Decision Making

Some programs I use in order to help me make decisions are Google, the weather channel, and MyClasses. I use Google for just about everything if I am unsure of a multiple choice question on a practice question is an example.  I use the weather channel to decide what I will wear for the day and I use MyClasses to check my current grade in classes to see whether I will put in a little bit of effort or a lot of effort for studying.

Ethics

After reading articles on technology and how it affects plagiarism I also believe that technology is a huge gateway to plagiarism.  You can Google just about anything, copy and paste paragraphs on a topic and then use the thesaurus to change a couple words around.  There are also websites where you can actually pay someone to write an essay for you.  As the use of plagiarism increases because of technology so do methods to prevent or catch it.  Many teachers now a days require students to turn in their paper via email or through a certain website that will scan the paper for plagiarism.  This is a very good and  convenient way to check for plagiarism but I have had a bad encounter with a site like this.  My literature teacher had us do a research paper on a book we read and then had us turn it in through a website that detected for plagiarism.  When I turned it in the website showed that I had plagiarized for using words like "in", "always", and "as well".  This website detected every little detail even if it was not plagiarism.

Ethical Behavior

This past summer I worked as a hostess at a local restaurant one night there was a really bad storm and a gas leak near my house.  My dad kept calling me at work to tell me to take a different way home and I am not supposed to answer my phone but since he kept calling I finally answered.  An old couple came in while I was on the phone and the lady was not very happy I was not there to help her the exact moment she  came in, while I was on the phone I could hear her say "that is so rude".  After a minute or two I got off the phone and asked if I could help them and the old lady just could not drop it and proceeded to tell me how rude it was that I was on the phone and I very rudely said back to her that it was only for one minute and my father was concerned with my safety so you are just going to have to deal with it.  She ended up complaining to my manager and I got written up.  In this situation my manager questioned my ethical behavior and wondered if he should give me another chance or not, because I had worked there for over 2 years, and never had a complaint, he assumed the old lady was exaggerating and allowed me to keep my job.

Technology in education can be a very good thing but overall I think it has had a large negative effect on learning.  Students rely so much on technology and are easily distracted by technology these days.  It is so easy to google something and look on wikipedia sites that students do as little as possible now a days to just get a passing grade.  Everything is online or has to do with technology and I feel as if it is not reliable enough and causes people to not think on their own.  Also it has had a big effect on social relations, people do not know how to be sociable face to face because they do everything from behind a screen.  Students use web slang when communicating with professors or even when writing a paper, this is very unprofessional.  Technology does have some great benefits within the classroom but overall I believe that it has had a substantial negative effect.