Union

At the intersect between education and technology

Advancing Innovations in Post-Secondary Education

The first joy that many of us attribute to being in a post-secondary education is the moment the letter of acceptance arrives. Stacked with it, potentially a few other acceptance letters, and maybe a few rejection letters as well. We bide our time and wait for the first day of classes, many of us packing our bags and leaving home for the first time, while never knowing how research paper writing is done.

Entering this type of education can be a far cry from the lives we led before. Maybe in a previous life you were a high school student, or maybe you have left the work force for re-education. Either way, it is a new way of learning and students must be prepared to write papers while drawing on corrected information.

Gone are the days of pen (or pencil) to paper and welcome the world of BYOD – Bring Your Own Device. Today these education devices are being used by many to communicate through different devices. For example, Colleges and Universities are using Skype to minimize classroom environments, which could in turn decrease distractions for other students due to classmates working on other school work during these times.

However, education technologies are not all Skype and minimal interactions. Many students are benefiting from the availability of the internet. While using these technologies can be antagonizing for educators who have failed to maintain with the pace of societal changes, these same machines are improving students’ abilities to create dynamic research papers. There is the ability to fill in the gaps where a Teachers Assistant has not. This is in ways such as a full understanding of how to write a decent paper.

A decent paper that includes a solid hypothesis, a structured analysis and a critical look at all sides of the proposed approach. Not all TAs can provide this, and a simple tool like the internet can help. This educational technology has a plethora of people whom are willing to support a student through these academically difficult times.

Even a simple tool like YouTube, can teach someone face to face, how to properly research an academic writing paper. There are many websites and articles that can provide misleading information about educational technologies that are available, therefore having someone to visually provide cues can improve student performance.

Finally, it is important for a student to note, that the person teaching them was once a student too. The difference is that the person educating them may not have had the advantages of learning how to cite or write research papers from multiple sources. They were at a disadvantage, because if they did not understand how it was taught, a book was still their only resource.

But this is not all that research writing is about.

Connecting old ideas with new ones, advocating for a solid stance on the position of the paper and providing reasonable, supported documentation is the final step. Research paper writing is challenging, especially when coming from high school or different employment, but if utilizing proper educational technologies, there should be lowered difficult but it is important to reflect essential services if necessary.

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