My name is Kirsten Hong Tai and I am a third year student majoring in Political Science and minoring in Technology and Society.
The reason for taking this course, is that is is necessary to minor in this field. However, the reason I am minoring in technology and society is that I do believe it is beneficial to my degree.
I am interested at how technology affects political thoughts, political activities, and communication between humans. For example, I have noticed how voter turnout for certain elections appears to get lower or remains at a standstill. I do believe that the problem lies within political candidates who only appeal to adults who have knowledge of past policies and read news articles instead, of young adults who focus more on their devices.
I would like to focus on the effects of technology on our way of thinking. For example, how we become narcissist or dumber with the use of certain technology.
My name is Peter Raskovsky, I’m a fourth year Anthropology major. During the summer last year I took Living Technologies course (learning how to flint knapp) which started me thinking about how culture and society are formed by the technologies they find important and vice versa. How cultural norms affect which techs become important, or are ignored. My main focus up to this point has been on archaeology with an eye towards working in a museum or some sort of archiving. In the Media and creative practices class last year I discovered media archaeology which has become a bit of a focus for me. Last semester I discovered that there was a Technology and society minor. So, here I am. It’s fun to change the focus of your degree near the end!
I wouldn’t consider myself a particularly tech savvy person, the actual production and creation of tech is beyond me, and I have a unfounded fear of the cloud for some reason (I just don’t trust it, probably because I don’t understand it.) I’m more interested in the societal and cultural aspects of tech.
As far as what I’d like to study. Identity forming, and how we communicate and hide said identity is fascinating to me. Augmented reality, social networking, and even 3D printing, I think, all can and do have an impact on these things.
My name is Ben Fast and I think I’m posting this in the correct place. I’m a fifth year honours history student taking the Professional Writing minor and wrapping it all up this semester. After 17 years of constant school I think I need a break, but I also need a solid base in the real world so studying technology and society seems like a great idea.
As this is my fifth or sixth WordPress-based blog, I think I’ve got the hang of how it all comes together, but I am interested to see how this OAC thing works. I really like networking and social media, but I’d say I’m somewhere between a Jenny Aitken and a Katie Rosenburg on the scale of social media familiarity scale. My interests in the more physical machine side of technology draws me towards airplane design and digital cameras. I have a great passion for airplanes and studying how designs have changed over the first century of flight, and I am an avid amateur photographer who uses both film and digital cameras regularly.
I would love to see this class explore media integration into learning, but not specifically classroom learning. As Jenny and I so aptly put, the university is both like a womb and a prison, but what about how we learn outside of school? I’ve studied the idea of public history (non-academic-centred history like in museums, movies, walking tours, historical fiction, etc.) and I am heading towards a career in museums, so I would love to see how media and social media has integrated into those areas, and how that affects alternative learning experiences. If none of this paragraph makes sense to you, take a look at the Royal BC Museum’s Twitter account and tell me how it changes your view of the museum and their programming.
Well, I think that’s it for me. Nice meeting you, see you tomorrow,
Ben
PS: This is one of my favourite YouTube videos recently. Michael McIntyre on the Invention of the Kilt. Enjoy!
(I’ve done the classic embed YouTube to WordPress trick, but we’ll see if it works on the OAC servers… If not, watch it here.)
Hola! My name is Jess and I am a 4th year Anthropology major. As for technology, I am really interested in augmented reality, with its interactive nature and it’s use of mapping. I am in currently in the process of applying for my master’s degree and definitely want to incorporate aspects of augmented reality into my master’s project.
I think something that is worth focusing on is the technology that will be used within academia in the future. When I think of campus in 20 years, my first thought is about how differently the classroom set up would be and how students would take tests. Would there be any written exams anymore? Or would every student write his or her exam through a class app? The introduction of more technology makes the concept of sitting through lecture in the classroom or writing exams on paper seem obsolete!
My name is Kaitlyn Rosenburg and I’m a fourth year creative writing major, journalism minor. (This is my last semester, OMG!) I can’t even begin to imagine my life without the Internet and my biggest fear is dropping my iPhone down a street drain.
I’ve taken TS 200 and 300 in previous years and loved every class. Over the past three years, technology has slowly become my writing niche, both in topic and form. I truly believe technology is a universal theme, whether you dream in 140 characters or can barely operate an iPad.
I wasn’t in class on Wednesday because I was attending the Canadian University Press’ national annual conference with The Martlet. I spent five days with a bunch of young people who all own smartphones and all maintain active Twitter accounts. The number one takeaway from every session I attended was how traditional media like newspapers need to starting marketing themselves as media organizations that just happen to publish a daily paper.
I also talked with other student writers and designers about content. Specifically, understanding what readers want. One paper admitted their student body was not interested in news stories, so this year, they’ve redesigned themselves as a magazine with a focus on fashion.
