Introduction
Here we have two articles which vividly describe the problems that can appear with your computer or network. The articles give certain advice about the way one should act in the situation when the computer broke down or the network went wrong. Thereby both articles can be considered guidelines for users of the personal computers, frequent visitors of the Web-pages and students that have to deal with the Internet resources in order to make the assignment, take the test or exam, and upload the finished work to the professor.
Discussion
But in the article by Leslie P. Hitch (2002) the failure of the technology is called the “snow day” (p.3). It describes more not the troubles with the network or computer that occurred because of the old equipment or worm from the World Wide Web that penetrated into the system of your computer but failures that happen more frequently because of the natural disasters as hurricanes, earthquakes or social problems as “labor union dispute” (Hitch 2002, p.3).
To my mind the article by Shelley B. Wepner (2004) emphasizes the disadvantages of the education with help of computer and Internet technologies from the point of view of a teacher, who spends a night to prepare the materials for the presentation, and the next “he could not access the Internet” (p.2).
The article “Technology run amok: The top ten TechnoBlunders” identifies ten “TechnoBlunders” suppositions, prejudices and beliefs we possess about technology that can cause some unpleasant misfortune as teachers and teacher educators and gives certain guidelines to escape them (Wepner 2004, p.1).
The article “Technology run amok: The top ten TechnoBlunders” the author advises how to act in different situations, gives certain ideas for handling equipment issues in case something goes wrong with your computer. The useful ideas for common users are: to utilize reliable equipment, to purchase some extra equipment or to know the place where you could borrow it, to be aware of the software and different problems that can appear and to be able to solve them, or to know a person who can do all these things, on emergency the telephone number of the assistance service (Wepner 2004, p.2).
Thereby the article “Being Prepared for Technology Snow Days” by Leslie P. Hitch tells about the importance of the university policies to be ready to solve the problem of failure of the system, introduce some plans of actions for instructional technology disruption.
“Institutions and instructors should assume that technology will occasionally fail, but the academic enterprise must have defined processes and policies to ensure orderly and consistent academic continuity through such outages” (Hitch 2002, p.4)
The article by Shelley B. Wepner is full of vivid descriptions and stories from life told by different teachers and by the author, it gives not only information on how to act in emergency cases, but raises the problem of the website’s content; whereas the other article sounds more formal, as if it is a scientific report.
Conclusion
Thus Leslie P. Hitch gives a strict plan of acting in the situation of “snow day”, and the examples of technology disruptions and possible results of such disasters. The author also provides steps that should be taken in order to avoid technology disruptions; the plan B for each institution and instructor. But as for me the most important peculiarity in such situation is to show understanding, provide assistance if possible and cooperate.
Works Cited
Wepner, S.B. (2004) Technology run amok: The top ten TechnoBlunders. Reading Online, 7(6). Web.
Hitch P. Leslie. (2002) Being Prepared for Technology Snow Days. ECAR Research Bulletin, 24,10.