Synthesis Time

This is my awesome, well structured outline...

Stoll-
Filmstrips, you don’t have to think
Social skills diminished, Interaction, parents, teachers… 3+4= ‘7 what?’
Don’t need them for jobs of the future, I.E. plumbers…need people skills
School ain’t fun, it’s supposed to be about Discipline, commitment, responsibility
Eventually libraries disappear
Angry about this situation
Ohmann-
Since computers parental involvement skyrocketed…Colorado springs
Union City NJ, highest test scores… Hundred W. VA. also
Larger educational implications are unknown
Kill switched to avoid internet distractions
Education is big business and Business calls the political tune
Big business sells to universities, then universities to students, what happens to teachers?
Easier to plagiarize…then new software to catch it
Good and bad, use it, don’t abuse it

First draft.... rough start, but im working out the bugs.
Stoll opens with a story that our generation may or may not relate to. He looks back to his school experiences and picks out filmstrips. For him a filmstrip lesson was a time for him to quit paying attention, zone out, and stop thinking. He challenges his readers to recall three filmstrips that really impacted our life, but assumes that we can’t. Then Stoll asks us to name three teachers and implies that can be done easily and carries far more importance. Of course we remember our teachers because they taught us for a year at a time, every subject back in grade school. So how does this relate back to filmstrips? I’ve never been through a year long course of nothing but video, if I did I would surely remember it as well as any teacher. When Ohmann speaks on the subject of technology in school he cites a documented fact; At least two schools, one in Union City, NJ and one in Hundred, W. VA., report drastically improved test scores after incorporating computers and technology. This won’t be the case with all schools. Computers can’t help every child in ever school but it helped these children.
A big concern these days is parental involvement. Stoll worries that parents will sit there children down in front of a computer and walk away. He notes that computers can’t be as interactive and intuitive as a human. Three plus four is seven, a computer can do that. But can a computer give you seven and accept the millions of abstract answers a teacher wants in critical thinking? Ohmann answers this like any sane person, no a computer can’t do all those things. But being objective, as Stoll is obviously not, Ohmann reports that parental involvement has ‘skyrocketed’ at a school in Colorado Springs since the introduction of computers.
Stoll believes that technology and computers are becoming too big a part of our curriculum. He believes in the next hundred years we’ll still need plumbers, and janitor, and mechanics. This assumption is, of course, very logical. We will need all these professions, probably forever, but technology gives us the opportunity to make them easier and faster. Ohmann points out that schools and universities are designed to prepare students for the real world and prepare us for the job market. Whether it’s good or bad, technology is important in our schools because that’s what employers are looking for.

They Say/ I Say

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/opinion/lweb06guns.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

In my search for a writing that contains 'They Say/I Say' i came across a letter written and published in the New York Times as an editorial. The topic is gun control. The original editorial claims that a new bill, the NICS Improvement Act of 2007, has nothing to do with veterans. The rebuttal letter, written by Josh Horwitz, is a perfect example of referring to what others say, then jumping in the argument. Horwitz quotes word for word what was written in a previous editorial then he argues that the editorial he is responding to is incorrect. He has evidence that the new bill was modified in its late stages. With the help of information from a well known organization, the NRA, Horowitz aims to clear the air. It's clear that the purpose of this writing is to correct a flawed argument and reassure veterans that their rights are not being changed.