This idea of tailoring content to a clearly defined demographic really interests me. As a writing student, I spend a lot of time coming up with stories and characters that will appeal to readers. My main genre is screenwriting, so the Netflix model really excites me. If you haven’t read this recent Atlantic article on their in-house analytics, I would highly recommend it. (House of Cards won a Golden Globe this Sunday!)
I’m not really sure how in-depth our pitch should be, but I would love to explore how analytics are changing the way media creates content. Does it only work for television and films? Journalists often scoff at sites like Buzzfeed, but perhaps we can learn something from their click-driven editorial approach. This topic could also touch on Internet privacy. Does it bother you how much Netflix knows about your viewing habits?
Hello, my name is Cameron Forbes and iam a third year sociology student at uvic. I took ts 200 and have been wanting to take the next ts courses ever since.
Iam interested in how emerging technologies can be applied to the education system. While the current education system works for many students i believe that with an updated approach to teaching and course planning the education system could be more effective. I am of the belief that instead of resisting new technology in the classroom we should be embracing its possibilities.
Iam also interested in the future of data presentation. Right now there is so much information in world and i think its important to find the best ways to illustrate the importance of the information.
I also thinks that with the growing use of technology we must look at exactly how this constant use of technology effects our brains in the short term and long term.
As for augmented reality iam interested in the latest oculus rift prototype.
Hi everyone, my name is Alan Yan and I am a fourth year geography student here at UVic. My area of concentration is in urban and development studies. It is my last term here at UVic and this course seems like an interesting one to finish my elective requirements with so I registered for it.
I am interested in the benefits and drawbacks of mobile technologies such as smartphones and tablets. Mobile technologies have already influenced the way we design buildings and cities presently and no doubt cities of the future. For example in designing buildings today we take into account providing mobile infrastructure such as Wi-Fi connectivity and optimized LTE coverage. Mobile technologies may one day change the way we work so that planning cities around transportation and automobiles may be unnecessary. The increasing power and lowered cost of mobile technologies have helped to increase the rate of development tremendously by providing people in the global south with access to information and knowledge never possible before.
A topic that is of particular interest to me for possible class discussion is the topic of privacy and security. While technologies bring with them benefits to society and improvements in quality of life I believe that we should always be critical of how they treat our personal information and the ways in which technologies protect our personal data. With the recent news of the NSA surveillance program it is a great time to think about privacy and security in this age of new technologies and gadgets. A lot of people may say “I have nothing to hide” but it is not a matter of hiding anything bad but it is a matter of “not having anything in particular that I’d like to share” in the words of a security researcher named Mikko Hypponen who gave a Ted Talk aptly named – How the NSA betrayed the world’s trust — time to act.
Hello, My name is Jimena (think of he-men-ah), I’m in my fourth year doing a major in Hispanic Studies and a minor in Technology. I feel technology is such a big part of us in our everyday lives that i thought doing a minor would have to be something essential for the future. Something interesting about technology I would like to talk about would have to be how this new era of technology and what will come after will affect newer generations in their development.
Hello, my name is Max Douglas. I am a fourth year computer science student. I found out about this course from the Oculus Rift demo last December. I’ve finished all my required courses and this seemed like an interesting and relevant course.
I evaded social media until I went to University and had to move away from my home town and the friends that lived there.
My name is Emily Agopsowicz and I am a returning grad of UVic. I obtained my degree in English and Professional Writing back before university blogs even existed (which is really not all that long ago). Having survived in the terrifying post-grad world for several years now I am filled with a mix of excitement and self doubt to return to the prison-womb of university to complete a diploma in Secondary Education. I am taking this course as part of the Technology Innovation in Education (TIE) program requirements, which is a unique program to UVic that (I think) does a great job of preparing prospective teachers for the challenges of teaching in an increasingly digital world.
I am really curious about how digital technology plays into the education and development of children and youth. I want to explore what tools are available and how they can be used to engage students in their learning and development. The education system is still very far behind when it comes to implementing new technology. I think it must very challenging for teachers to keep up with the rapidly changing world, and often students are more digitally literate then their teachers. In order to be relevant, teachers must try to understand new technologies and find ways to implement them into the classroom.
Aurasma is an augmented reality tool that has started to gain recognition with educators. It is easy to use tool that can seamlessly animate the world as seen through a tablet or smartphone. Here is a TED Talk that explains the app: http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_mills_image_recognition_that_triggers_augmented_reality.html. In this talk, founder Matt Mills demonstrates how Aurasma captivates audiences both young and old. This shows that rather than bemoan technology-obsessed youth, educators have an opportunity to harness the power of technology and bring a sense of wonder and awe back into the classroom.