Teenagers, Computers, and Literacy :: Personal Narrative Education Essays

Teenagers, Computers, and LiteracyMy sister, Tiffany, is a senior at County gritty School in Smallville, Ohio, a suburb of Colombus. She is expected by teachers and peers to be able to communicate effectively with the use of figurers. Through her daily interactions with the calculator due to schoolwork and conversing using Instant Messenger, her literacy practices baffle been affected. On an norm day, Tiffany spends thirty minutes class period on the computer. This includes examineing emails, reading selective information from websites, and reading for homework. For an additional ninety minutes per day, her computer-based reading is devoted to reading responses from her Instant Messenger conversations. This time is as well as shared with computer-based written material as she types her own responses to her online conversation. She typically spends an additional hour writing on the computer for typing homework, papers, or emails. Tiffany feels that her time spent reading and writing on the computer has affected her literacy in a validating way. She is able to read hurried and more efficiently. I have learned to type faster and beget more aware of what I am typing. Since I have spent a lot of time reading on the computer, it has helped me wrench a faster reader and helped me learn to skim through inconstant information. This is understandable because with any kind of reading, the more you practice it, the better you become at picking out the main ideas and focusing on the historic points. The computer has affected Tiffanys writing skills in a positive way. When writing a compositional paper, she is able to utilize the computers assets to improve the quality of her writing. The use of the Thesaurus function has made her literary productions seem more professional. It is much easier to use the Thesaurus function on the computer than having to refer to a book. This works for Tiffany when she is unable to pinpoint the consider word that she is lookin g for, but it may not work for everyone. She is also able to refer to online resources while writing a research paper. The accessibility of an online encyclopedia is beneficial when gathering information on a topic. Also, the qualification to refer to other Word documents, sometimes notes saved on another(prenominal) file, increases her productivity when writing a paper. With so many positive attributes of the computer, thither are also some drawbacks. Tiffany finds that her ability to compose creative writing is hindered because of the computer.