The Machine is Using us?

My world cultures class assigned me to watch these three videos and answer some questions about them. I strongly advise everyone to watch these videos. They are very informative. I doubt they will alone affect anyone or their daily routines, but I think it can start to raise awareness. It's really interesting and just made me think about a lot of these messages. These videos talk about how the computers are learning, how students are being affected by the educational system, and how language has evolved.

1.Does this challenge you to think about how you know what you know? How/why?

It challenges me to think who really taught me the information I know. Is it true? Did some college student make a website or change Wikipedia to post false information? Have things that I’ve read on the internet shaped my beliefs in some way? Is that wrong? These videos have given me a lot more questions than answers.

2.Is the internet your friend or enemy?

It can be both. It can be a way to get to information quickly, not have to worry about filing through library sources to find the one book or the one piece of information that I’m looking for. It can be my enemy. It can give me a virus or be used to hack onto my computer as well as feeding me false information. It may be a convenience, but it also takes a lot of time to sift through millions of sites to find one that I can trust.

3. How has language evolved? Has it evolved too far?

I think language has evolved much too far. Every day teenagers and adults butcher the English language. Many make up their own words without ever realizing it. Everyone shortens words for their own convenience or because of their accent. We use contractions constantly and have even created a new language. It is an internet language that consists of letters that do not make up words, but represent a series of words. Some words may end short because it takes half a second longer to write it in full. Not only has this been a terrible fate for the beautiful English language, but it has begun to even be spoken in normal conversation. Our civilization has lost the beauty of words such as those that Shakespeare wrote. We will not even tolerate language like that today. The old English language I’m afraid will never again see the light of day. Many people see it as too complicated and will take too long to decipher and understand it. Basically, we’ve become lazy.

4. Does technology make us smarter or dumber?

It can depend. It gets us to our information faster, meaning we can learn more in a shorter period of time. It can also make us dumber because we could read some piece of information that is either false or confusing making it harder for us to grasp entire ideas.

5. Do you agree or disagree with the Vision of Students Today? Why?

I agree. This video explains how most student’s live. There is a lot of pressure and technology can do a lot to relieve it. It can also add to it. Checking Facebook or talking on the phone does nothing to better yourself. You’re wasting mindless hours that aren’t paying you back. You end up multi-tasking and taking too much time away from the things that really matter.

6. Is the Machine "Us" or is it "Using Us"? Why?

The Machine is us and it is using us. It is actually much dumber than we think. We get so much information from the computer, but that computer doesn’t understand that information. It is just generating it from someone else who wrote it. It has no feelings or any human characteristics. It is an invention of human kind. It can’t be smarter than us. The computer is much dumber than we are. The problem is, what we are doing now is teaching it. It may be much dumber than humans, but it gets smarter every day. We are giving the computer information by clicking on a link or tagging a picture or video. The computer uses that. We have the information and are giving it to the computer, making us the machine. That computer uses that information, explaining how the machine is using us.

7. What is your vision for the perfect educational system?

My vision is so far fetched that it could never be possible. The funding and the training for these teachers would be too high. The perfect educational system would be small classes that have no more than twenty students. Everyone knows their teachers and the teachers know them. There is always time to get individual attention if something is confusing. No teachers will ever discriminate, judge, or neglect a student. These teachers will work hard to find good educational methods that make the students better understand the material. Not only do we need to understand this so we can be active members of our generation, but also so that we can teach it to the next. Teachers will focus on teaching the bigger points. They will answer questions like ‘What does this mean to us?’ or ‘How has this shaped the entire world?’ or even ‘What did it lead to and what lead to it? Teachers will stress less on the smaller details like dates and focus on the bigger picture.

Fridays

They are the one thing we have to look forward to while at school. The light at the end of the tunnel. We only go to school because we know that Friday is in our future. Along with various other reasons including that it's the law. I find that most people spend the school day on Friday checking up with their plans and talking to friends about how they can't wait for the day to be over instead of doing their work like if it were Tuesday. I think possibly that if they factored out the grades we make on Fridays, it could probably boost everyone's GPA. Instead of getting a head start on homework, we play on the computer. Instead of planning for our test next week, we plan our lunch dates on Saturday. We end up leaving most of our homework until Sunday night which isn't exactly productive. It may be Friday and I may be on the computer writing a blog post during class, but that's beside the point.