Welcome to this 21st day of October, 12-years into the 21st century. I wish thank all my online readers and radio listeners for Do you remember when you were in school and you had a writing assignment, and if you asked your teacher what a word was, she told you to “look it up” because that’s what dictionaries are for. Today, kids are using tablet computers in the classroom for learning Air Conditioning, so when they look something up they also look it up online, and therefore this habit will probably follow them well into adulthood. In any case let’s talk about some of the technology in the classroom and how that will also affect the way we learn, think, and solve problems for ourselves in later life.
There was an interesting article in the science news from a psychologist specializing in learning disorders, she made a very interesting statement; “while videogames do not cause ADD or ADHD, if someone is on the borderline, it’s enough to push them over the edge, ” and so, it could be said for the average Internet surfer that spends only 12 to 15 seconds on average on any webpage before clicking out, or going to a different page – that they are at risk of ADD or ADHD?
What we’re doing is we are training the attention span, and diminishing the level of human concentration with all of our technology. If we are to use the same technology in the classroom learning, that may appease the children, or keep high schoolers learning online and doing their assignments perhaps provoking their curiosity with novelty, but what about pushing kids over the edge towards ADD or ADHD? Do you see that point?
What about the challenges with human eyesight? Have you ever spent hours working on a computer project, or doing computer work, and then tried to refocus on something far away, or something very tiny like reading the label on a food package? Have you noticed that you can’t do it, and you have to wait for your eyes to readjust? Much the same as walking into a dark room, it takes a moment to readjust.
There are many challenges with learning that have to do with eyesight, the common ones are; lazy eye and dyslexia, along withelection, and if you swing two or three elections in a row, you will end up with a different country in the future. People often note this problem with the mass media, but have they considered the internet as it is integrated into our education system – we cannot stop the integration, it’s part of our society, nor should we, but we need to all be cognizant and question not only authority, but the devices which deliver us information, and the software and companies behind them – and their agendas, as they are not ALL purely profit motivated.
Now then, you can definitely see that, right? Just as TV has changed our society in many ways, most of them not for the better, and it has helped people into a bizarre type of consumerism due to branding, advertising, and marketing. Okay so, let’s get back to the political challenges and implications of all this in a few minutes, and instead address the challenges we have with e-commerce, advertising, marketing, branding, and perhaps the unethical side of it all online.
Currently, we have a huge problem with Internet reviews. Unfortunately, if a business gets a bad review, or too many complaints and consumers stop shopping there. They trust what they read on the internet, even though it was written by untrustworthy or unknown sources. Many times it was written by shrills or competitors trying to uplift their ratings while trashing their competitors. Why should this surprise anyone?
It happens all the time in the real world with consumer groups, or nonprofit consumer bureaus. It’s happening online, but unfortunately more and more people trust what they read online, and some people even reason that; it if everyone likes it, that reality will overcome the few negatives written by competitors posting negative comments. Well, one problem we have is that there are companies who will post positive reviews online for a fee by the dozen, 100s or even 1000s. You see that problem; okay, now back to the topic of political indoctrination in our schools.
For those who are without religion, they duly note the indoctrination of many world religions in private religious schools, churches, and communities. Folks grow up believing in a certain type of philosophy, or a certain version of history, even to the point that they choose not to look at the fossil record of dinosaurs because it can’t possibly jive with what they’ve been told. Therefore they merely overlook that and hold their same views.
When our schools choose to participate in pre-indoctrination they must cover up factual evidence, scientific discovery, and continue to play along with the close minded view of the world. Is that really learning? Is that really teaching our kids to think? Of course, there is significant risk and reason for those who are religious to continue to force their will onto the schools to maintain their numbers and percentages of our population to serve their political will.
Indeed, the other side is just as bad, as there are so many left-leaning and socialist views coming out of our high schools and colleges, that those graduating with college degrees are twice as apt to vote for the left-leaning agenda, even if it goes against basic economics and free-market capitalism which historically has made our country great, whereas socialism has destroyed economies, lives, and entire civilizations, forcing them into bankruptcy.
Now then, it’s great to have tablet computers and personal tech tools and it is possible that they will speed up learning, it also saves treesbeing cut down for textbooks I suppose, but nevertheless any new tool which increases learning, also increases the ability to indoctrinate our students, kinds, and family members, and thus the potential to indoctrinate them faster. If these tools are not used in the incorrect way, they will end up pushing a political agenda, and causing problems for our nation.
Another challenge in school is as we teach these children and have the technology to monitor their progress along the way, we are also going to use data mining to find the bad apples in advance of their disdain for authority, or for finding anomalies, such as those who are most suited towards the indoctrination, those children who have bought the program hook, line, and sinker that can now be groomed for future leadership. That too is a problem. Further, all of this big data, and collection of information of everything that everyone does is going to have challenges in the future.
Not long ago, I was discussing all this with an acquaintance, and we noted that each of us has at times view things on the internet that we didn’t agree with. My acquaintance had bought a Koran because he believed he should know what he was talking about when it came to Middle Eastern policy. Who could deny that? Myself, I am an aviation buff, and during the Nazi regime they had some of the best aviation technologies and rocketry of the time, they were far advanced, in fact if they Germany still existed today stuck back in that time period, they’d still be one with today’s technology.