The Digital Classroom - Essay Example

Market researchers have conducted various studies analyzing the trends of the students towards using smartphones and tablet PCs for learning and they have found the following:"The survey proves that mobile devices and technology have changed the traditional college experience and the role technology plays in students' academic abilities and success," said Jessica Nelson of CourseSmart. "Today's students are truly carrying a digital backpack." (Olavsrud, 2011)Keeping up with the increasing trends, instructors are also doing their best to use the digital means for teaching.

The research concludes that about ninety-seven percent of the students receive digital course material from their instructors each day.Cyberbullying is a serious issue in today’s schools and businesses. If everyone adopted and educated people on netiquette guidelines would this issue be solved? Explain.Formally speaking, Kawalski et al. (2008) states that,“Cyberbullying is bullying through email, instant messaging (IMing), chat room exchanges, Web site posts, or digital messages or images send to a cellular phone or personal digital assistant (PDA)” (as quoted from Olweus,2011).

Cyberbullying has been on an alarming rise for the past 5 years. According to statistics published in the ‘CyberBullying Alert’ site, the National Crime Prevention Centre has quoted the following statistics about cyberbullying in the last five years:More than 40% of teenagers surfing the internet have reported being bullied online.The reasons behind Cyber Bullying primarily are that due to ineffective and non-promulgation of privacy laws abusers tend to make false identities over social media and thus openly abuse other users often youngsters.

It is because of cyberbullying and some other misuse of the social web that it is highly recommended that ethical and social guidelines be defined and followed whenever interacting over the said media. There are high possibilities that due to the promulgation of internet etiquette guidelines cyberbullying would reduce considerably.The world is not flat for all of us. Consider a haircut…can you outsource that? What about repairs on your home? Is that service part of the “flat” world coined by Friedman?

So then, what is globalization all about and how is technology one of the drivers?The world definitely is not flat in line with what Friedman says. There are geographical and cultural constraints that have straight away been neglected by Friedman in his study. Naturally, as the above statement poses, for a territorial specification that a small apartment in Virginia would possess plumbers cannot be hired from India as they would have absolutely no idea of Virginia’s demography, etc. However, this indeed is true that the digital age has been driven by technology other than anything else.

Globalization basically derives itself from the communications arena. The communication links that have developed worldwide connect individuals across the globe and round the clock irrespective of the time differences. Thanks to the ever-evolving technology that the physical divide among the regions got minimized and human society became a Global society instead.Richard Florida quotes that instead of being flat the world is rather made up of digital spikes that surround urban areas leaving behind the less developed areas in their race for development.

(Florida, 2008)