Final Exam

1)It seemed in the blog entry that I posted about Technology and Government and how our nation is using technology I was really against the whole technology idea. I really think that I was too harsh on the use of technology and now I realize that technology really is a good thing. I think about nations that do not have technology and it makes me wonder why I was so harsh on technology in my earlier blog entries. I really think that this nation would not be where it is today if it was not for technology. New devices and entertainment has definitely helped shape the nation in a good and innovative way. As the presenters were giving their presentations someone mentioned a story that they were doing and how America was sent back to a time before the ice age. The nation was not trying to live like they did before the age of technology! They were trying to build the technology that we have today! So to say that we would be better off without technology is a misconception that I had wrong before.
I think technology is frightening and elusive at first glance to a lot of people because we truly do not know a whole lot about it; but now that I did do a lot of discussions about technology it is found that technology serves a great purpose in this country. The nations that do not have technology have not prospered. Japan is probably one of the most technological based countries, and it is Japan that is projected to be the next power nation in the world. It is not that technology is bad; it is actually good and I’m glad that I had this opportunity to fix that error. It is almost like I am Borgmann and throughout the class I was ripping on technology the whole time but now that it is over I’ve realized the benefits; just as Borgmann ripped on technology throughout the book, but then at the end we find out that he indeed has a very close attraction to technology.
2) In my blog entitled The Internet and Stages of Education I talked about the learning process and how learning by the internet is not really the best way of learning but by doing is what is important. While I still argue that the internet is not the best way to learn things I do now believe that a lot of knowledge can be gained through going on the internet. The internet has a boundless amount of information that just has to be found. Sometimes the hardest part is ciphering through all the material and junk on the internet to get to the actual facts of what you are truly looking for. There really is a lot of information that is on the internet; most of which can help for classes, projects, term papers, ect. I still think that books are the best source to get information from because you do not have to look through a bunch of things that are not related to the topic of interest. Also, in books about the topic of interest there is no doubt that the information is correct or not. Sometimes when I am looking up information about a topic on the internet I wonder if the information is really correct or not; with books I do not have to wonder about those sorts of things.
The way that the internet has evolved with the active learning that has come about with the internet it sometimes seems that there is activity through the internet. We can no longer say that learning from the internet is passive learning. I was actually on a site last week where flash cards are actually on the screen and when I hit the mouse the card flipped over and told the definition. As I was doing this process I began thinking about all the time I could have saved in grade school and high school if they had that technology out back then. In many ways the internet has saved people time and given them the same opportunity of scoring well on tests. Do I think that I learned something while I made up the flash cards in grade school? Sure. But I would have rather have all the flashcards on a computer screen and used the time for more study instead of having to write all them up. The problem that Borgmann saw with this is the fact that with the extra time that was there from not making up the cards the student would not study but rather watch TV or go to a shopping mall. I disagree to an extent because I think that a dedicated student would study the cards with the extra time. An educated student would not have made up the flash cards to begin with. So in conclusion, I’m glad I had some time to reflect on my blog entries and I will continue using the internet for educational purposes.