I got here. The end of week 3. The catching up was like running uphill, and the breathing became a little easier on reaching the flat. It might also have had something to do with the course content:
Reasserting the Human' Exploring these materials was more like jogging in worn -in-trainers.
I liked the inclusion of the Real Deal Toyota advert. Well, how could any course considering the role of technology not include a car somewhere.?
Although city life is reality for millions of people, it is shown here as the artificial, digital, or virtual.
Cities across the world have rapidly grown because of technology, often sucking the life out of the countryside that surrounds them, consuming the space to grow further. Most are not as modern, clean and organised as the one portrayed here.
The irony is that in order to escape from the city the man needs the ultimate shiny Toyota technology. Evidently careful not to pick a bank holiday week-end to travel, he finds no traffic jams, just wide open spaces. This is where REAL driving takes place isn't it? I have wondered for years why car manufacturers engineer vehicles capable of travelling way faster than any road speed limit in the world. Is it to indulge this fantasy?
I am city bred, but have lived in a rural enviroment for over 20 years. I have seen Toyota man many times! He drives as if he is starring in the advert, He only encounters the REAL DEAL reality when the technology fails and the car breaks down! Then he discovers he can't get a signal on his mobile phone, and wonders why there is not a breakdown truck just waiting round the next corner to help, (even if cover was included when he bought the car!) If he has crashed, but alive, conscious, and in pain, he wishes the roads were not quite so deserted, and when he is found, wonders why it takes so long to get to a hospital.
The virtual world is the only place were it is safe to take technology for granted!
Film 4 They’re made out of meat, was an amusing appraisal of what or who humans are. It follows a well worn storyline of experiencing humans from an alien perspective. I found myself thinking about the late 70's series Mork and Mindy,..and the brilliant Dr Xargle series of (children's?) books. Highly recommended light relief from academic tomes, and perfect gift for any new parents!
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/832171.Dr_Xargle_s_Book_of_Earthlets
Watching Professor Steve Fuller's Tedx lecture was thought provoking yet comforting. It made the very techno-orientated MOOC seem more human, and not because humanity was the subject of his lecture. It had the same effect as the hangout, in putting faces to the learning.
He looked at historical definitions that limited the scope of who was regarded as human. I understood this to mean that because there has not always been a consistant definition over time past there is no reason why there should be in the future.I have to say that the idea of enhanced humans somewhat disturbing, It is of course available already with cosmetic surgery, laser eye surgery, medical implants etc It seems to me that to be an enhanced human, you need an enhanced bank account! I am glad that he thought it was too soon to give up on the 'humanist project'. A Charter for human rights has only as yet existed for a brief period of the long history of 'humans'. If it has failed thus far is it because the UN is a collection of government representatives. Maybe the internet enables individuals to make the direct connections that will help it succeed ?
Monke, L (2004) The Human Touch, EducationNext . This just put into very eloquent words all my reservations about technology and young children. I particularly like the counter argument to the need to prepare the children for the high tech world of work.
Considerations of the real world and virtual worlds have been made already in this MOOC. Our view of the future is a virtual world, a fantasy, informed by knowledge of the present. It only becomes real when with time, it becomes the present. It may then look and feel very different from the expectation. To substantialy alter a child's experience of now, to enrich an adult's fantasy of the future seems wrong to me.
I wonder if there is anyone on this MOOC teaching in Pennslyvania or Ohio who has Amish children in their class? How are their cultural differences respected within school ?
Now, will those old trainers last out for the last stretch of the course?
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