, or they have to pay for books that they will never use in class. As well as how students will be in debt after college because of student loans. Such information helps Wesch prove his claim of how student is stressful and how technology is bad for students. In the beginning of Wesch's video he zooms in on the wall asking if these walls could talk, what would they say. Would they be able to give an answer to a question? Would they already know everything being taught because they have already heard it every year? We will never know but what Wesch is trying to prove is that if students listened in class and took good notes they would understand what is being taught.
Toulmin's model can be applied to Wesch's video and it proves that technology is both good and bad and that students have the ability to use it wisely to become more cultural literate and cultural competent. This model has the claim that technology is good and bad and is supported by many facts in the video. To support the claim in Wesch's video there needed to be background or data which Wesch found in his blog. He found the average time a student would watch TV, work, and spend on facebook in and out of class. Most students spend there time in class looking at profiles on facebook instead of working on assignments in class. Forty percent of students time in class is spent listening to the teacher and the other 60% is spent pondering on websites unrelated to class. Students are not wise in managing there time and instead of becoming cultural literate and cultural competent by working on the assignment in class they are off looking at other things. Although those who do focus on there class assignments and listen to the teacher become more cultural literate and cultural competent in areas that they didn't know. Students have the option of using the technology given to them to advance there cultural literacy and cultural competence but it is there responsibility to choose to want to become more cultural literate and cultural competent. Some classes in college have computers in class for them which allows students to do other things like look at video's on youtube or profiles on facebook. Like in the video one student said that she would write 400 pages for homework but 1300 e-mails and look at 1231 facebook profiles. That is being irresponsible and misusing the technology given to them so that they can further understand today's culture. Most students spend an average of 2 hours watching TV, and working every day. Today technology is everywhere especially in class where computers are accessible at any time. Students have the ability to access the internet and use it to further understand cultural literacy and cultural competence whether it is in class or on an iphone. Students must make that choice to decide whether or not they want to use technology wisely and pass college or misuse it and fail in college.
I believe Toulmin's model was related accordingly to Wesch's video in finding a claim and supporting it. The video made a claim and had information to support its claim and even more information to back up the background or data. The information given clearly showed that students spend there time unwisely during class and decrease there chances of becoming cultual literate and cultural competent when the technology is right in front of you, but yet some ignore it and do other things like watch TV or play video games. In Wesch's second video it shows that through any search engine there are thousands of sources to look at related to any search. The information to become cultural literate and cultural competent is a simple search away and thousands of sources to look at to understand the culture. The internet is how students today get there information instead of reading books for hours and highlighting important information. Today's culture has evolved from reading text from books to using the technology given to us in the form of the internet where all information is accessible without cracking open a book. The technology we have is able to allow us to become cultural literate and to understand the culture in order to be cultually competent and to apply it in today's society.
My student ecology is way different of that of the students in Michael Wesch's video. Differences like i am in a classroom of only 25 people compared to one student who said,"I'm in a class size of 115 students and only 18% of my teachers know my name". Also i have computers in both of the classes i am taking as to the students in Wesch's video don't have computers available to them only if they bring there own laptop. This University helps provide me with some cultural literacy and cultural competence i need in order to succeed during college. Things like getting to class on time and how expensive driving to class everyday is, and paying the meter can get expensive after a couple of days. Also things like how technology is only available in some classes and not in all classes as well as easy access to tutoring at the Student Success Center. I have learned that you must use the technology available to myself in class wisely, and not to misuse my time by doing something else. Technology is limited at this University, and how students spend their time on it instead of doing something else is going to show how culturally literate and culturally competent they become.
In some ways the University of Missouri is falling short and one of those ways is the limited technology that is available to students. In some classes I have seen there are computers available to each student and that there are computer labs in most building available for students to use at any time. Except not every student wants to stay at school and work on there homework. Instead they might want to go home and do it on their computer or laptop or maybe somewhere where it is more convenient that allows them to do their homework. This University should focus on putting computers in every class available to every student so that they can work during class. Many of my friends would rather go home and do their homework on their computer on their own time instead of doing it at school.
The University also has a problem with parking because at some locations on campus when you pay the meter a quarter it only gives you 15 minutes of parking time rather than the 30 minutes at other parking lots around campus. Paying the meter becomes expensive when you have to pay double the money to park at a closer location on campus. Students don't always have enough change with them and when you lose those extra minutes for parking closer you end up either getting a parking ticket with a $10 fine or getting lucky and leaving without a ticket. It makes students decide whether or not to park further away and risk being late to class or paying more in order to make it to class on time. Many times during these last 8 weeks i have had to pay extra for parking closer in order to get to class on time, but i have also not had enough money to pay for enough time and have been ticketed for it and i have also been lucky many times. I know that there are parking passes that the University gives to students but it costs money and not everyone wants to have to pay money for a parking pass. Although if you pay that little extra money it could save time getting to class and quite a bit of money in the long run.
