Watching the TED Talks lecture in class yesterday made me think about Siri, the greatest and worst function of the iPhone 4s and 5. We were talking about how men who weren't great at chess worked with computers that weren't top of the line and how they beat the best computers and the best men. I have to admit that I got really distracted and started thinking about man's attachment to and reliance on technology. So for the sake of this discussion, let's take Siri. Apple essentially created a pocket secretary. Siri's great. You can dictate things to her, you can have her call you by a different name, and you can have her remind you of things. The iPhone 5 has expanded on these functions so you now can have her tell you results of sporting events and I think she might be able to translate things for you. The best attribute that Siri possesses is that she is immensely entertaining. I could ask her ridiculous questions all day and never get bored.

Our readings for this week really reminded of the consequences of placing an identity on somebody else. How our entire interactions are based on who we think individuals are, and how that should influence the ways in which we treat them, connect with them, listen to them and understand them. This was especially true in Offending Women, where it was clear that the young mothers that were part of the program were given a narrative of what their lives were or ought to be, which completely shaped all of the interactions between the staff and them. The staff saw them as either victims or bloodsuckers, and consistently reminded them that neither of these things would lead to their independence (from the state, from blaming others etc). What would have happened if they had seen these women differently, If they hadn't assigned them that specific identity? Again, this identity idea is restated in Colored Amazons, where the author talks about the ways in which prisoners and (black) women were impacted by a story about who they where. The whole prison system was based on this judgment of their morals, biology, racial hierarchy and ability to be "restored." I definitely think that this practice is alive and well today, where we assign identities that have deep consequences that people have to live with (I'm thinking of Tuck's damage-centered research). How can we be active in creating different narratives for ourselves with the hope that others will also have the same opportunities?  

      Before reading Clark’s book and writing the paper, I considered technology and the human body as two things clearly separated. However after reading that even the language we are using is technology, I find a little confusing to define the relationship of human and technology. Instead of simply stating that human invented and is controlling technology, I’m thinking that technology has also become an inseparable part of human and defines what human are.

         I also like the idea that instead of hoping the computers would do everything for us and  worrying about computers defeating human in the future, we should work with computers to solve problems that we are unable to do our own. This reminds me of the program I learned last year in my intro to computer science class. I saw fascinating works designed by human and realized by computer. It is almost impossible to finish such a work only by human or by computer. I think technology is becoming our shoes, helping us to run faster and jump higher.

I mentioned in my small group that I felt like since being in this course and reading Clark's views on technology in society that I have found myself actually wanting to pull away from technology. Prior to the class I was the biggest activist on technological advancements and how more efficient, faster, and improved mannerisms have been discovered and have altered our society. I mentioned that there's no limit to what technology does and what we allow it do and eventually it just might take over.

Mirella brought up a interesting point that was then touched upon in the video clip also. which was that most people are skeptical about technology because of our internal fears of the advancements. This is a control issue and sometimes we humans feel the need to control all aspects of our environment. I really like the quote, "It's not about technology vs humans, it's how humans using technology can do great things".

I think Tuesday's class helped me to rediscover my love and appreciation for technology because honestly if used correctly it can do so much good. I found myself briefly resenting it in away because I thought it was sort of taking away from the value of childhood, communication, and in-person interactions but I now think we are more powerful together.

Here. 

from Tuesday's class has now been scanned and uploaded on Serendip. You'll find it listed in (and accessible from) our protected reading file as SilentDialogueScanned. Might we all read through it, looking in the comments (and the spaces between them!) for some guidelines to help us all flourish here...?

Writing my first paper (actually writing a traditional"academic paper": printed, double-spaced, 12 pt font) made me remember a whole bunch of questions that came out of a Serendip class that I took last semester. (Literary Kinds) In this post, I lamented about my "lack of media literacy" and how I was so frustrated with not being able to present information multimodally. But then I wrote this paper as my final for that same class where I really interrogated what it meant to be multimodal, and how this affected the genre of the academic paper. What I never did (and what I hope to really question and push throughout the course of this semester) is to link back my assertions in that final paper to my assumptions that I wrote about in that post.

Last class, we had "goal of education: make technologies more visible" written on the board.  I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if we tried to do the opposite instead.  Instead of making technologies more visible, what if we tried harder to integrate them into the classrooms or students themselves as invisible.  I'm not so sure that there is a clear answer of which one would be more beneficial, but it’s something interesting to think about.  

Making technologies more visible would be directing students to look back on old technologies, some that they take as givens and some that have become seen as outdated, and going back to their sources to seeing what they are missing, what has gotten lost along the way as these old technologies have evolved.  Making new technologies less visible would mean integrating them more into the way students learn, think, and exist.  It would mean not having to work around the projector screen that is blocking the blackboard, but rather working with it by learning and teaching how to use it well enough that it too becomes invisible.