#edcmooc A DAY MADE OF GLASS 2 and BRIDGING OUR FUTURE

A DAY MADE OF GLASS 2 and BRIDGING OUR FUTURE

I think that this video wants to show that people can live a whole day interacting with technology. Technology is present in people´s daily life at all times.

Regarding to technology in education and how is education portrayed, I think they do not only focus learning at school but since you wake up until you go to bed in the sense that you can always find information at any time, knowledge at the reach of your hand, wherever you are or whatever you are doing. So, this video states that a quick and easy access to information equals learning. In my view, even you have the opportunity to access information at any time of the day, that does not mean learning. Learning is a complex process in which more than a simple access to knowledge is involved. For example: motivation, interaction with other people, explanations and a guide. Obviously, some may say that all these things can also be found in that kind of e-learning but I am not that sure about it. Knowledge is presented in a very visual way, the person who wants to find some information does not have to make much effort to get it (which has some other advantages as well; the faster you find it, the faster you get to knowledge) otherwise, people have to look for that information, in that case we are the agents of the action as the video shows but I really think that people are just passive agents and finally, the information given is presented in a way some others designed it, so research is reduced to a simplistic way of learning.

Activities at school depicted in the video are mostly interactive and dynamic, students just have to pay attention, they do not need to take notes, just listen or watch. You can also see them talking among them but in my opinion this is quite utopian vision of learning as most of us know, students rarely share the passion for learning or opinions at that young age. Then, motivation is fundamental here and technology hardly can provide that. The question is: why is it there still a teacher in the classroom? Why do they still need parents or friends? Why do they need a car to go to school or work? Why do we still need doctors? In my view, we are people and technology, contrary to what the video may show, can be used to make our lives easier but technology cannot be our lives, an important part nowadays but I do not think it will substitute social interactions, teaching, parenting or diagnosing. If knowledge is presented as it is and they have access to whatever they want and need, how can they build it? Well, they could search on the web, do some research, but what they need to find has been probably done by thousands before so, there is no need to build anything. We have access to whatever answer we have, so the process of learning and researching is not done by the student but by a computer.

I also believe that if we lived in a society like the one in the video, we would not develop our human skills as we should. I mean, we would depend on technology for everyday life and young people would grow up influenced by this way of life that they would not be able to live in a different way. The simple action of opening you wardrobe and choose your clothes, for example. I do not think we really need it, we can do it on our own and technology should be used for new things which cannot be done by ourselves. Improvement in medicine is one good option, if it helps saving lives or having a better life, I think it would be great news. But depending on technology for such things as opening a wardrobe is pushing a society think that we have that necessity and we do not have it. One further question: would we need to learn how to write properly?

 With this model of education, students would need to read and typewrite properly but what about writing? What about visiting places and experience? Students have access to live communication with real world, they can watch videos and have all the information you can find of anything you want (like the bridge in the second video)… but what if they arranged a trip to that place and talk to the people working or living there? Well, the idea of doing everything with only moving a finger is quite attractive but we would lose lots of experiences in the real world. For example: you can learn about weather via internet or using technologies but what about the smell of rain in the countryside? The wind before a storm? I think it is experience what we miss in these models of education.

The titles of both videos are quite revealing. Both mean the desire of building a new model of society and education. Technology is what rules our education and set the basis for a new model of society and learning. “A day made of glass” shows the necessity they want for us for a daily routine completely dependent on technology and the second video uses the word “future” and plays with the world: build and bridge. Technology companies aspire to model our way of life and society and one way to do it is through education. First, they set the new model and then they will make technology a first necessity for new generations.

Unfortunately, I think this is a very dystopian view of daily life and education. Although, I think it is idealistic in a sense… what this company would like life to become so they would be successful in their business. Both videos show optimistic and utopian learning models, they depict the way learning or society should be in order to build a whole system with dependent consumers of avant-garde technologies.