Critical Viewpoints Essay Example

Most people have perceived diversification of education as one of the main essential viewpoints of society. This is because knowledge is the key to ensuring the organization develops future leaders in their professional endeavours. Some of them are embracing advancement of technological teaching devices for example students being able to learn through the laptop using internet while others are still stuck in the handprint era where textbooks are the only source of learning, bringing diverse sentiments and viewpoints on whether to fully embrace teaching through tablets and laptop using internet to source for educational materials and only exclude this in practical subjects or stick with face to face teaching and textbooks as the primary source of reference (Lai, 2019). For example in the United States of America companies that publish books generate approximately US $11 billion of the GDP, with leading publishing companies constituting over 85% of the global handbook industry and control of information. On the other hand, the laptop and tablet industry contributes about the US $18 billion of the GDP. This leaves us with a critical point to reckon with concerning economics. (Lai, 2019).This paper will focus on whether to adopt the laptop and tablet method as a learning aid or to stick with face to face teaching method and continue to produce more textbooks.

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In the American population about 52 per cent of adults and 80 per cent of teenagers aged between seventeen and eighteen years, as well as 40 per cent of children aged below ten years use laptops and tablets to source for information the rest are still sourcing for information from textbooks. This is contrary to the backdrop which has created a debate on whether to stick with sourcing information from tablets, laptops or use books in education and what will be the economic implication of the decision taken.

Recently the utilisation of tablets to source for information online and to exploit online reading amongst other automated facilities for learners in every educational level of K-12 has overtaken the need of printing a lot of textbooks because it is more reasonable to embrace digital learning and utilising digital books (Lau, 2018). Economically this is a smart move because this will help to generate the US $18 billion which is slightly higher regarding a contribution than income generated from the publishing of textbooks. Concerning information students and teachers sourcing for information online acquire vast details and does not get limited like those who only rely on books in obtaining information, ironically even those using textbooks result to looking for information on the internet. Laptops and tablets can hold hundreds of textbooks, and their availability is cheaper than textbooks where you need to buy several to get vast information on the topic you are researching on. Finally regarding environmental conservation resulting in e-reading positively impacts of the environment as opposed to producing so many textbooks which are not reusable and end up being waste to the environment (Lau, 2018).In this day and technology, we need to find a way of embracing paperless solutions like the way we have already adopted paperless transactions and other operations like purchasing and supplies, that is precisely what we should do in our institutions concerning sourcing for information for educational purposes.

However what makes this subject critical it is on the constant argument on this particular topic, for example, those opposing use of tablets and laptops try to argue out their point on how expensive it is to acquire a gadget; moreover, there are so many distractions for the students during learning they might search for inappropriate information. Another point they bring forth is buying a tablet or laptop requires reliable internet services provision amongst additional logistics for efficient access to online materials hence power outage, or interruption means can interrupt the ease of finding information. When students start using laptops and tablets while learning will make them have multiple interruptions during the reading sessions as their attention can be easily distracted and this will hinder consistent learning. Hence using textbooks will reduce the disruption in students and enhance on consistency while learning (Aravena, 2017). Diversification of education has been a critical aspect because of so many opposing and proposing arguments, and it is hard to get people relying on one point only especially in our case on whether to continue with using textbooks as a learning aid or adopt the use of tablets and laptops to source for information.

Initially, utilising tablets will help the learners to access more learning resources online within limited time hence it is an effective means concerning time (Lai, 2019). However, the use of these technological devices has been attributed to be at risk of getting health risks like fatigue, vision syndrome, neck and back pains, as well as musculoskeletal disorders associated with posture and the duration the learners spend while using the tablet and laptop devices, but textbook will have no health concern on the learner.

As a result of numerous simplification and access to online materials makes them relatively cheap to access as opposed to textbooks which are rather expensive regarding the cost of buying and obtaining them (Lai, 2019). Diversification and accessibility of online materials have led to the growth of different shipping and renting companies like Kindle, Amazon and Scribd which eases the access and availability of numerous books globally hence use of tablets and laptops have reduced the challenges in the cost of buying and accessing of textbooks (Aravena, 2017). Adopting online reading is more user-friendly than the use of books because when a learner makes notes and highlights the reading facility, they can make reversible clean up without affecting the leaders who will come in the future, but use of textbooks will make permanent markings when highlighting keynotes and this will change the reading by future learners. Use of print textbooks is subject to wear and tear over a period if physically mishandled, unlike online sources which are not subject to any of that.

Conclusion

It is evident that diversification in education is a critical component as it is broad and has been subject to many arguments and counter-arguments. It is also apparent that obtaining information online has more advantages as opposed to the use of textbooks and that it will contribute a lot to the economy regarding revenue injection in the GDP than the use of textbooks. Most academic experts recommend learners to result in sourcing information online and those with special needs to be provided with printed learning materials that suit their needs. Conclusively, the negative and positive attributes show that diversification of education as a critical viewpoint especially when it comes to the use and adoption of tablets and laptops versus the continual use of textbooks and how this affects the need for or against digital technology or traditional print resources as learning methods.

References

Lai, J. W., & Bower, M. (2019). How is the use of technology in education evaluated? A systematic review. Computers & Education.

Lau, K. H., Lam, T., Kam, B. H., Nkhoma, M., Richardson, J., & Thomas, S. (2018). The role of textbook learning resources in e-learning: A taxonomic study. Computers & Education, 118, 10-24.

Aravena, P. C., Schulz, K., Parra, A., Perez-Rojas, F., Rosas, C., & Cartes-Velasquez, R. (2017). Use of Electronic Versus Print Textbooks by Chilean Dental Students: A National Survey. Journal of dental education, 81(3), 293-299.