ICT and World Change is probably a topic close to our hearts, or at least for me, because it’s a topic that deeply interests me. Thus I chose to present my oral presentation during this week, and the topic I chose was on E-books. One other reason why I chose this topic (and I didn’t mention this during my presentation; I was too shy) is that I love books. My heart beats faster each time I step into a library and see the huge number of books waiting for me. So it saddens me to think that with the advancements of technology, printed books might become a thing of the past. In my opinion, although e-books and printed books are both still books, I find printed books more appealing. The rustle when you flip the pages gives me a different emotion as when I swipe at my electronic device to “flip” the page of the e-book. Other cons of e-books were mentioned during my presentation and so I shan’t be long-winded as to repeat it again.

Dr. Shahi started the lesson with a video which was amazingly fascinating - Project Natal Milo Demo from E3. Milo was very interactive, and that he had such human instincts was fascinating to me.

Dr. Shahi stated this one line which I agreed with. “It is very easy for us to create emotional relationships with inanimate objects.” I am a very emotional person, and I agree that it’s indeed easy for me to create emotional relationships with inanimate object. Also, while I feel that at the rapid pace technology is advancing at today, it is possible that characters like Milo might be a norm one day. However, I do not think it is advisable that such characters become the norm. We are already having problems with maintaining relationships today, with the pervasiveness of the internet and social media. By adding Milo and similar characters into the picture, we might become more detached from our personal human relationships.

People might start spending more time with these interactive characters instead of their human friends, which would adversely impact their social skills in the long run. Human relationships are already strained because of the social media, and we continue to worsen them by continuously developing newer technology, which more often than not bring us away from our human relationships instead of mending them.

This question was asked during the lesson: What will it take to capture the full potential of the ICT/ Knowledge Revolution. This question spurred me into thinking. What is the main problem right now? What is hindering us from capturing the full potential? Then it struck me. We should learn how to manage the new forms of technology. Before we even learnt how to effectively manage a certain technology, new technologies are pouring into the market. Developments are occurring at a much faster pace than we are adapting. Perhaps what we can do is to effectively manage the current technologies we have, before trying to embrace the new technologies. If we simultaneously try to manage too much at one time, we find that we are not able to effectively cope with everything.

Furthermore, during the lesson, Dr. Shahi also talked about the potential dangers of ICT, which just goes to tell us that not all technologies are beneficial, especially in terms of ICT. For ICT, we tend to touch on the positive and negative impacts it has on us in terms of our human relationships etc. But we tend to overlook the fact that ICT is not as secure as we believe it to be. While we may think that our facebook profile is locked and very secure, there is still the chance that someone is able to hack into your account. Or, while your personal profile may be locked (good for you), your friend’s profile may not be locked and hence strangers are still able to access information about you through your friends’ profiles.

Also, there is the exposure to corrupting influences, which is going to be a negative influence on the younger generation as they are more widely exposed to such corruption (pornography, cyber bullying). This further emphasizes my point that we should learn how to manage technology so that we can teach the younger generation how to adapt and manage such technology effectively as well.
In general, I would rate this lesson a 9/10 because I thoroughly enjoyed myself during this lesson, and I learnt many key points about ICT, and how we should be coping with it. (Also because this was a very interesting topic in my opinion (: )