A conversation regarding my final project for #edcmooc with my girlfriend looked a little something like this:

 me:  Yeah - its dragging out SO long - I might finish all of this week's course work this afternoon....which sucks because it's the last week - next week is "Final Project" week -- I have to construct a project resembling my thoughts on the courseworkI was going to focus on Online Education and Poverty
but it seems the course is wanting me to talk more about the nature of human beings v. technology, or alongside technology
or maybe how technology alongside human beings can help to eliminate poverty...
something of the like. 

 Sent at 2:33 PM on Monday

 Amy:  Ohhhh! Interesting! How do you see technology is helping eliminate poverty?
 me:  Well - I see that online education can provide a very real pathway from ignorance to intelligence, which is the greatest force stifling advancement in third world nationswithout proper access to information, and some instruction on how to access and apply this information, most impoverished countries don't stand a chance to ascend the caste system, and remain stuck in poverty

 me:  but information, dispersed through the internet, and becoming cheaper, and available in greater numbers to greater numbers of people, allow individuals to have an extremely powerful tool, one capable of providing access to a organized educational system which is just as mobile and flexible as we are as a speciesthe only problem is, it's relatively new...there isn't much information out there, just lots of questions as to how applicable what we're working with currently is. It's all predictive with very few tangible results
So, I might have to change topics to the more "human v machine or human is machine, or human need machine" topics...

It's true - there isn't much information out there with any hard fact suggesting that eLearning is capable of making a dent in the huge disparity between education and poverty. But there is ALOT of promise, Coursera itself being an example. I might just have to change my topic based on the fact that there's not much for me to make a claim with, unless my claim is simply "Education Effects Poverty Levels".

Meat!

Can the human body be a helpful determinate for what is human v. what is not human? Certainly. If nothing else, even when considering philosophies like “Transhumanism” - the idea could be that the “meat” stage is nothing more than the initial stage of human development. While it is currently practical for us to consider human beings in terms of “meat”, humans have found ways to augment themselves to make us “more then meat”, as one might say/consider. The brain, moreover, the type of brain and what it is capable of, being an absolutely crucial determinant to the species, is made entirely of meat.
Even in the future, with augmentation, it may very well be the function of the device and not the makeup of the device itself which provides for that gap. Is being human a way of feeling?
To make this blog entry short, because I am already bored of the topic, I can definitely conclude that the physical makeup is a good starting form factor for what is a human. But it certainly does not appear to be the final form.

Being Human - State of Nature and What Defines the Human:

One of my favorite topics of conversation, I have not yet started the readings and watching the shorts, however, considering the introduction to Week 3, I am reminded of Marx from his Theses On Feuerbach:
:

...the essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In reality, it is the ensemble of the social relations. Feuerbach, who does not enter upon a criticism of this real essence is hence obliged:

1. To abstract from the historical process and to define the religious sentiment regarded by itself, and to presuppose an abstract — isolated - human individual.

2. The essence therefore can by him only be regarded as ‘species’, as an inner ‘dumb’ generality which unites many individuals only in a natural way.

1845

Things I Sorta Tepidly Glossed over from Week 2

Week 3 stuff is coming soon, but I didn't want to lose/forget my notes from Week 2 - so here is the jarble that is my notes which I wrote down while watching the material:

Sight
Sight explores how the ubiquity of data and the increasingly blurry line between the digital and the material might play out in the sphere of human relationships. The focus on the emerging social and educational use of game-based ‘badging’ is particularly interesting.

• What is going on here, and how do you interpret the ending?

• Obviously the ending is an individual using sight to manipulate the woman into spending the night with the device’s developer. But there is little explination within the video to proceed this turn of events. No actual control of the independent individual has been expressed before the climax of the story. Instead, we have been given groups of applications which augment and influence the way this (apparently huge douchebag of a human) being proceeds in his attempt to manipulate and then pretty much assault this young woman, who feels betrayed that the man has used technology to pinpoint many specifics which he can use against her.

• How does this vision align and contrast with the ones in the first two films?

