Here are some interesting articles I chanced upon when I was reading the news this week and I though I'll just share them here as well.
Character Amnesia (http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/lifestylenews/view/1077224/1/.html)
This article talks about how use of computers and predictive text has altered the way we remember words, especially for pictorial languages such as Chinese and Japanese. This results in many people forgetting how to write words (myself included). I found it interesting as it shows explicitly how technology can affect us in our daily lives.
Technology and Personality (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/technology/07brainside.html?fta=y)
This article looks at how usage of technology, especially the "instant gratification" effect, can alter our personalities.
Technology and Our Brains
(http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/technology/16brain.html?ref=global-home)
(http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/technology/25brain.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=technology)
These two articles look more on how technology affects how our brain functions, and how taking a break from technology can be good for the functioning of our brains.
That's the end of my interesting articles for this week. I will post more if I come across them. To end off this post, I would just like to share this website (http://www.flexiblelove.com/)that retails a type of sustainable furniture made from recycled materials, which is functional, saves space and is fun to play with :)
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Session 2: Technology, Society and Global Dominance AND Technology and Human Development
This week's lesson was the start of a new chapter in TWC classes i.e. the beginning of the individual oral presentations under the main topics for that week. I chose to do my presentation on the 2nd topic for the week, Technology and Human Development.
In the first half of the session, it was all about how technology can be galvanised to make revolutionary changes in society. E.g. the industrial revolution drastically changed how goods were being produced in the West, which resulted society moving forward at a much faster pace than before. I thought the second presentation on Henry Ford's assembly line pretty much showed that. The first presentation dealt with many military and political matters which did not interest me that much. But both presenters did quite well for their first presentations in SMU :) Good Job to them! :) Another interesting point made was on Prof's view of rising star/dominant player/falling star societies and it links to their receptiveness to new ideas and perspectives. I found that really interesting.
The second half of class was about Technology and Human Development. Looking at the Millenium Development Goals really seemed to affect a few members of the class. Cherrin's presentation also impressed many people with her slides and her style. Doing my individual presentation on this topic, I chose to present on an article I read in the New York Times, "What Broke My Father's Heart" to show how advancements in technology (in this case Medical Technology) does not necessarily lead to positive human development if those who implement it do not "do their homework" to harness it for their benefit. I thought my presentation was ok, but could have been better without the time constraints.
For this session, I thought that interesting ideas were put forth by most of the speakers, but we did not have time to delve into them due to time constraints. As there will be many presentations every week, it would be good if speakers could condense what they wanted to say into the 5 minutes so that we would have time to do the discussion.
Overall, I would rate my presentation a 7 (same as most of the class) and the overall class a 7 as well.
In the first half of the session, it was all about how technology can be galvanised to make revolutionary changes in society. E.g. the industrial revolution drastically changed how goods were being produced in the West, which resulted society moving forward at a much faster pace than before. I thought the second presentation on Henry Ford's assembly line pretty much showed that. The first presentation dealt with many military and political matters which did not interest me that much. But both presenters did quite well for their first presentations in SMU :) Good Job to them! :) Another interesting point made was on Prof's view of rising star/dominant player/falling star societies and it links to their receptiveness to new ideas and perspectives. I found that really interesting.
The second half of class was about Technology and Human Development. Looking at the Millenium Development Goals really seemed to affect a few members of the class. Cherrin's presentation also impressed many people with her slides and her style. Doing my individual presentation on this topic, I chose to present on an article I read in the New York Times, "What Broke My Father's Heart" to show how advancements in technology (in this case Medical Technology) does not necessarily lead to positive human development if those who implement it do not "do their homework" to harness it for their benefit. I thought my presentation was ok, but could have been better without the time constraints.
For this session, I thought that interesting ideas were put forth by most of the speakers, but we did not have time to delve into them due to time constraints. As there will be many presentations every week, it would be good if speakers could condense what they wanted to say into the 5 minutes so that we would have time to do the discussion.
Overall, I would rate my presentation a 7 (same as most of the class) and the overall class a 7 as well.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Session 1 - an Introduction
Monday was the first lesson of TWC under Dr Gurinder Shahi.
The class started with introductions from both the Prof and the students, and we heard some really interesting things. After going through the course requirements with the class, we went on to explore the history of human development as well as certain concepts on technology and world change and what they mean specifically.
A part of the debate was on the interaction between creativity, innovation and invention. This reminded me of an article which happened to appear in yesterday's papers (see:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/arts/16iht-design16.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=genius&st) However, I felt that too much of the discussion kept going around in circles as everyone was essentially saying the same thing as they had a different definition of the terms 'creativity', 'innovation' and 'invention'.
As it was an introductory lesson, I think most of the concepts will be explored more thoroughly in the subsequent lessons but it seemed like people were getting involved in the discussion :) which makes the learning process more enjoyable for everyone.
I would probably rate the lesson at 7 on a scale of 0-10.
The class started with introductions from both the Prof and the students, and we heard some really interesting things. After going through the course requirements with the class, we went on to explore the history of human development as well as certain concepts on technology and world change and what they mean specifically.
A part of the debate was on the interaction between creativity, innovation and invention. This reminded me of an article which happened to appear in yesterday's papers (see:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/arts/16iht-design16.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=genius&st) However, I felt that too much of the discussion kept going around in circles as everyone was essentially saying the same thing as they had a different definition of the terms 'creativity', 'innovation' and 'invention'.
As it was an introductory lesson, I think most of the concepts will be explored more thoroughly in the subsequent lessons but it seemed like people were getting involved in the discussion :) which makes the learning process more enjoyable for everyone.
I would probably rate the lesson at 7 on a scale of 0-10.
Introduction
Pursuant to the requirements of my TWC course, I will be blogging about TWC class as well as any insights or interesting articles I might come across related to the topic of technology and world change.
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