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.
