Are high tech classrooms better classrooms?

           Here's the question everyone seems to be asking these days. With all this new technology in schools, people seem to think the more computerized the better. Myself and the author seems to have similar opinions. In some cases, technology is extremely useful and can improve a learning environment. Other times, technology can serve as an expensive distraction or annoyance. The technology is not good if people don't know how it works or if it doesn't work.... a problem we seem to have here at HHS. Sometimes if people get used to having all this technology do all the work for them, they forget what it's like to not have it and all hell breaks loose when their laptop breaks. It shouldn't be like that. It should be used as a tool but should not be singularly relied on.
          This article uses a lot of rhetorical strategies to try to perswade readers to see past the shiney surface of technologies in schools. For example, the author uses rhetorical questions and directly addresses his readers. He writes, It sounds exciting — a rise of the machines that promises educational utopia rather than “Terminator”-style cataclysm. Or does it?" and "Ponder, for starters, the much-discussed issue of financial efficiency. " (Sirota 1). He challenges the readers preexisting opinions about the beloved apple products in classrooms. He asks another rhetorical question later in the article, "n lieu of empirical data, why are schools rushing into this brave new world of technology?" (Sirota 1). He uses a variety of examples while providing a variety of reasons to support his opinion and refutes the opposing side well, making his argument extremely strong. 


http://www.salon.com/2012/02/03/are_high_tech_classrooms_better_classrooms/