College English listening comprehension course

1 The college campus, long a place of scholarship and frontiers of new technology, is beingtransformed into a new age of electronics by afleet of laptops, smartphones and connectivity 24 hours a day. 

2 On a typical modern-day campus, where every building and most outdoor common areas offer wireless Internet access, one student takes her laptop everywhere.  In class, she takes notes with it, sometimes instant-messaging or emailing friends if the professor is less than interesting.  In her dorm, she instant-messages her roommate sitting just a few feet away.  She is tied to her smartphone, which she even uses to text a friend who lives one floor above her, and which supplies music for walks between classes. 

3 Welcome to college life in the 21st century, where students on campus are electronically linked to each other, to professors and to their classwork 24/7 in an ever-flowing river of information and communication.  With many schools offering wireless Internet access anywhere on campus, colleges as a group have become the most Internetaccessible spots in the world. 

4 Students say they really value their fingertip-access to the boundless amount of information online, and the ability to email professors at 2 a.m. and receive responses the next morning.  "I always feel like I have a means of communication — in class and out of class," says oneengineering major. 

5 Many are using smartphones, not only to create their own dialectswhen texting, but also to do more serious work, such as practicing foreign languages and analyzingscripts from their theater classes.  In a university class on the history of American radio, students use smartphones to record their own radio shows. The course instructor said, "It's adding to students' sense of excitement about the subject."  Professors have been encouraged to tape their lectures and post them online.  "We realized there might be some potential for a devicethat could get attention and encouragesophisticated thinking," says one leading university director. 

6 For mostundergraduates, non-stop Internet connectivity is the fuel of college life.  More than just toys, these instruments are powerful tools for the storage and management of virtually every kind of information. And as more people around the world adoptthese instruments, they are becoming indispensable. So, students should use the wonders of the Internet to do homework, review lecture outlines, take part in class discussions and network online with their friends.  But in doing so, students must remember to regulate and balance their time.  Too much time online can mean too little time in real-life studying or exercising or visiting with friends.  Students should not let the Internet world on their computer screens take them away from the real world outside. 

7 Colleges began embracing Internet access in the mid-1990s, when many began wiring dorms with high-speed connections.  In the past few years, schools have taken the lead by turning their campuses intobubbles of Wi-Fi networks. In fact, a recent study in the US found that information technology accounted for 5% to 8% of college budgets, up from an estimated 2% to 3% in the mid-1980s. 

8 On one campus, students use Wi-Fi to fire off instant messages, review their homeworkassignments, and check their bank balances.  Just nine miles down thehighway, another university had been feeling a bit of a technologyinferiority complex.  Tocompensate, it spent tens of thousands of dollars to give every one of its incoming freshmen a free Apple iPad. 

9 Some universities even require that all students own or lease a laptop. Some say the focus on technology prepares students for a wired world.  "You have to keep up with the rest of the world. Students expect high-bandwidth information, and if you can't deliver it, you're at acompetitive disadvantage," states a university president. 

10 Other colleges are straining to stand out from their peers.  The race to attract students with the most modern networks and the hottest systems has reached fever pitch. Some business majors are receiving free portablecomputers.  In an always-connected mode, they can get information anytime and anywhere they need. One university is even giving its freshmen new smartphones to enrich the student experience and prepare them for success in a rapidly changing world. 

11 For those who prefer to travel laptop-free, colleges supply several computer labs.  And for students who study late into the night, many have set up 24-hour repair shops where students can get their laptops fixed by the next day and receive aloaner in the meantime. 

12 Colleges around the world have been replacing their computer systems for the past decade, in large part to provide students with the most advanced free system.  The anywhere-anytime access has already yieldedamazing benefits in education.  With the widespread application of computer technologies, we are going to produce a generation of problem-solvers and intelligentthinkers, which is indispensable for the future of the world.