Analyze the impact of a particular trend in technology on education

WRITING ASSIGNMENT #3LENGTH: 1,300 – 1,500 WORDSRESEARCH ESSAYWriting Assignment #3 is a research essay.Courses that fulfill the General Education Requirements (GERs) at UMUC all have a commontheme — technological transformations. In following this theme in WRTG 101, we have read(and listened to) various authors on the innovations and transformations that digital technologyhas brought about in education and in other fields.Writing Assignments #1 and #2 focused on this theme of the transformations wrought by digitaltechnology. Writing Assignment #3 continues with this theme.You have two options for your Writing Assignment #3 essay topic. They are the same optionsyou had for Writing Assignment #2, the cause/effect essay.As you know, for your Writing Assignment #3 essay, you can write on the same topic that youwrote on for Writing Assignment #2. If you do this, however, you must expand and reworkyour argument and provide more researched sources. It’s not enough just to add a few wordshere and there and slip in a new reference or two. Your Writing Assignment #3 essay has to be asignificantly revised, significantly enlarged, fresh piece of work that shows you have done newresearch and thought more fully about your topic.OPTION 1Technology and EducationAnalyze the impact of a particular trend in technology on education.Here are some examples of the sort of thing you could analyze.•The potential impact of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) onhigher educationYou might focus on a particular field of study for this choice•The impact of online courses on education. You might focus on a particularfield of studyfor this choice•The impact of digital media on online courses•The impact of the computer on writing courses or courses in otherdisciplines•The impact of certain forms of technology on reading skills or readinghabits•Whether video games should be introduced into schools and used to helpeducatestudentsOPTION 2Technology and Your Field of StudyAnalyze the impact of technology on a field of study of your choice.Here are some examples of the sort of thing you could analyze.••••••The impact of mobile devices on cybersecurityThe impact of the Internet on the field of advertisingThe impact of cloud computing on a particular business fieldThe impact of the Internet in an area of communication studiesThe impact of the Internet on global marketing strategiesThe impact of a particular type of technology on health careSTRUCTURE/ORGANIZATIONYour essay should have the following:•an effective introductory paragraph containing a clear, one-sentence thesisstatement(underline the thesis statement).•at least three body paragraphs, each one discussing a major point andincorporating yoursource material to support that point and the thesis•an effective concluding paragraph that reiterates the essay’s main idea (thethesis)Since this is a research essay, you might want to cite sources in the opening paragraph.You will likely need to provide the following••a brief historical background on your topicdefinitions of any terms you think require clarification for the readerRESEARCHYou are required to use at least six researched sources for this essay.At least four of these six sources must be acquired through the databases subscribed to byUMUC’s Information and Library Services.At least three sources must come from scholarly journals.Keep in mind that if your sources are scholarly, the argument you make in the essay will bemore persuasive. For this reason, try to use all scholarly sources if you can.You can cite more than six sources. The requirement for six sources is a minimum. Use more ifyou need to.FORMATYou should employ APA format throughout your Writing Assignment #3 essay.Chapter 13 of our textbook (Writing for Success) covers APA format (pages 491-537). Youdon’t have to read this whole chapter. Think of it as a resource you can access to answerquestions you may have about particular aspects of APA style.Here are the major components of an APA-style essay (taken from page 492 of Writing forSuccess:— Title page— Abstract— Body, which includes the following:Headings and subheadings, if necessary, to organize the contentIn-text citations of research sources— References pageAll these components must be saved in one document, not as separate documents.Our textbook also adds the following (from page 497):APA style requirements address specific formatting concerns, such as margins, pagination, andheading styles, within the body of the paper.Use these general guidelines to format the paper:1. Set the top, bottom, and side margins of your paper at 1 inch.2. Use double-spaced text throughout your paper.3. Use a standard font, such as Times New Roman or Arial, in a legible size (10- to 12-point).4. Use continuous pagination throughout the paper, including the title page and the referencessection. Page numbers appear flush right within your header.You should follow this APA format exactly except for one item.For Writing Assignment #3, you do not need an abstract.When you submit your Writing Assignment #3 essay, please title your Word document withyour last name and the assignment number. Like this:Lastname – Assn 3PREPARATIONSince at least three researched sources for this Writing Assignment #3 essay must come fromscholarly journals, you will have to distinguish between sources of information that are and arenot academically acceptable. The link below takes you to an Identify and Locate ScholarlyJournals tutorial that will help make distinctions clear for you.http://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/scholarlyjournals.cfmThis Writing Assignment #3 essay requires that you some fairly serious online research.As you know, online academic research involves essentially the same basic operations that aGoogle search involves: you use words as search terms to access the information in databases.As you also know, though, academic research can be more demanding than a Google search,and the more knowledgeable you are about how to conduct such research the better.The section below contains a series of links to tutorials on various aspects of academic onlineresearch. All of these tutorials are audio/visual presentations. None of them is over five minutesin length.SUBJECT TERMShttp://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/subjectterms_tutorial.cfmTHESAURIhttp://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/thesaurus_tutorial.cfmTRUNCATIONhttp://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/truncation_tutorial.cfmBOOLEAN OPERATORSANDhttp://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/booleanand_tutorial.cfmORhttp://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/booleanor_tutorial.cfmNOThttp://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/booleannot_tutorial.cfmDATABASE CITATIONShttp://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/databasecitations_tutorial.cfmEVALUATING WEBSITEShttp://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/websiteevaluation_tutorial.cfmThere are two basic kinds of research essays:•expository essays that give information to the reader and synthesize thedifferentviewpoints on an issue•persuasive essays that try to persuade the reader to accept a particularassertion orpositionThe examples below illustrate these two approaches using the topic of video games as teachingtools in middle school science courses.For an expository essay, you would synthesize information on this topic, citing articles,research studies, and other pieces of evidence for and against using video games in middleschool science courses and then sum up your findings with a general statement.For a persuasive essay, you could take the position that video games should be integrated intoschool science curricula to teach middle school students. You would then cite articles, researchstudies, and other pieces of relevant evidence to support the claim that video games canenhance instruction in science classes and will help middle school students learn science moreeffectively.For Writing Assignment #3, you should construct a persuasive essay.There are three basic approaches to organizing a persuasive essay:•••Classical (deductive) approachInductive approachRefutation approachThe video tutorial linked below has a useful discussion of these three approaches.http
://info.umuc.edu/academicwrtg/WRTG101_101S/wa3_lecture_f.html