‘Surfeading’ is not enough
By George P. Lumayag
Education is one of the priorities of parents. They help their kids to acquire advanced knowledge and skills for them to face the challenges of life and profession.
Parents would prefer much for tutoring services to guide their kids do their assignments. They even buy a powerful computer and subscribe telcos to offer them Internet access. Undeniably online PC… provides easy and effective access to millions of websites, thousands of books and materials that students can simply click on and start browsing. This technological tool will undoubtedly contribute to the students’ academic performance…. But, for me, it is not enough.
David Brooks shares one done research from the University of Tennessee which… reveals that children who read real books ended up with higher reading scores than their peers. Richard Allington gave 852 disadvantaged students 12 books of their choice to take home at the end of the school year. After three years, they outperformed their classmates…. What a very long span of research had been done justly to get across these findings. Shall we offer our students with 12 books of their choice for them to study during summer vacation?
In this computer age, what the Internet can offer? … Brooks adds another striking study by Jacob Vigdor and Helen Ladd of Duke’s Stanford School of Public Policy. “They examined computer use among half-million 5th grade through 8th graders (second year high school) in North Carolina and found that the spread of home computers and high-speed Internet access was associated with significant declines in math and reading scores. And this study used data from 2000 to 2005 before Twitter and Facebook took off!.... Well, in my common sense, disregarding Facebook and other social networking sites, several tests were totally based on real hardbound books not from the friendly websites.
Brooks, however, does not discredit the educational contributions of Internet use. Advocates of Internet and computer use for learning say that these tools actually improve a person’s capability to process information and focus attention…They conclude that “the Internet is a boon to schooling and not a threat”…. For me, student shall only browse those educational websites.
In addition, according to him that the Internet undoubtedly seems to offer a wide range of learning advantages. It helps you become well informed-knowledgeable about current events, the latest controversies and important treads.
According to Fr. Francis Ongkingco on his published article dated June 23, 2012 in Cebu Daily News, he said that despite this positive aspect of this hi-tech communication media, one can still list down a lot more advantages by extracting and absorbing information from an honest-to-goodness hardbound book. He suggested some, perhaps taken for granted rewards of booking (reading and learning from a real book) over surfeading (using the net as the main source of learning):
a. Focus and attention span… The book is not engaged and conquered until one has set to read it from page one to page end. And according to some, Internet cannot offer something as engaging because one can easily ‘disconnect’ either by turning the computer off or by multi-tasking to one webpage or webtask (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to another…. For me, this is because that Internet is a world wide web with millions of websites accessible in a mere clicking.
b. Developing other virtues. Yes, I admit that now, Internet smashes hierarchy. As what Fr. Francis stressed that this digital culture is egalitarian where the young are more accomplished than the old, and there dominates a free-wheeling disrespectful anti-authority disputation. I think that the youth shall or must develop their personal discipline and they shall be oriented to useful browsing and avoid superficial surfeading.
c. Sense of accomplishment and self-esteem. Only an individual can build an Internet counterculture that will be better attract people to do the same. Or a parent shall encourage his/her child to choose some good books and put up his/her own mini-library at home. Then, surfeading shall be fully under parental guidance; and in school, teachers shall monitor students’ Internet browsing.
Education is one of the priorities of parents. They help their kids to acquire advanced knowledge and skills for them to face the challenges of life and profession.
Parents would prefer much for tutoring services to guide their kids do their assignments. They even buy a powerful computer and subscribe telcos to offer them Internet access. Undeniably online PC… provides easy and effective access to millions of websites, thousands of books and materials that students can simply click on and start browsing. This technological tool will undoubtedly contribute to the students’ academic performance…. But, for me, it is not enough.
David Brooks shares one done research from the University of Tennessee which… reveals that children who read real books ended up with higher reading scores than their peers. Richard Allington gave 852 disadvantaged students 12 books of their choice to take home at the end of the school year. After three years, they outperformed their classmates…. What a very long span of research had been done justly to get across these findings. Shall we offer our students with 12 books of their choice for them to study during summer vacation?
In this computer age, what the Internet can offer? … Brooks adds another striking study by Jacob Vigdor and Helen Ladd of Duke’s Stanford School of Public Policy. “They examined computer use among half-million 5th grade through 8th graders (second year high school) in North Carolina and found that the spread of home computers and high-speed Internet access was associated with significant declines in math and reading scores. And this study used data from 2000 to 2005 before Twitter and Facebook took off!.... Well, in my common sense, disregarding Facebook and other social networking sites, several tests were totally based on real hardbound books not from the friendly websites.
Brooks, however, does not discredit the educational contributions of Internet use. Advocates of Internet and computer use for learning say that these tools actually improve a person’s capability to process information and focus attention…They conclude that “the Internet is a boon to schooling and not a threat”…. For me, student shall only browse those educational websites.
In addition, according to him that the Internet undoubtedly seems to offer a wide range of learning advantages. It helps you become well informed-knowledgeable about current events, the latest controversies and important treads.
According to Fr. Francis Ongkingco on his published article dated June 23, 2012 in Cebu Daily News, he said that despite this positive aspect of this hi-tech communication media, one can still list down a lot more advantages by extracting and absorbing information from an honest-to-goodness hardbound book. He suggested some, perhaps taken for granted rewards of booking (reading and learning from a real book) over surfeading (using the net as the main source of learning):
a. Focus and attention span… The book is not engaged and conquered until one has set to read it from page one to page end. And according to some, Internet cannot offer something as engaging because one can easily ‘disconnect’ either by turning the computer off or by multi-tasking to one webpage or webtask (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to another…. For me, this is because that Internet is a world wide web with millions of websites accessible in a mere clicking.
b. Developing other virtues. Yes, I admit that now, Internet smashes hierarchy. As what Fr. Francis stressed that this digital culture is egalitarian where the young are more accomplished than the old, and there dominates a free-wheeling disrespectful anti-authority disputation. I think that the youth shall or must develop their personal discipline and they shall be oriented to useful browsing and avoid superficial surfeading.
c. Sense of accomplishment and self-esteem. Only an individual can build an Internet counterculture that will be better attract people to do the same. Or a parent shall encourage his/her child to choose some good books and put up his/her own mini-library at home. Then, surfeading shall be fully under parental guidance; and in school, teachers shall monitor students’ Internet browsing.