Week 12 (Presentation Week)

Today, for the lesson, there were 3 groups presenting their websites. One group presented on social networks and their impact on society, one presented on technology for disabled people, and another group presented on technology and the arts.

For the first group presenting on technology and the arts, it was a eye opener for me because throughout the course, we had been focusing on technology and its practical uses. There was little attention given to technology in the arts. This group presented that technology will be infused into the way we hear music in the future. For example, when we listen to music, no longer is it merely sound waves travelling into our ears and us simply listening to the beats from our music players. The next generation of technology will allow us to ‘visualize’ music, such that when music is played, we are actually able to ‘make out’ the shape of the music waves dancing around in our heads. I think that this is actually a very interesting idea to work on, but whether it will be accepted by the public is another issue. For example, some may simply want to listen to their music for relaxation after a long day at work, and do not wish for any ‘advancements’ in their music to distract them and make it too complex for them. To these listeners, music is to be enjoyed at its purest and simplest form, not a technologically-modified song that has ‘depth’ and ‘movement’. I belong to this group of listeners, so I can describe vividly how we feel, and this technology will not be very popular with us.

The second group talked about using technology for disabled people. We watched a video of Nicky Vujicic, a man who was born with no limbs at all. It was an inspiring sight to see him make full use of his life and to treasure it as well, despite having such a terrible disability and not being able to do things that normal people will be able to do. If there were more resources used to help these people, it will be even more wonderful. Luckily, there are already advances in this field. Using telebraille, among other innovations, to help the disabled communicate with other people and to help them learn as well. This field of innovation is very meaningful, since society has for a very long time sidelined this group of people and has not devoted enough energy, money and attention to helping them. However, one constraint of this technology is the high price that machines that employ these technologies command. This limits the number of people who can afford these machines, which means they will not be effective in helping many of the disabled, which is what this field is all about. Secondly, there are barriers to overcome before these new technologies are accepted by mainstream society so that they can be provided to the disabled at low cost and to be widely available. Again, technology has to be fused with monetary concerns and practical issues before it can be called a success.

The third group presented on the social networks and its impact on society. They focused on the social and political issues. This topic is very similar to my individual topical review paper, so I was very aware of the current situation as well as the future considerations that social networks provoke. The group talked about the Arab Spring, and how social networks such as Facebook were used for communications and to mobilise large crowds to gather and protest against the regimes. However, the group failed to find proper examples on societal changes that social networks have catalyzed, and they had confused political change for social change. As Prof has said, social change is more on how social networks change the way people interact with one another, not whether social networks have been used for democratic change, since that will be classified under political change. Overall, all three groups presented quite well, but I thought that more can be done to make their websites more interactive and more interesting for the casual visitor to browse through. Also, more can be done to substantiate the content on the website. A paragraph or two on each point is simply too short and too frivolous for a reader to take the website seriously, since he or she can simply use Google to find a website that contains more information.