Session 5!

Brief Summary:

How evolution of the current Information and Communications Technology (ICT) (which was revolutionary) is bringing revolutionary changes to our lives.

Interesting Observations and Ideas:

The web is becoming less and less visible:

Just as I thought the web is becoming more prevalent and prominent, the idea of the web slowly integrating into our lives was brought up. Then I thought, how true it was, that humans are becoming part of their technology!

People are forming alter egos on the Internet, posting pictures and commenting on websites, creating another of their self in the virtual world. Furthermore, people are performing very human acts like theft (identity theft), plagiarism (video, song piracy), communicating (skype, msn chats), writing diaries (blogs) and even poking each other on facebook! – all of it done in the virtual world.

Key take-away points:

1. “Ask the right question and you get the right answer”

The tool is out there but you must know how to use it. While using ICT to research, I keep having the problem of infoglut. There’s too much information out there that is irrelevant or false on the Internet and it just takes too much time to sieve out the right pieces of information.

I always thought of that as the necessary disadvantage of ICT but the prof mentioned that if you ask the right question, you get what you want. Then I realized, this is a skill that all of us in this knowledge-based world have to pick up. We have to quickly learn to navigate in this vast ocean of information to get to our destination quickly, or risk being lost.

2. There is more to ICT than social media

I used to think that ICT is mainly about communication and social media. However, this lesson proved me wrong.

For instance, simulations have been very useful to solve real world problems (like learning how to control and airplane, etc). Thinking about national security, I believe these simulations can be of good use to educate people about national security.

Many say that Singaporeans live in their comfort zones and unprepared for any crises. However, I think it is because of lack of mass education – the videos of train bombings played in MRT stations do not seem enough to prepare Singaporeans for a terrorist attack. In this case, simulations may be effective since they are more realistic than mere videos and people can practice what to do in such an emergency, till it becomes second nature.

Issues for further discussion:

How ICT can be used to reduce or eliminate the ills it brings initially:

After thinking about the problems of ICT from security concerns to addiction, I realized that this is an aspect of ICT that we may explore, in order to maximize the benefits of ICT.

For example, after watching the video of Milo (the virtual boy), I think that it can be used to solve problems like exposure to corrupting influences and addiction.

There may be virtual humans to identify the users and if the users are children, the virtual humans can teach them how to use the Internet properly and avoid pornography sites or avoid online predators. The virtual humans can also advice users to take breaks or a rest after using an electronic device for a prolonged period of time to avoid addiction.

Personal Ratings for Session:

7.5/10 – The lesson opened new perspectives to ICT and world change to me, such as how ICT can be used to complement our lives (simulations for people to adapt to different situations). However, many of the ideas were new to me, such as use of ICT to solve poverty and close development gap. Hence, when I read the readings I found it a little difficult to understand and grasp the new ideas.