Chapman, Jordan: Bucket List

In today’s society teachers and students somewhat clash. Most professors still live in the past, and today’s students are simply passing them by. Technology plays a big role is how students are more advanced than their teachers. If you gave a teacher an “iPhone” they would rip their hair out trying to figure out how the contraption works. Whereas the phones that students carry are or are similar to the iPhone are amazing because the things that you can do with this device. Another advancement that today’s generation has over many older faculty members is in computing. Most technology advances at a very fast rate and the only reason the current “Internet Class” generation is so good at keeping up is because how much they spend using computers. Half of my professors can remember when the computer first came out and how mind-blowing they were. Now, those same people own computers but can only do the simple things with them, such as sending email and using word processors. The Internet has also changed and now astonishingly fast. Professors connected using dial-up which is very slow.

            

 Many professors that still teach complain about how little money they get for work. They are asked to do more work and are paid the same pay they have always gotten, causing some to become bitter.  A few of the things that are asked of the professors are requests such as helping pay for housing or taking up another class without any compensation. Professors in private schools, on the other hand, have never been paid higher.

             

Students in the “Internet Class” are considered to have an easier time in class. They no longer have to sit through the whole class or write down every word verbatim. Now they hardly have to meet the teacher, whether enrolled in an online class or retrieving notes online. In one of my classes I recently discovered that all the notes I have been jotting down can be found on my Blackboard on my professor’s page. I still attend the class regardless because I like being involved in discussions, but if it weren’t for that and never knowing when a quiz was I would not need to go until exam days. Online classes almost require students to teach themselves. This a new phenomenon that is changing the way that faculty teach. Students never really meet their professors and the only relationship they have is through e-mail. Instead of getting hands-on help they must ask teachers online and hope they explain the topic well enough. Faculty members sometimes have a hard time dealing with these changes and can make the process of asking and answering questions hard students and themselves.

           

             

The sad thing about life is that eventually everybody is out of the loop. We students, just as our professors, will discover many things are going to change rapidly and we won’t know what to do. We will, in turn, become them. As technology becomes more and more advanced. My generation’s aspiring professors will probably be bitter when forced to change the way they teach. Those same teachers will also probably be upset with their increased workloads. Faculty members of post-1980 and everyone considered in the “Internet Class” may be quite different on how they do things, but all in all we are all going to wind up old and behind the times.