Research Topic - Darby Jackson

For my Research Argument Assignment, I have decided to write about the change in technology in college and how or if it has changed how people learn and how successfully they learn. As my parents were visiting me this weekend, a conversation came up about how college was for them back in the 1980s. And when I say everything has changed, I literally mean everything has changed. From how they got into their dorms to how they registered for classes or how they got into sporting events—everything’s different now and it’s all because of technology. This was also only thirty-ish years ago. All of this has changed in only twenty years. So after this conversation, I decided it would be a cool topic to research. Questions guiding my research include, “How has technology changed college life?”, “Has increased technology on college campuses taken away or added to the full college experience?”, and “Has learning become more successful with technology in college and has it caused an increase or decrease of knowledge?” These questions will be important to answer in order to reach a final conclusion. I hypothesize that even though technology has most definitely changed college and how certain things are done, it has not taken away from the experience and does not make people less intelligent. It simply gives everyone more resources to learn and get the most out of the education they are pursuing. Some possible resources may be articles or books written about the evolution of technology in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. These sources will help me see exactly what has changed over the past 30 years. “So what?”, you may ask. It is important for us to see how the past was and what we are dealing with now. We all know for a fact that technology has changed the way we do things, but has it changed us for the better or for the worse? This is something we need to know, whether we like it or not.