TWC - Session 1

To begin with our first class, Dr Shahi gave us a short briefing on technology and world change. When we say technology and world change, most of our first thought in mind would be IT (Information Technology). However, the principle does not mainly revolves fundamentally on IT, it too involves our everyday transportation, buildings, medical welfare and many other more that we can think of.

From our introduction, I have have picked out some issues that I remembered of as follows:

1) “ how advancement of medical benefits (Bio- technology) is able to benefit everybody and changed their lifes enabling them to have a better lifestyle, through new research of drug for a particular symptom. “

2) “how Information Technology modifies our everyday lifestyle; through the uses of internet resources like facebook, MSN, SKYPE as well as gadgets like I Phones. Helps us to connect to friends and family from all around the world”

3) “How the company’s aircrafts systems are improved to provide more efficient and effective usage; for eg. Having a computerize system to detect engine failure in its early stages during flight so as safety measures could be taken.

4) “How Japan is by far the most efficient and effective in terms of their own technologies as compared to the rest of the world.

After hearing all the thoughts from my classmates, It really keeps my mind going to think of what I really knew about technology and world change, and ultimately just a vague aspect of it. And this spur me to want to know more.

Apart from these, our attention was brought to this sentence: “Technology is Easy, People are Hard”. It tells us that creating new technology can be easy or to understand technology can is easy, however, people on the other hand it is hard to change mindsets. For e.g. when people developed a habit for a current technology so suitable for themselves, they might not even consider taking on new technology (Use of writing materials VS typing on laptops).

Besides that, four learning issues of technology and world change was talk about; Information and Communications Technology, Life Science and BioBusiness-related technologies , Energy and Industrial Production Technologies and Emerging Technologies (including nanotechnology, robotics, other exciting technology areas).

Next, we covered on : Technology and the Rise of Civilizations: Historical Timeline and Technology “Revolutions”

We have discussed on how Some Revolutionary Developments in Human History had came about.

Besides that we watched a video regarding Guns, Germs and Steel which showed us how civilization and technology changes overtime, an example was the an example was the usage of guns between china and U.S, where china discontinued the use of guns while U.S took the idea of guns usage to their advantage.
As well as the very vivid questions that the new guinean asked: “why u white people have so much cargos and we black people do not”, most of us agreed that because of the new guinean culture and the environment that they are in inhibits them from the whites who are more developed even though new guinean they themselves have the abilities to pick up skills fast.

Key take away points:

1) In our everyday life, we are living in exponential time. This means that we are already unknowingly  living in   future time, for e.g. “preparing our students for jobs that didn’t exist yet”

2) “Technology is Easy, People are Hard”.

Issues for futher discussion:

Are we humans’ a player of technology or have we unknowingly become a tool of technology in this society. Often it seems like humans are the ones developing new technologies like electronic gadgets, faster transportations, etc., but haven’t we humans relied heavy on such technologies to keep our lives ongoing. If we were to ever consider these available technologies taken away from us, what would really become of us?
Well, for me I feel that we are both a player and a tool of technology in many ways which plays a big part in changing our future lifestyle as well as its impact of the world.
Personal Ratings for Session:

In my opinion, the session was enjoyable after all. I will rate the session 8/10. Higher rating the next time round if more videos could be shown during class!