TWC Lesson 5

Brief summary of the lesson

This lesson was about Information communication technology and world change. The past, present and future. We went on to have an in-depth discussion about the various areas of interest in ICT . The lesson then moved on to whether we have made use of the potential of ICT to change the world into a better place. Some notable examples like alleviating poverty and dealing with the digital divide are some of the examples of how ICT might change the world. We were then informed that we are currently experiencing the start of a knowledge revolution, and that our productivity has the potential to increase a further 20x if the trends of previous revolutions follow. Potential risk/dangers associated with ICT were then discussed. Lastly, we went through the required readings which were related to ICT.

Interesting observation and ideas

Firstly, I agree with prof that gaming has great potential in changing the world. I believe educational gaming has an added advantage of fun over conventional educational programs. The "fun" factor promotes interest in the subject and can lead to a greater length of interaction with the program. Imagine a game that is able to accurately educate people on how to do CPR. This game could be easily spread all over the world through the internet and educate millions on the know-hows of CPR with minimal resources required. Imagine how many lives could be saved just from that one software. SMU has also been using an educational game called "Human Invasion Project" that is an interactive role-playing game that teaches grammar. I believe that in the near future, gaming would constitute a considerable part in education around the world.

I found it interesting that in this age of time, we are both consumers and producers of ICT products. When we use a product, for example YouTube to source for information we require, we are consuming their service of providing the video to us and in turn they earn advertisement fees from us visiting their websites. However, the intriguing point is that as we consume their services, the system records down our video history and generates a basic genre of what we are interested in. After a few more visits, the videos recommended to us becomes videos that the system believe we are interested in. In other words, when we consume You tube’s services, we are actually producing the services that will be available to us during our next visit. It’s fascinating how this technology might develop over the next few years and I believe that such occurrences will occur more and more as we advance over to Web 3.0.

With such a huge array of information available on the mass media, we got to see the big picture with these information. We need to manage our knowledge and analyse data we come across on the mass media today. Data on its own is useless if you cannot make sense of it. Managing data is a crucial skill that we must develop this this time of knowledge revolution. There is an excess of information and we should try to effectively filter out the information we need. 

Lastly, I would like to talk about Daniel's question on whether we should make access to the internet a human right. What really amazed me in the discussion is how the access to the internet is made a human right in Finland. The internet started out as a privilege for the affluent in the initial stages of its production. Now, due to the enormous benefits it could have on an individual, Finland has made access to the internet a human right. I couldn't help but wonder what next could be made a human right? If healthcare progressed enough, could healthcare be made a human right next? It just amazes me how much humanity is progressing, to the extent where our basic human rights are actually increasing.

Key Takeaways

The world of Information and Communication technology is changing rapidly. With these changes, the information we are exposed to increases exponentially as well. We need to learn how to manage all this information we are exposed to, on differentiating the good ones from the bad and develop the ability to make sense out of all these knowledge to help us in our decision making.

With the advances in social networks and our progression towards Web 3.0, we are both knowingly and unknowingly giving out our personal information to these software and platforms. This gives rise to privacy and security concerns as so much about us can actually be discovered through these technologies. We should take extra care in how we deal and use such ICT technologies and not expose ourselves to unnecessary dangers that could be present. 

Lastly, I would like to share this photo I saw online. Not everything on the internet is credible. Take everything with a pinch of salt!

Issues for further discussion

I believe there are still much to discuss in how we can protect the internet. Our lives revolves around the internet, the life we know would collapse without the internet. So how can we really protect the internet?

Personal rating

I would give this class an 8/10 as the issues covered are very comprehensive and it gave me a good understanding of how ICT is changing the world.