• Some things appear very similar between all three of the videos. By this point, one can almost tell that the future of software will take place along already-existing surfaces or special surfaces which require “less” of a device for usage. The tablets in “Glass” are very much just like interactive window panes, while in the sight the device is much more akin to the Google Glasses, and the IBM commercial seemed much more familiar, with objects we already use on a day-to-day basis becoming the center of digitalization.

"[I do not] carry such information in my mind since it is readily available in books. ...The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think." Einstein in response to being asked what the speed of sound was, New York Times (18 May 1921)
The issue, as you pointed out, is the possibility that individuals are not training their minds to think, but are instead bypassing that process as to lazily handle the things which take much effort in their lives already. But, as was the case with Einstein above, some individuals take the vast plethora of knowledge provided and find themselves excelling instead of diminishing.
Seems to me that the issue here is primarily over assumption and syntax. If we call them “Digital Natives” or if we call them “Technologically Wise” is no different then simply saying “there is truth to the fact that some individuals are more affiliated with technology then others”. The issue here revolves around the assumption that everyone is familiar with these tools. The above cited professors should take into account that there is alot of evidence supporting different sections of their claims, things we know to be fact: people in impoverished areas are less affiliated with technology then in affluent areas, technology can be beneficial in a learning environment, lack of knowledge of the tools we are attempting to use can be detrimental. Maybe it’s just me, but I do see the current generation, who has encultured their use of technology to everything in the real-life situations around them, as in general more apt to handle a eLearning environment then generations previous, but that does not mean it’s certain. My grandfather, who is 92, is more skilled at the computer than my 60 year old father. This is a level of training, generally created by familiarity to the way general systems work – and I think that being trained consistently by a culture entrenched has something to say, even anecdotally.

Planning for a trip to LA. my friend suggests here...

( - Santa Monica, CA) Bay Cities Italian Deli & Bakery - Home Page

Week 2 - Let's Answer Some Questions Right Meow, Then...The Utopian Videos

       

(two videos that display a "utopian" view of technology from Week 2 of our eLearning & Digital Cultures course)

When looking into the above two videos, it is important to notice how absolutely-god-awfully boring they are. I mean, not so boring that you rock back and forth in your chair, staring out whatever is the closest window, hoping that some sort of lifeform (preferably a bird or interesting insect of some sort) will interrupt the monotonous horizon with some sort of reprieve, so that the time you glance back at your screen all the sound effects have gone and the credits are rolling. No - they're not quite that bad, but they are close, and they do seem to be that "fairly dull, commercial that might run on your TV" type - only they're five minutes longer than the average commercial. 

In many ways, these two videos kinda remind me of the Dow "Human Element" ads (here). Not that Dow was at all trying to be technologically relevant - but they commercials themselves have that sort of placating positive incessantly smiling quality. We get it - you're not some scary faceless corporation, you're humans. 

Don't get me wrong, commercials have to be upbeat and positive (I'm not expecting a suicidal-salesman), but I also have noticed that pretty much all of these style of commercials have the same sort of routine - loving family, mom/dad works abroad, child is in school and itching to learn, technology paves the way. It's useful, it's helpful. It's so boring that I'd almost rather watch paint dry. 

However, here are my views on the two above videos, because I want to be a good little student and think/reflect on what I was able to gleam out of these movies. The Corning video, "Day of Glass 2", focuses on how individuals are going to be able to communicate in the future and is the more interesting of the two videos. Education here is visualized as the easy and fast interaction of both students and teachers in a traditional, classroom/school based education system. The students, however, are able to apply a more Kinesthetic form of learning to somewhat abstract ideas - like color integration, etc. People in this video were able to interact with their environments which ported the virtual into reality, as was the case with the "Dinosaur" simulations in Redwoods National Park. Professionals were also able to share information and provide guidance in a seamless way, as was the case with the neurosurgeons discussing brain patterns using the specialized glass that Corning is hoping to develop.

