On Virtual Socialization

While trying to get acquainted with the cyberworld, I noticed that more and more virtual communities are being formed. Millions of people are interacting through social networks, like facebook.  I’m even a member a several networks. 

I believe it’s not bad to make as many friends in several virtual communities. What may be bad is when we use most of our time socializing or interacting with our virtual friends in our networks.

As a parent of three teenagers, I am beginning to become threatened by my children’s “over socialization” with their friends in facebook. They spend every vacant time they have checking on their friends’ comments, answering those comments, etc. even until the wee hours of the night.

In an article I read, spending too little time for sleep is not good for the health. So, I keep on discouraging my children to spend so much time in the internet, interacting with their virtual friends. Sometimes they listen, most of the times they do not. I’m afraid that if this problem of too much virtual socialization among the young generation cannot be curbed, it would result to undesirable consequences, like poor health, poor performance in school, and lesser personal interaction with parents and other members of the family at home.

Missing the Snail Mail

During my younger years, I would always feel thrilled when I receive a letter from a dear one – a friend, family or my girlfriend. It is because I consider the letter as a representation of the person sending it. I kept those letters in a safe place because from time to time I would re-read them, especially if I feel I’m missing the person.

Now, the younger generation would probably consider me an alien if I will tell them to send a letter to their friends through the snail mail – that is through the post office. They are now used to the fast communication system we call email or electronic mail, and the use of cellular phones and other communication gadgets.  I’m trying to cope. I am now having my own email address, my cellular phone and a laptop to be connected to the internet, but I cannot help but miss that nice feeling of receiving letters on special stationery inside a perfumed envelope.

Education and Technology

Many people are saying that technology has made our lives easier. With modern technologies we can do things faster and with lesser effort.  As an agronomist, I agree with this. I have experienced how modern technologies have been able to improve crop yield. As a college instructor teaching agronomy subjects, I have already benefitted from technology, especially the internet. Because of the internet, it becomes easier for me to get information that I can use for my lectures. Also, it becomes easier and faster for me to share information with my students.

There is, however, one drawback that I have observed when it comes to technology use especially in relation to education. This is when I give assignments to my students. I would tell them they can search the internet for some references which they use. But when they submit their reports, I always notice that much of the information included there were just lifted from articles published in the internet. Many students don’t care to synthesize what they read, and some do not even acknowledge their sources of information. I’m beginning to get worried about this because if students will continue doing this practice of just lifting information from the internet and using it in their reports without citing the source, they are committing plagiarism. Plagiarism is a kind of cheating and “academic dishonesty,” so I think that teachers should take time to really check if the assignments their students would submit to them are not plagiarized. Also, teachers should be careful not to commit plagiarism themselves.

Welcome to my blog

This blog hopes to feature short items about agriculture and other related fields. I hope you will find time to read my posts.