Podcast: No Better Than Average

One of three podcasts I chose to talk about for this week is called No Better Than Average.  I chose this podcast as it is right up my ally -nerdy. It is just a couple of guys discussing technology, television & movies, video games and their families, among other geekery.

In the most recent episode I listened to, they had been discussing the controversy about drugs being used in the Olympics. They discussed an interesting theory that in this year’s Olympics the United States only won so many medals because they must be using a drug that is currently undetectable by the testing methods used on the participants. They had a guest on the show who covers medical topics as they relate to sports, who disagreed with this theory. (Jacob & Jeff, 2016)

The episode still had some geekery included, as they discussed Virtual Reality (VR) video games. There’s been a rise in the publicity of such games since more VR devices have been being released. As always, they also briefly touch on what they are fond of at the time. Technology-wise that week were specific earphones and an iOS ad blocker. (Jacob & Jeff, 2016)

If you’re looking for an all around geekery related recorded cast that’s fun and more on the casual side, give this one a shot!

Jacob, & Jeff. (2016). No Better Than Average -. Retrieved from http://nobettershow.com/

Technology in the Classroom

The video “Did You Know 2.0” touches on a number of interesting facts. One of these are that children are being given technology sooner in life. The example shown was that of the One Laptop per Child Project.  For my first discussion post this week, I have used the shifthappens wiki to search for a related topic. I came across a post where a teacher was asking what other educators were doing to help children be successful growing up in the 21^st century. She mentioned that she was one of the teachers using Moodle in her class. At her institution, this program is voluntary. (XPLANE, 2007; Jennifer_Kolb, 2007)

I saw one response that mentioned focusing on social media. Personally, I think it is a bit scary to think about young children engaging on the social media sites of today, but I can see how it could be useful, if heavily moderated. Individuals and companies across the world use this method of engaging (a big factor in web 2.0) each day. I wasn’t able to look more into the course provided on Moodle, but there was one in socially networked learning. It claims to offer help as far as teaching and learning through the use of social media in classrooms. Perhaps this is an example of how she could visit this topic further. (Jennifer_Kolb, 2007)

Another person made a good point on the argument of technology’s side, mentioning that as long as students are taking the time to learn the material, it shouldn’t matter what way they are doing so. I can see backing this statement up as well. Personally, I am not very keen on classroom settings and learn better in a comfortable and solitary environment. This is a huge reason why online learning has been successful for me. I don’t have the hang up of classroom anxiety, the pressure of needing to make it to class on a specific day or time, and I have many more materials to help my learning process on the internet. (Jennifer_Kolb, 2007)

Overall, I think that learning along with using technology will only be of benefit to children growing up – it’s the way the world is heading non-stop. The challenge is how to not make it such a huge part of their lives, where they are missing out on social interaction and life experiences.

Sources:

Jennifer_Kolb. (2007). Shifthappens - Preparation of students for the future? Retrieved August 31, 2016, from http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com/share/view/1658333?replyId=2000827

XPLANE. (2007). Did You Know 2.0. Retrieved August 31, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U

Short Discussion on the Dumbness of Crowds

For this week's forum topic in class, we were given the article "The Dumbness of Crowds" to discuss.

After reading the article for the forum post discussion this week, I can’t say that I am entirely on one side or the other. I do support collaboration efforts, especially since I have come to use so many of them, and find them to be successful in their purpose. On the other hand, I also can see the author’s point of view and agree that not all collaboration works work well.

A big part of creating a type of art, whether it be music, drawing, writing, etc., is the backbone of expression. Can more than one person create some kind of work together and have it be successful? Sure! I bet they could, but more often than not, these types of works are normally completed by single people. Artists of any medium use self expression daily to produce these types of things and 100% collaboration will never be reached in my opinion.

Bringing the discussion back to software programs, which we discussed last week: I still believe that these can be done well with collaborative efforts. While I do agree that sometimes part of the exciting new ideas tend to be left out or stretched out, there is still so much more that people can weigh in on through coding for example. While one person’s new idea may take rise, the efforts of multiple people working on that idea will help bring it to life much quicker than if that person were to do it on their own.

I think the phrase “the dumbness of crowds” goes well beyond us discussing Web 2.0 as well. We are usually forced to collaborate in our daily lives, especially when it comes to our jobs. We either work as a team, or don’t and face the consequences. Of course, if you are in certain positions, this won’t be the case, but it will be for the majority. We are asked to be able to work efficiently alone and to be able to be part of a team. Sometimes this goes a lot easier than others. When there is tension or mixed feelings about how things should proceed, there will be those to take a firm stance, and those that sit back and stay quiet, never letting their opinions be heard.

The article was definitely an interesting read and was about two sides I would have not really given much thought to before. I enjoyed that there were so many additional links to other blogs and resources with articles on the same for future reading.

Source:

Sierra, K. (2007). Creating Passionate Users. Retrieved August 24, 2016, from http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/01/the_dumbness_of.html