Take 5 minutes and watch this video. Its a whirlwind of facts and figures, but at least one of them must stick in your mind. Just as the information can be overwhemling, so can the sudden rise in technology over the past 10 years. As this video shows, technology has rooted itself in our everyday lives. When I was in high school, I had to wait till I was 16 to get my first cell phone. Even more shocking to today's standards, is that I didn't get texting until my junior year of college! My little cousins got cell phones with texting and full data plans when they were 10! This is just one of the pieces of information touched upon in the video.
One of the statistics that really caught me was about President Obama's fundraising campaign in comparison to that of John McCain's. The figures were staggering. It just goes to show the power of social networking. It's helping to unite the world in ways we never thought possible a decade ago.
However, despite all of the great things about technology, as educators we must also be wary. Specifically, I am speaking to social networking, and not so much technologies that can be seen as classroom aids (computers, smartboards, etc.) While social networking can be a very powerful tool, it can also be very dangerous. There are countless of teachers who have gotten in trouble because of facebook or myspace. But this also extends to the population in general. We are now seeing employers adapt to the growing technologies by using facebook as a tool for a "background check" on potential employees. Even when your profile is set to "private" there are still loopholes in which many companies are learning how to exploit.
This begs the questions: "Just what is private anymore?" Is our personal privacy worth the leaps and bounds technology has made? While I am in no way asking people to stop using facebook-- I myself am an avid user; I think we should be cautious about the information we put online.
Another issue technology brings forth is responsibility and knowledge. More than ever, technology is being produced at an alarming rate (see the stat on how many cell phones were being produced by a single company per second! I believe the number was 4, which is astounding). At this rate, it is increasingly difficult to not only adapt to the new technology, but also learn how to use it properly.
Check out this clever post here which looks at a hypothetical service call for a car from a customer who treats it like we treat computers today.
Starting to understand what I'm getting at?
To conclude, I'd like to leave you with some awesome infographics. Before I decided to become a teacher, I was heavily involved in graphic design. So yes, I'm one of those girls that gets really in depth and geeky over design, colors, and even pixels. Therefore, expect to see lots of infographics throughout this blog. But I think you'll come to love them just as much as I do by the end of the term! (click the images for a larger view)
2 comments:
Chelsie- I also really liked the point about social networking and Obama's campaign v. John McCain's. It's hard to believe just a few years ago we didn't have these things and it is truly revolutionizing many things. This is true for raising funds for campaigns and also for other things like the huge influxes of twitter activity with major events documenting things like the revolution in Egypt and very recently, the death of Osama Bin Laden. I really think it's pretty cool!
Definitely! I've never really wanted to jump on the twitter bandwagon myself, but I can understand its usefulness, especially when trying to get news out. Its just the celebrities tweeting about their toilet habits that I don't understand!
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