We all know the value of google scholar so we can’t say technology is bad. It is good if used properly. However, there are also many pitfalls like you mentioned and as graduate students, we are expected to know this…or we will come to know this to be successful students. That being said, I will agree that many people’s attention spans are quite shorter than it should be. Is it because of technology or are people just bored? I remember my first year chemistry class having to listen to the Professor go on and on for 3 hours. I don’t like chemistry so that would have been a good time to be distracted. So really, it may be that people are try to be too many things at the same time(thanks to technology) but not interested enough to not be distracted.

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What i think would be lost in over-dependence on technology is the ability to think through problems which is one of the ways we increase our mental abilities. The focus nowadays is on the solution rather than the process but it is the process that makes one exercise some area of the brain that hitherto would lay dormant. I could easily solve an equation using online tools but the process that leads to the solution will be lost on me and the next time i need to solve this problem, i will have to use the tool again. This tool might guarantee that I don’t make a mistake but I’m no better mathematically.

Isn’t is ‘wonderful’ how a Professor will engage in great critical pedagogical practices with his research assistants but resort to ineffective methods in the classroom? The attitude of not engaging students in the classroom may actually be to protect the instructor form embarrassing situations where he/she cannot provide an answer to a question.

I definitely see your point and I agree as well. I went through high school and college the “old school” way and the advantages of that is evident in my work today. A motivated student will use all methods, connected or not, to understand what he/she is interested in. I feel like there are loop holes which lazy students can exploit in connected learning. It also seems like students’ abilities become less defined which make evaluation more difficult. We shouldn’t forget that today’s technological breakthroughs are the results of traditional methods of learning.

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