Digital Artefact: My Wild Technology Ride

MOOCs are consuming me!!! I had never heard of them before about two months ago. Then one day the power brokers at work began to throw the acronym around as though everyone understood what they were talking about. But we did not....

You see...we were from this generation.

Computers in our world were new! We journeyed with computers from punch cards to large floppy discs, to small floppy discs. The internet was still a dream to us. Programming was clunky...and I did not enjoy it. I had to use DOS and FORTRAN, and the machines were large and heavy.

Portable computers came along, and made life easier!

But the screens were small and programming was tedious. We became more productive, but we wanted faster and friendlier products!

Along came graphical user interfaces.....

To show you how far we have come...a few months ago, we had a party at work and the guest of honor could not attend because of medical issues. No problem... we skyped her into the party. You can see that at the beginning of the video below. 

Then, consider what happens in the future as we progress even more, and the boundaries between humans and machines blur? Will the changes brought about by computers enhance or destroy the world of the humans?

So....getting back to MOOCs....what will their impact be on humans???? I think it is too early to tell at this time...but I do know for sure that I will be watching their progress with vigilance...for the sake of my grandchildren and their grandchildren and all of the future generations!!!! Will you be there with me?

Inbox: Connecting People

The second film we watched is called Inbox, an 8 minute film about a woman buying a teddy bear, and a man at the same store buying underwear. When they get home, they realize that they have the wrong items in their bags and the bags allow them to magically communicate with each other from different locations. They are using low-tech post-it notes to communicate, but the post-it notes magically get transported between the two. When the man's bag becomes ripped, they can no longer communicate so they become sad. The man goes to a park bench, where he sees a woman next to him with the identical bag realizes that she is the woman he had been communicating with. The two smile, and he produces a post-it note saying he was sorry, and she produces a post-it not saying she missed him. They are happy as the story ends.

I believe that the bags and communication between the two represent the internet. The internet seems quite magical, but allows us to connect with each other and access an infinite-seeming amount of information. This is quite a gift and quite utopian. But embedded in this story is the fact that the technology cannot fully replace human to human contact. At the end, the two were face to face, which made them incredibly happy.

However, they were happy as they were exchanging cards through the bag, and at the end...they were communicating via post-it notes....which is the way they were communicating remotely. So if I take a pessimistic view, I could consider that dystopian because in the end they were still communicating the same way.

I almost said they were not communicating in a human way, but I guess writing is human. I guess if you produce sounds with your voice, and someone hears those sounds with their ears...the contact is more human, and we are social beings. We need each other, and I would hate to think that personal contact would be superseded by technological contact. My interpretation is that technology can bring us together, but eventually we need face-to-face contact with each other.

Mooc Madness

Today, I begin a new journey in a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) called E-learning and Digital Cultures  taught by Jeremy Knox, Sian Bayne, Hamish Macleod, Jen Ross, Christine Sinclair of the University of Edinburgh.

I have watched computers evolve from huge clunky monsters, to sleek portals into the world's information. The speed at which they change astounds me...but I am determined to adjust. The first lesson, about Utopias and Dystopias, contains a film to watch and analyze called Bendito Machine III.

According to the course notes: "This animated film tells the story of technological development in terms of ritual and worship - the characters in the film treat each new technology as god-like, appearing from the sky and causing the immediate substitution of the technology before it."

Here are my thoughts about the following questions.

What is this film suggesting are the ecological and social implications of an obsession or fixation on technology? 
Each time a new technology comes along, the old technology is wheeled to a cliff and dumped into the trash pile below. Scavenging birds pick at the remains. Eventually, the technology self-destructs, and in the process kills people and creates more trash. At first the technology seems to just fascinate the people, but eventually it controls them then destroys them.

Do the film’s characters have any choice in relation to their technologies? 
At first the characters have a choice because the obsession has not captured them yet, however as  the grip of the technology strengthens, the characters lose their sense of self and their sense of choice is obliterated.

What are the characteristics of various technologies as portrayed in this film?
The first technologies, the "bull" radio and the crank machine, are benign and well controlled by the people. The next technology, the television with legs, began relatively benignly, but became stronger and more independent and dangerous with time. The last technology was quite powerful and independent, and after wrecking havoc on the people and their village, self-destructed.