Should Cell Phones be Used in Class?

            It is controversial on whether or not phones and other electronics should be allowed in school. With the high increase of technology intelligence, electronics in school would be a much better alternative than using outdated textbooks. Most textbooks today lack the information that students can simply search up on their phones, iPads, or tablets. Young people are growing up in societies where technology involves everyone; it is a common knowledge we are all coming about. “Instead of spending time and energy making sure students do not bring them to school, we should be investing that same energy into showing them how to use them properly” (Edubabbling 2014). People often take advantage of the free access to the wide variety of information we can attain just through our phones. Electronics should be allowed in the classroom for emergencies, faster easy research access and better information. It is just being the path to a more intelligent future.

Details:

            Today looking at the news and other surroundings, it is becoming more dangerous for everyone to be in public. There are a lot of natural disasters happening and lots of stories of strangers finding their ways into schools and this is very dangerous for students and their lives. With the past events such as Columbine and the Sandy Hooks shootings, coming to school often seems scary if there is not enough security. In schools we are not allowed to have our phones and are just to rely on the teachers. But in some cases, if something happens to the teacher there is no other way to contact families. “You will be better prepared to safely reunite your family and loved ones during an emergency if you think ahead, and communicate with others in advance” (Ready.gov 2012). Everyone has the fear of losing contact with his or her families in case of any emergency. Having phones in class for this reason will ensure the families that the students is okay or to let the outsiders know what is going on.

            Textbooks often tend to lack information that students need. They do have very useful information but there is always better and more helpful knowledge on the Internet. We use the Internet everyday for our small, quick, searching and social media. Information is always found on the Internet because of how much information we put out there. “The politics of the matter aside, the demonstrates the power of thought when it is articulated on the Internet today. It has the power to transcend the obstacles that offline communication faces” (Chrling 2011). With Web 2.0 rising, we are open to more opportunity of information.

            Using the Internet also allows faster searches. Web 2.0 is a better and faster tool everyone uses that advances more and more each day. “Examples of Web 2.0 include social networking sites, blogs, wikis, folksonomies, video sharing sites, hosted services, Web applications, and mashups” (Wikipedia 2014). There is so much more options to finding information besides a textbook in a better way than what a textbook can give students. Growing up in a technological society, it can appear to be easier to learn to type, text, and use other concepts of using electronics to educate us. Using the Internet is much faster and can help organizations and businesses work together better, give knowledge, and also improve on social structure. The Internet does not only provide faster searches, they also provide information on social media, news, and others. “According to some Internet experts, with Web 3.0 you’ll be able to sit back and let the Internet do all the work for you” (Strickland 2008). Using Internet could be helpful with gathering much information that is provided.

Conclusion:

            Electronics being allowed in schools will be very beneficial because it will allow better access to information we need in studies. The Internet has a lot more resources than an outdated textbook can give us. The youth is raised being able to use such technology to do quick searches. There is always the situation where there can be in an emergency and a student will need to contact their parents in case a teacher is incapable of doing so. Our phones, tablets, and iPads are very useful to our lives and the technology it brings us can often be taken advantage of. If phones are allowed in school, we can be taught all of the opportunities we have to educating ourselves (Wikipedia 2014).

Works Cited

Meador, Derrick. “Should Students Be Allowed To Use Cell Phones At School?”. Edubabbling.com. 2013. Web. 1 May 2014. < http://www.edubabbling.com/should-students-be-allowed-to-use-cell-phones-at-school/>

Ready.gov. “School Emergency Plan”. Ready.gov. 2012. Web. 1 May 2014. 

< http://www.ready.gov/school-emergency-plans >

Chrling. “Information Sharing on the Internet is Changing Our Society”. Chrling. 2011. Web. 1 May 2014.

 <http://www.ohrling.com/2011/02/information-sharing-on-the-internet-is-

changing-our-social-behavior/>

Wikipedia. “Web 2.0”. Web 2.0. 2014. Web. 1 May 2014 .

< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0>

Strickland, Johnathan. “How Web 3.0 Will Work”. HowStuffWorks. 2008. Web. 1 May

2014. <http://computer.howstuffworks.com/web-302.htm >

Humans Merging with Machines

Introduction:

Humans merging with machines are a theory people have been thinking about for years. Singularity creator, Kurzweil, came up with the idea of humans becoming smart as a machine. and being able to fight off any type of disease.” Our brains are a million times slower than electronics," Kurzweil said. "We will increasingly become software entities if you go out enough decades" (Farrar 2008). Ever since technology increased at a high peak, the possibility of humans merging with machines is becoming even more realistic and scientists are getting ready for that theory to revolve but there is still a lot of questions like: When is it going to happen? How will it affect the natural human life?

