Saturday, November 27, 2010

Response: Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction



I have definitely a lot in common with Vishal. Although Vishal does something constructive, like filmmaking instead of doing his homework, I manage to do nothing valuable. Vishal is not a unique case.  Every teen with computer or other entertainment access is distracted from doing school work. Like how teens get distracted from social networks, instant messaging software, tv, and video games today, a decade ago, teens were distracted by other forms of entertainment i.e. board games, tv, playing amongst friends.  Similar to all other teens, I also have trouble disconnecting from the digital world. Although lately I have stopped playing a lot of video games, I have gotten obsessed with instant messaging and social networks. Instead of finishing homework quickly, I spend majority of my time socializing, waiting for the last moment to start my homework. This obviously has a big negative impact on my grades. By leaving my homework till night time, I complete it with my mind being half asleep. This causes my assignment to be completed with not all my effort and potential, and thus a lower grade than what I would want it to be.

With all the software and social networks on the internet these days, I believe it definitely amplifies my personality. I am able to catch up with old friends, get closer with some of my friends and even make new friends. With technology having some negative impact on my life, it has its positives too. I am able to explore what I would like to do in the future using various tools on the internet. It also makes it much easier for me to read more and start viewing different aspects of life from different perspectives.

In my opinion, gaming can affect sleeping patterns in certain cases. I was an obsessed gamer ever since my teenage years began till last year. Gaming never really affected my sleeping pattern unless or until I played late at night, ruining my sleeping cycle. As far as ability to retain information, it was never really a problem. In fact, with the MMO games that I played, I actually expanded my vocabulary and developed a greater general knowledge. Thus, just saying that gaming affects sleep patterns and ability to retain information is incorrect. It depends on the game and how many hours an individual is playing. Sure, if an individual was playing a shooting game for hours past midnight, their ability to retain information and sleeping cycle would be disrupted.

Using technology most of the times does not involve physical or healthy activity. Alan Eaton definitely has a point when he says that technology has led to a “balkanization of their focus and duration of stamina.” A great chunk of teens spend a significant amount of time using technology, which in result costs them their health. When one is on the computer for quite some time, the duration of their stamina goes down due to the lack of exercise.  They also start losing focus on other things as they are too much concentrated and distracted from technology.

The cost of technology definitely has more benefits than disadvantages. In fact, technology is taken for granted and its only negative impacts are highlighted in our society. Using technology we can research, interact with the community, entertain ourselves etc. If it’s overused and abused, then is when it makes a negative impact. Too much of everything is not good for you. The schools should be embracing more technology in the curriculum as it is efficient, convenient and interests a lot of teens.

The students in this article are depictions of regular average teenage life. Almost every teen is distracted by entertainment that can be extracted from technology. It is human nature to do something that interests you. In a life of a teenager, social networking and other entertainment sources are much more interesting than school course work.  The author of the article seems to have done good research to grasp the use of technology among teenagers. His points are valid as this response took me 3 hours to write thanks to Facebook and Msn.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Interview Summary

Mr Carpenter visited my group (Ariel, Ilnar and I) on Tuesday with information about the Geography ISP that we had to remap for him. He provided us with a sample ISP that he wanted us to tweak by integrating technology in the project.
The ISP focused on the push and pull factors of emigration. Mr. Carpenter emphasized the use of Google Earth in this project, along with other webtools that we would have to research. After the interview, we found Wolfram Alpha, Gapminder and Google Earth as the software/webtools of choice that the students would have to work on. Wolfram Alpha would be used for the general statistics, gapminder for trends in various aspects (GDP, birth/death rate), and Google Earth to put it all together using notes and kmz files.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Placement Update

1) What did you accomplish last week in your placements?

Last week, our whole geography group met with Mr. Carpenter to find out what we had to do. After learning that we were remapping the Gr9 ISP regarding the "Push and pull factors of emmigration", we divided the whole group into smaller groups. Abdul and I chose to find out who Wolfram Alpha would be helpful with this assignment.

2) What do you need to do this week?

This week, Abdul and I need to find more things that Grade 9 Geography students would be able to extract from the Wolfram Alpha website. Currently, we have: Population density, GDP and unemployment rate. After we have researched enough information that they could find on the website, we will join our parts with other groups who are researching Gapmind and Google Earth. I hope Mr. Carpenter will like our remapped version of the Geography ISP.