For some students they have parking passes and can park in a parking garage and don't have to pay the meter which can save them a little bit of money. "Chris Smith, a student at Ohio Dominican University, posts lively weekly descriptions of his life as a college baseball player. He gets $20 a posting and has been unafraid to hide his preference for playing ball over going to class or criticizing professors for assigning too much homework. "Being in class is literally the last place you want to be at this time of the year," he wrote on April 12." This goes to show that students who play sports for the school don't seem to think that the actually learning in school part doesn't matter much more than playing their sport. One of my friends,Tony Pescaglia, who is on the University of Missouri wrestling team, told me that " Wrestling is like a job and it takes up a lot of time and it interferes with my schoolwork and is hard to manage." Its not always that the sport is better than going to class but that playing that sport occupies a lot of time and can cause the player to skip school because they just want to play their sport.Students would rather spend time playing sports or partying than being in class and learning something new that could help them become more culturally literate and culturally competent.
This university should also focus on how to reduce class sizes so that students could have a little bit more of one on one times with the teacher like i can in my english and math class. With fewer students in each class and the teacher available to only 25 or 30 students instead of 100-200 students, then the student is capable of having the teacher explain the lesson to them if they fall behind. Missouri is just like K-state in there class sizes and the amount of time students use on irrelevant objects like talking or texting on there phone during class or chatting on facebook in class instead of doing the class assignment."Led by K-State's Allen Featherstone, professor of agricultural economics, the first master of agribusiness class in 1998 had 12 students, mainly from the Great Plains region. Students and alumni of the program can now be found in 35 states and more than 18 countries. Average class size has expanded to between 20 and 25 students from every sector of the food and agribusiness industry, with an age range of 25-55." In some classes at K-state the class size isn't that big like the class size i am in now with a max of 25 people. Although there are some small class sizes at K-state like Missouri "the average time spent on facebook and cell phones in class is 2 hours" according to Michael Wesch's video. Missouri should block web sites like facebook or youtube so students can't access them during class so that they have to either pay attention or leave class. Every day i am in my math class and english class i see people browsing on facebook or looking at baseball stats on espn. None of which has anything to do with math or english at least i wouldn't think it does.
At this university many students like to hang out at Brady Commons because it is a cool place to get some food, some new school apparel at the gift store, or go bowling and play video games down on the floor beneath the food court. I have seen many people down there wasting time on playing video games over and over and bowling with friends as a way to waste time before class. Brady Commons is also a place where i see many people studying and doing homework while eating something from pizza hut or chik-fil-a. It is a good place on campus for students to be able to do some homework and get stuff done rather than going on the floor beneath and bowling. There are some computers located in the school store available for students to use for homework or other things. Missouri also gives students the ability to have a tutor at the Student Success Center located on campus which is available to students throughout the day. I know many students that go there and tell me that through tutoring they are better able to understand how to do certain math problem or how to write a better more constructive paper. Having that available to students is a great way for this university to help its students succeed and it allows them to become culturally literate and culturally competent throughout college. The Ellis library is also another way this university allows students to succeed by having a huge amount of sources of books and encyclopedias that can be used and any point during the day and also having computers to do work on while researching at the library. I think that Missouri is doing a great job in giving students the ability to take advantage of the tutoring it offers and the alomst endless information that is available at the library for research. Students can spend as much time as they want at the library to get work done because it is quiet, and there are computers to do homework on while researching but it sometimes gets a little crowded.
Overall i believe the the University of Missouri is doing a good job and that it provides ways for students to spend there time wisely to get work done for class and to allow themselves to become more culturally literate and culturally competent. Having places like the Student Success Center, Ellis library, and Brady Commons can only help students achieve during college but it is up to the student to choose to use these places and not wasting time on there phone or computer. The University need to put computers in every classroom for every student but also needs to block certain websites so that students to become distracted and lose focus during class. Although the students should be responsible for how they use the technology they have in class for the purpose it is there for, and that is so that the students can become culturally literate and culturally competent in class. The University of Missouri is not responsible for how students use this technology and that it is dependent on the student to use their time wisely in class. The University didn't have to put computers in some classes but they did in hope that the students would use it for the right reasons and not using it for irrelevant things.