The second video, "Productivity Future" from Microsoft, shows a more familiar view of the future. Phones look like phones (even though the information is fully "wrap around", the device still is in a similar shape to the phones we currently use) - and information appears to be fluid on day-to-day objects like business cards, car windows, etc. While Corning imagined new objects which only slightly resembled their former counterparts, Microsoft sees development of already existing products leading us forward to the future. The Microsoft ad seems to be much more relevant and likely of a forthcoming world - but it was so boring. There was very little that was new or unique within the video and the presentation of how technology might aid us seemed very hypothetical. For some reason, the "believe-ability" of the Utopian films does not even seem to hold a candle to the scariness of the Dystopian ones. 

My question is why, with all of this "hypothetical" technology that hasn't even begun to remotely see the light of day, technology where conversations are going on in backrooms and developers are coding in the middle of the night which may or may not ever come to market, is the focal point of the "commercials" we are watching for this class. When we could be watching videos like the one below, for reach technology that will really go on sale in one year, that developers will be testing starting next month which will make day-to-day activities and communication easier....and a device which foreshadows the oh-so-scary dystopian video I will blog about later...

....until next time. #edcmooc #edcmchat

Jon Stewart Uploads his Stream on Your Facebook - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - 02/05/13 - Video Clip | Comedy Central

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Saw this last night as I was watching my "nightly news", as it were. Very relevant to my #edcmooc course and super hilarious. Definitely worth reposting for my classmates and keeping around :)

E-learning and Digital Cultures Week 2 - Initial Musings, etc.

Ahhhh, eLearning and Digital Cultures course, how you appear to hate technology oh so much.

Not really, but I do believe that either - due to the choices of our educators or the creative collection of society in general - people are using technology to depict technological-futures in a very bleak light.

This may be because providing that sort of drama makes for a much better storyline than one where people communicate more openly, learn more vividly and complete mundane tasks with ease. I can't help but agree. Why would I want to see video of some kid learning in a Volvo when I can be on the edge-of-my-seat in suspense as a cell phone mysteriously chokes its owner using the power of cellular signal? No matter what the deal is, it is definitely creating an impression upon my fellow classmates in #edcmooc.

Not that technology has gone without slaughtering humans. We've been developing tech since our ancestors, with weaponry usage being exhibited by chimps who learned how to manipulate tools. And sure, they used some of these tools to bash each other's skulls in -- others used different tools for fishing ants out of anthills. Silly chimps...when are they going to realize, like us humans, that slaughtering your same species is wrong. Oh, wait...crap.

So, the first homo-made weapon are referred to as the Schöningen Spears and were used by Homo heidelbergensis. Since that time we've upgraded tanks and rifles, planes and atomic weaponry, even hypothetical Star Wars style anti-weaponry. But the focus of the class that I am currently taking hasn't surrounded any of these well developed, industrialized techs which have wiped the world clean of so many humans. Instead, the focus has been on the laziness of the human mind, how it has been entrenched by an overwhelming amount of day-to-day systems (like a phone, or an iPad), and how these things are capable of destroying society from the inside out. Definitely important subject matter, though it seems somewhat disconcerting that the focus of technology's imminent destructive tendencies seem to come through development and innovation, as opposed to through brute force, human ignorance and an inability to stop irrational actors from making moves upon the world stage.

In Week 2, the future view of technology as described above is crafted through images of the bleak. Of course, we do have two load balancing films which are supposed to anchor the staunch dystopian view that is put forward in the rest of the videos - but that doesn't really seem to playout in the student's mindframe. In fact, from watching the reaction of my classmates through TweetDeck and Google+, it is more then abundantly obvious that our society has directed its focus towards thwarting itself from its own impending doom that is caused by us having access too....too much information too fast, I think. Or something.

I will attempt in future entries to develop my thoughts regarding this division and to try and grasp the reasons individuals tend to lean towards this "Glass half empty" view of technology. Of course I don't really believe that my classmates hate technology, but maybe they fear it? Or maybe they see how much they use it as a crutch which will make them into weaker beings - just as the Periodic Table of Elements obviously made Einstein stupid because he no longer had to look up mass and atomic number of an element, and just as how people became inherently weaker when the Wheel was invented because they no longer had to work as hard for as long...oh...wait....damnit!

