You gave an interesting example, Ziyad. To be honest, I even mess up my cooking when I am paying more attention to the music, twice the salt or sometimes none. But that’s just me. There are a few things that can be done simultaneously but it is important to distinguish them and not generalize the concept. Thanks for your perspective.
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Hey Sara,
I agree that it is important to pass this knowledge to the students. I think in an activity where one group try to multitask and the other where they perform the task in a sequence may help them understand the underlying concept. It may not be the exact representative of the issue but can give a fair idea. Like Blayne pointed out, some people may doubt their abilities for not being able to multitask, where it was not their fault to begin with.
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Hey Blayne, I understand what you are saying. It is really important that people become aware of this as it may seriously affect their confidence. I am glad that we took this class and got a different perspective on this.
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Hey Remy,
Let me start with with telling you that you are not alone and definitely I am there in the same boat. I feel overwhelmed by the technology sometimes and yet can’t live a single day without them. Senseless scrolling and unnecessary browsing has taken up a lot of time and even after knowing the fact I continue to do so. Technology is always a luxury. I think a fine line is when the luxury becomes a necessity. As long as we are not bound by it, we should be fine. A good way of understanding our limitations is by trying to live without any human-made things. It is almost impossible to do that in this generation. However, there is always the possibility of minimalism. That’s just me, to each their own.
Hey Heath,
You beautifully captured many emotions here. There are many thoughts that came up while reading your post. First of all, the Central Authentication System. Yes, it is a great system for security but has many lapses. My friend was visiting India and he became technologically handicapped as he could not access any university system because his phone was broken. After trying multiple sources he was able to contact help desk. So, they should definitely have a temporary pass or something. Second, I really liked your statement, “Perhaps instead of having technology policies in our syllabuses, we should treat those policies as an evolving contract with the class, one that may require renegotiation as the semester progresses”. This is such a basic requirement. Restricting something completely sometimes have a far worse effect. It should evolve as per requirement.
The last point is about values. You have described it in such a brilliant perspective. No matter how advance is the technology, we should never ever forget that it is created by humans and that it should never have the upper hand. Mix and match however much you like but ultimately you should be in control. And as long as humans are valued, I am sure the society will progress in a positive manner. Thanks for the blog!
Hey Ruixiang,
I understand your thoughts. I agree that the emotions that a teacher can bring in the class can’t be imitated by a machine. I generally lean anti-technology. However, playing the devil’s advocate here, I would like to bring another perspective. With the development in the field of Artificial Intelligence, I think the day won’t be too far when the robots will have equal emotions as human beings. I am not sure if you got the opportunity to hear the demo of google assistant making an appointment (https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/8/17332070/google-assistant-makes-phone-call-demo-duplex-io-2018). I thought it was quite realistic and firmly believe that there is more to come. I relate to you when you say, “machine are tools, and tools can only be tools” but if the tools become equivalent to humans, I am not sure what future holds for us.
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Great post, Khushboo! I imagine ideal things are never easy to implement. You have to cross many barriers, personal and professional. However, once they are crossed, there is a completely different world waiting and for good. The idea behind teaching and education is not clear to many educators and teachers and that is the main problem, I believe. Teaching itself is a difficult task and if someone asks to add more to the plate, the natural instinct is to move away from that towards the comfort zone. And yet all good things are just out of that comfort zone.
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Hey Efon, you put a great post in here with some very critical perspectives. I relate to the social, economical and political influences on the education and believe that in spite of those influences, education can prevail and as you said enable us to become independent thinkers. I like your ideas and the importance of ideas in the learning. Thanks for the post!
Hey Jasmine,
This is a very interesting post. Having a bias creates many negative experiences in everyday life. Among other things, one thing that I think is important is the value of the feeling is lost. With every bias that one has, they are creating a void of two positive feelings that could have happened in the absence of it. First, and the important one, is the one for whom the bias is there (creating a negative feeling in them) and the second, is their own, where they could have potentially experienced a positive one. I think we are all made of feelings, some positive, some negative, some strong and some weak. If the positive feelings are strong, it has much more value to one’s own life and that of the society. I believe the discussion is important and you give the perfect examples of how to have a brilliant discussion on any topic with your blog posts – some jokes, some fun and yet pass on the important points.
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Great post, Ziyad! You raise some important questions there. Actually with your post, I might have completely changed my perspective on the admission system in India. In India, there is not a race based admission but there is a caste-based reservation system where a certain percentage of the seats are reserved for the students from what it is called ‘the lower caste communities’. I was against the idea of reservation, and thought that it should be based completely on merit. But I was missing the whole point of the diversity. And now that I try to see back, I think it makes a lot of sense to have people from from all background present in a system. This is when it could flourish. Though there are still limitation to the way the system is based currently, I think with some modifications it can really help. Your point that awareness to the biases should be cultivated is very valuable and the universities can play a big role in creating an environment where collective growth is given importance.
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