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The internet has played a major role on my education, and I know I'm not the only one to admit it. The internet, as classified right now, is an information service -- as a student this means the internet is an AMAZING Tool. I have used it all the time to look up information about a problem I was having in a class or just keeping up to date with recent scientific advancements. Despite it being such a great tool, students are still abusing it by using it for plagiarism and cheating on their homework.
When looking at these students who abuse the benefits of the internet, it makes me almost sad, because they aren't learning anything. These students are just using it to plagiarize, steal information and look up summaries on books they were supposed to read for their English classes. All this plagiarizing leads to a downward spiral of students' educations, and I've seen it firsthand. In my AP Physics class, there was a guy that I knew and we sat at the same table for most of the year together. His name was Kaden. He seemed pretty bright; he was good at math and generally understood what was going on in class. However, more often than not he would go online to find the answers to the homework given so he could shed some time for his work-outs or simply just to play video games. I wasn't at all surprised the when we got our scores back and he told me he had only scored a two on test despite having a "B" average in the class. It just goes to show, that grades aren't always a true representation of how a good a person is at school.
There are also the legal issues of plagiarizing. I'll never forget the day that my sophomore honors English teacher went on a rant about plagiarizing essays from off the internet and tore apart someone's essay on Huckleberry Finn. She blew up in front of the whole class, making sure that we all knew the punishments of plagiarizing in college and how it would get us kicked out if we ever did it then. Even though at first she was really set off by it, it turned out to be a good learning experience for the class. As far as that kid that copied the essay from the internet, he was kicked out of the class and I never really saw him around after that.
Despite these seemingly endless stories about how plagiarizing has taken over schools since the rise of the internet, I still believe that the internet is an amazing tool for us students. Sure, there will always be those who plagiarize, but I feel like it is an advantage for the students who know how to utilize the internet. I grew up with the rise of the computer and the internet, and so I know how to get about the internet quite well. Whether it was for an animal report in elementary school, or for a few or five my AP tests in my senior year, the internet has always been one of my go-to favorites for finding information. With all the growth of the internet, there's also been the growth and development of websites like Khan Academy and the ever updating Wikipedia, studying has never been easier. I've used them, as well as several others to help me study. No matter what the subject is, I was able to find a website or at least a few videos to help me study for each of my classes, especially my physics, chemistry and calculus classes.
Now, I don't want to come off as if it's because of the internet that I was able to study, but it did help me whenever I needed help understanding a topic or looking further into one that my outdated text book or teacher would have to offer. On the topic of outdated text books, I've always had to return them at the end of the year or suffer a few hundred dollar loss. Not to mention the fact that those books were sometimes a few years old, and one of them was over a decade old! Some of the stuff wasn't even recent! But online, you can find information that's came out disproving or explaining how something like thermodynamics or circuit boards work. There's also the fact that anyone can find the scientific journals of experiments and tests online without trying to have a mediator which may under-conceptualize the topic or dismiss a few little important details.
The internet has obviously helped me learn much more than what I'd ever be able to learn in the average high school classroom. It's a great tool for us students, but it is also for that reason a temptation to be lazy. For me, its role is like a personal tutor. It's possible for it to be my friend, but also be my worst enemy. I hope that one day, more of my fellow peers and students of the future will strive for the academic benefits the internet has to offer them rather than give into the tempting offer of shedding time and also knowledge just to have an extra hour of wasted time.