Coursera forced to call off a MOOC amid complaints about the course | Inside Higher Ed

Seemed destined to happen one way or another...so many universities converging over so many topics, offering learning for free online...there is a great capacity for human error. It's a learning process, and educators will learn just like the students...

Determinism, Technological Determinism, and how to determine which Determinism has already chosen you

I never had much of a "spiritual" center, as it were. Which is okay by me.

While I am the social sort who enjoys like-minded people who come from similar situations, I have never found myself wanting for a greater community of believers who share a common understanding in the afterlife. I have never found myself looking for a deity to focus my complaints and desires towards. Never found myself looking for a set of rules and directives by which I should conduct my day-to-day activities that weren't dictated by homo sapien sapiens. 

And without this, my mind was free to explore numerous scientifically based Theories-of-Everything. While placing my focus in this philosophical realm, alongside the intervention of my Chemistry/Biology minded friend Adam, my studies began to surround a concept known as Determinism. This philosophical stance, as summarized by the grand Wiki, is simply:

is a metaphysical philosophical position stating that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given those conditions, nothing else could happen

And that

often is taken to mean simply causal determinism, that is, basing determinism upon the idea of cause-and-effect. It is the concept that events within a given paradigm are bound by causality in such a way that any state (of an object or event) is completely determined by prior states.

Very basically, you could say "everything happens as it has to happen, otherwise it would happen some other way". This doesn't assume predictability - in fact, many overlaying/more specific philosophies (such as Chaos Theory) are deterministic concepts which indicate the near impossibility of predictability.

So, of course, my interest was piqued when I cam across the words Technological Determinism in a course offered through the always-amazing online learning organization Coursera. The concept of Technological Determinism (as provided to me by a cursory read of Daniel Chandler's Technological or Media Determinism) states:

a central controversy concerns how far technology does or does not condition social change. Each commentator emphasizes different facts in technological change.

And is thus part of the philosophical debate regarding determinism. But it seems strange that technological determinists need a specific realm of study. The fundamental crux of the philosophy is that change and existence has been determined through one principal factor, technology. I just have a hard time in my mind rectifying that, as determinists, these philosophers do not acknowledge the other coexisting circumstances that are impacting and influencing each other alongside technology.

This is of course the issue of holism v. reductionism. Daniel Chandler does an excellent job at explaining this and I am thrilled to have come across such a great piece of writing in my eLearning & Digital Cultures class. Very very nice to stumble so heavily upon philosophy in what I thought was going to be a practical application style course.

Yes, this post was mostly babbling, but here is what you can take away from it:

1. Reductionist prinicples can be useful, but Technological Determinism seems to be missing much of the larger point to the general philosophy. Causality requires indications as to what social/technological/biological/everything causes other social/technological/biological/everything changes. It's very hard to indicate that ONE of the MILLIONS of interacting stimuli is the principle driver of existence.
2. Coursera.org is the SHIT! You should go there, now, and sign up for a class (if you're not already in school).
3. I am a lowly atheist destined to burn in hell! Wheeeeeeeeee!!

20 reasons why Google Plus is a must Infographic

20 reasons why Google Plus is a must [Infographic] | Soshable | Social Media Blog

If you follow this blog for any period of time, you will discover that I am a huge Google+ fan. It is absolutely my favorite social networking site. I think it is much easier to use then Facebook and is also a better built system. One only need look at the Facebook mobile app, which is slow and buggy with huge issues. When examining Google's mobile application for G+, the user notes immediately the speed and smoothness. It has been a staple of Google's since the beginning - fast information and fast projects which provide unique search and find features and privacy standards which cannot be met in any other social-networking situation.

...It's going to be the next big thing.

Here's the graphic, stolen from the above link, explaining 20 reasons why G+ is going to be a must...