What have I already done?

This semester started with a question, a yearning for understanding in essentially the reason why people though the way that they did about internet searches. I was able to, thankfully, conduct an independent study allowing me to research this question through alternative ideas (looking up articles that had similar questions/keywords and gather information pertaining to the subject).

As the weeks progressed I found myself less and less motivated to search the internet for relevant articles, and less motivated to read the longer article I had found. I think perhaps this sentiment expresses itself in my criticism of the authors methods or theories.

My searching started out with me reading The Shallows by Nicolas Carr. It was a very good book, vague at points but written over a depth of opinions and topics so as to be perfect as an introduction to the topic of how technology might be influencing peoples thought process. (Perhaps I will go back and look over it one more time to see what perspective fresh eyes will grant me.)Carr presented a rather bleak, War of the Worlds like opinion of the changes technology might be having on the human brain and thought process.

It was cool and the physical changes were very interesting but they seemed to be entering into a realm of the scientific community I wasn't ready for (not enough background experience) nor that I wanted to explore (I was more interested in the characteristics these changes caused and if/how one might alter them).

The next article that I read was on the changes East Asian classrooms were going to be making over the next 20 years, written by Tai-Wai Chan. It talked about "case studies" in which classrooms had been "updated". Students were given access to computers and the teachers were trained in a different method that would allow the students to "independently" travel through guided lessons. The benefits, Chan claimed, were that the students hierarchy should be erased, students would get to accel through classes at their own pace and under more personal learning environments (though the environment would be virtual).

After this article I happened to have another article on the students beliefs about self-learning. It also happened to take place in the Eastern Hemisphere. This article concluded that students that learn one way would accel if they were tested in a similar manner. Also that students who felt that learning was a constructive scenario, not simply passive, learned better than other students who did not.

Around this time I had been introduced to TED talks from a different class. I watched and review Keith Barry's talk on hijacking the brain. It introduced a very interesting idea to my mind that has stayed, the human mind is incredibly susceptible to illusion and can easily be tricked. People everyday are being influenced by factors unacknowledged.

I then read an article on adult learning in the science era. This article really enforced the differences between the generation that had learned to use the internet and computer technology, and the generation that had grown up learning to use it like a second language.