When walking across campus, one is bound to run into one (or more) students who are busy checking something on their Blackberry or listening to the latest music on their iPod. Their eyes are glued to the little screen in front of them; their hands are covering the gadget to protect it from the glare of the sun. They are closed to the outside world; one is unable to speak to them. Never has technology penetrated so many levels of human relations, and now it is finding a secure place in the classroom as well. 

A laptop is a required component for today’s higher education, perhaps more so than even the textbook. One does not need to be a computer science major to receive assignments that depend on access to the Internet. Typed papers must be in a certain format: with extension .doc and not .docx, because not all computers have the latest version of Microsoft Word. If it is a Mac, there needs to be a version of Word for Mac. Other qualifications include the size of the margins, double or single spacing, and the font. Such petty details do not improve the paper; one wonders, however, if they should even become a factor when the main purpose is to learn. When is the last time someone submitted a hand written paper?

If the access to computers were to suddenly disappear, the educational system would suffer massive drawbacks. Technologies have changed not only the way in which assignments are submitted, but also the nature of education and the use of the classroom.

More and more professors integrate a presentation in the curriculum. Most students choose to use PowerPoint, a program allowing the author to create a presentation with various fonts, colors and outlines. As a result, instead of sorting out information to present to the class, students spend hours deciding whether their text looks better in Times New Roman or Arial. Or could it be Script MJ Bold?

It is true – and this has been so for some time – that the scholar, sitting for hours on end in the library, surrounded by stacks of books, responsibly memorizing the conjugations of Latin verbs, has disappeared. The exact moment where this ideal has vanished is unknown. Some propose that it was due to the invention of TV, others, to the invention of the first video game, still others – to the co-ed nature of schools. Nevertheless, the ideal is gone.

Now, upon entering a library, one is likely to see rows and rows of students, each crouched in front of their laptop, armed with a mug of coffee, clicking away, sending and exchanging information into the emptiness which is otherwise called the Web. In a matter of seconds, papers get submitted and the only assurance that they are received is a little window that reads “Your message has been sent.” When continuing on the stroll through the library, one does not hear the turning of the pages, but the banging of the keys as the students try to reach the minimum word count needed to complete their paper: one thousand forty four, one thousand forty five…

“That is only normal,” you might say, “we are, after all, in the twenty first century.” So we are. Let us now look at what the Latin-studying scholar has been replaced with. 

Colleges and universities must compete with the ever-changing world of technology by spending large sums of money to upgrade their facilities. Entire campuses have been upgraded with Wi-Fi technology. More computers have been purchased, and with them, licenses for more programs, which must be updated, and these updates, paid for. Only recently did the Learning Commons expand and add new computers to the already existing multitude. Even that, however, does not seem to be enough, judging by the everlasting lines for the computers in the Du Bois library.

What about the classroom? Students bring their laptops to class for the sole reason of being provided with a distraction from the lecture. The question arises, then, why come to class at all?  Institutions such as George Washington University, American University and University of Virginia ban laptops from their lecture halls. 

According to the Washington Post, some professors set out to counter their students’ distractions. They decided to use Twitter to engage students in real-time dialogue. The students are tweeting their responses to the professor’s comments, and are able to post questions anytime, even after class is over. It seems that the future of education lies not in dialogue, but in instant messaging on forums.

With all the technologies influencing our lives, even education, one must ask: what have we gained? Did we simply substitute technological convenience for human interaction?

The textbook lies abandoned under the student’s bed while the student chooses an e-book alternative that is easier to view with a new iPhone application.  Though the e-book may seem like a more “green” initiative, there is a limit to the amount of pages that can be read on a blinking screen. Or perhaps this is yet another inconvenience which hinders us from becoming more technologically advanced.

Now, when students walk around campus listening to their iPods, their ears are filled with knowledge from the audio lectures they downloaded. Only rarely does that knowledge become interrupted by the latest Britney song.

Yevgeniya Lomakina is a Collegian columnist. She can be reached at [email protected].