Passage Two
Only moments after announcing a policy of zero tolerance on cellphone use in the classroom, Ali Nazemi heard a ring. Nazemi, a business professor at Roanoke College in Virginia, took out a hammer and walked towards a young man. He smashed the offending device. Students’ faces turned white all over the classroom.
This episode reflects a growing challenge for American college teachers in, as the New York Times puts it, a “New Class(room) War: Teacher vs. Technology”. Fortunately, the smashed-phone incident had been planned ahead of time to demonstrate teachers’ anger at inattentive students distracted by high-tech gadgets.
At age 55, Nazemi stands on the far shore of a new sort of generational divide between teacher and student. The divide separates those who want to use technology to grow smarter from those who want to use it to get dumber. Perhaps there’s a nicer way to put it. “The baby boomers seem to see technology as information and communication,” said Michael Bugeja, the author of Interpersonal Divide: the Search for Community in a Technological Age. “Their children seem to see the same devices as entertainment and socializing.”
All the advances schools and colleges have made to supposedly enhance learning have instead enabled distraction.
Bugeja’s online survey of several hundred students found that a majority had used their cell phones, sent or read e-mail, and logged onto social-network sites during class time. A quarter of the respondents admitted they were taking the survey while sitting in a different class.
The Canadian company Smart Technologies makes and sells a program called SynchronEyes. It allows a classroom teacher to monitor every student’s computer activity and to freeze it at a click. Last year, the company sold more than 10,000 licenses. The biggest problem, said Nancy Knowlton, the company’s chief executive officer, is staying ahead of students trying to crack the program’s code.“There’s an active discussion on the Web, and we’re monitoring it.” Knowlton said. “They keep us on our toes.”
7. Prof.Nazemi smashed the student’s cellphone with a hammer because .
A. students in his class didn’t listen to his announcement
B. he hated mew gadgets such as cellphones
C. he no longer tolerated cellphone use in the classroom
D. he wanted to show how distractive the cellphone was
8. According to the passage high-tech gadgets can make youngsters .
A. more intelligent B. more stupid
C. study more easily D. get more information
9. “The baby boomers” in Paragraph 3 probably refers to .
A. the generation of people like Ali Nazemi
B. the generation of people like Ali Nazemi’s students
C. the very young babies
D. the people who were born in the 1980s
10. All the following statements are true EXCEPT .
A. schools have used advanced devices to enhance student’s learning
B. many students use their cellphones during class time
C. young people see the interpersonal devices as toys
D. schools’ advanced facilities are effectively used by students
11. The biggest problem for the Canadian company Smart Technologies is .
A. students may soon decode their program Synchron Eyes
B. where they have the right to allow teachers to monitor students
C. they must sell the program without the student’s knowing of it
D. they have to discuss whether the Synchron Eyes is useful on the Web
12. The best title of this passage is .
A. Different Opinions Between Teachers and Students
B. Classroom Chaos over Gadget Use
C. The Development of Classroom Wars
D. Keep Us on Our Toes