Details:

The big question is when is this entire thing going to take place? That is hard to determine especially since it is a new idea that would be presented amongst human and most people won’t accept it. Regardless if it’ll make them live longer, cure them of any diseases, and have a brain like Google. That’ll take away the point of existing as a human and instead of living like a human; we would be living in a mind and body of a robot.

There is a lot of predictions based on how technology will affect the human mind and most importantly when is it going to happen. Kurzweil cannot predict the future. “He feels by 2020 we'll have computers that are powerful enough to simulate the human brain but we won't be finished with the reverse engineering of the brain until about the year 2029” (Kaku 2011). At the rate technology is going will have a greater enhancement than the human brain and will it be able to control it?

Humans won’t have organs; they most likely will be replaced by machine that will keep it going at a specific rate. “By the 2030s, Kurzweil said, humans will become more non-biological than biological capable of uploading our minds onto the Internet, living in various virtual worlds and even avoiding aging and evading death” (Farrar 2008). The life of a human being will be run by the internet and all of our data will be uploaded on it. This will be the new way human interact on first instinct while meeting new people and saving memories.

The human mind being run by a machine will be so much better and smarter than natural knowledge. “In the 2040s, Kurzweil predicts that non-biological intelligence will be billions of times better than the biological intelligence humans have today, possibly rendering our present brains obsolete” (Farrar 2008). The brain we currently have will pretty much be useless once a chip gets implanted inside of it to make the human mind have equivalent amount of knowledge as the internet.

Kurzweil admits that there's a risk associated with the concept of machines meging with humans Singularity, that's impossible to get away from. “We don't know what a highly advanced artificial intelligence, finding itself a newly created inhabitant of the planet Earth, would choose to do” (Grossman 2011). We would not know the cause and effects of bringing robots for an example to the world in the long run because we do not know how they will react. They do not have the natural process of the human mind so it could retaliate against us.

Conclusion:

As interesting as the concept of Singularity sounds, there is a major risk in merging humans with machines. Such as if human’s behavior is impaired in a negative way the causes behavior to be out of control. If God wanted us to be merged with machines and act as a robot, he would’ve created us without a free will until the ability to make choices. The way technology is admiring and the way humans stay attached to their electronics, there is no way to stop the evolution of technology.

Refection:

New Knowledge: I never thought about humans being run by technology. I always knew that technology is a very powerful source and could do a lot of stuff but being combined with it will probably be more helpful. It could regulate your heart beats, blood flow, stamina, cancer cells, etc. I believe it'll bring in more pros than cons but that would just take away the experience of actually being a human, its as If you're being run by a machine.

Prior Knowledge: I always knew that technology is getting more advanced as time goes on. There will never be a limit to it and at some point and time because there is nothing stopping it and people use it on a daily basis. Without technology, we would not have more than half of the stuff we have now and would not even know how an electronic device looks like. Kurzweil believes someone is going to find a way to add technology to be apart of the human body for certain things like to see the activities that are going on in the brain. Technology never stops nor will

Clarity: Will this make people live longer? Will the human mind run like google search engine if there was a chip placed inside of it?

Overall Thoughts: I like this idea because it proves how far technology can go.

Conclusion: Kurzweil believes that technology would go so far as being placed into our own bodies. Instead of being all natural and living base off on what you naturally have, we will have chips in our brains that could make us smarter, have faster acceleration, and could even possibly think like a computer. Not only would it benefit the people, it would benefit the whole population and over come poverty, people would make better decision and would be able to do stuff that they weren’t able to do before. Example, people with disabilities.
 

Farrar, Lara. "Scientists: Humans and Machines Will Merge in Future." CNN. Cable           

                News Network, July-Aug. 2008. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.      <http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/07/15/bio.tech/index.html?eref=rss_tech_>.

Grossman, Lev. "2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal." Time. Time Inc., 10 Feb.  2011. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.   0<http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0%2C9171%2C2048299%2C00.html>.

Kaku, Michio. "We Are Big Idea Hunters…." Big Think. Big, n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2014. <http://bigthink.com/dr-kakus-universe/the-technological-singularity-and-merging-with-machines>.

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What I've Learned from web 2.0

Web 2.0 taught me a lot of things about internet usage that I didn't know much about like: Social networking sites being related to it, communication built off web 2.0, having an attachment to current social media, and the list goes on. The internet of present day is based on Web 2.0 and it came a very long way from web 1.0 because before. Web 1.0 was very simple and people weren't able to fully explore any sites or go in depth but now-a-days, in web 2.0 you could shop online, communicate with others online, video chat, and pay bills.