Final Thoughts

As finals week begins to wrap up, I wanted to write one last blog post...

I had no clue what to expect from this class after the first day but I really enjoyed it. The class became really close over the semester because of the way our assignments called for collaboration. It was a good semester...

Thanks everyone for the help this semester, have a great summer...see you in the fall.

Experiment

As I finish up the exam I thought of why we didn't debate the syllabus. One thought is it's difficult to find and keep up with everyone's blog posts...so if you see this write something quick about how you keep track of everyone's post...

The Shallows: Part 3

The last section that we read of "The Shallows" was pretty interesting. One point that really caught my attention was Carr's analysis of the Flynn effect.

The Flynn effect, as this phenomenon has came to be called, is real and been confirmed by many subsequent studies. The Flynn effect says that IQ scores have been rising steadily and pretty much everywhere they have been throughout the century. "The Flynn effect has been used to defend TV shows, video games, personal computers, and, most recently, the Internet." (Carr 144).

Carr talks about how there has not been an increase in other measures of intelligence like that has been seen in overall IQ scores. Those have even been sending mixed signals. "Tests of memorization, vocabulary, general knowledge, and even basic arithmetic have shown little or no improvement." (Carr 145). Other tests of knowledge such as the PSATs have not increased at all over the past 10 years.

Flynn himself talks about the paradoxes associated with his theory.

First, the steepness at which the test scores have increased suggest that our forebears must have been dimwits, even though what we know tells us otherwise. In his book, Flynn wrote "If IQ gains are in any sense real, we are driven to the absurd conclusion that a majority of our ancestors were mentally retarded"

Second, comes from the different sections of the test and the disparities in the scores. Flynn wrote "How can people get more intelligent and have no larger vocabularies, no larger stores of general information, no greater ability to solve arithmetical problems?"

Flynn concluded that the gains in IQ scores have less to do with an increase in general intelligence than with a transformation in the way people think about intelligence. I think people think about intelligence differently today because of things such as the internet. I think our immense exposure to everything creates a generally smarter group of people. Where as past generations learned in different ways...What do you think?

Another Open Source Example

Location Bug

On the iPad and iPhone, there is a location gathering technique that tracks the places of usage. Apple claims to be fixing this "bug" soon but the users are already are creating a problem. An unencrypted file stored in these devices constantly records your location. An open source application was used to plot the data that the reporter who wrote this articles phone recorded. There have already been lawsuits against apple because of this "bug".

What do you think about this? Is it wrong? right? Does Apple have the right to do this?

The Shallows

In the first reading of The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, I got hung up on one point that he commented on that McLuhan made. It said "In the long run a medium's content matters less than the medium itself in influencing how we think and act." (Carr 3). I had never thought about it in this way. Does the programming really effect us or is it the technology itself? McLuhan makes the point that it is the technology rather than the program that effects us.

It kind of makes me think on the scale of what we have been talking about all year. The medium's content can blind us and the blame gets put onto the content and not the technology as a whole. An example that I think of when I read this is when I was a kid watching stupid television shows and my mother yelling at me saying how if i continued to watch this crap my brain would turn to mush. It makes me think now whether it was the crappy television programming I was watching or whether its the television in general.

This point is very interesting and I am intrigued by it. This book seems like it is less dense than other books we have read so far this semester. It is an easier read because of the lack of techy terms I feel. Looking forward to reading the rest.

Final Exam/Final Paper

As I'm writing my second paper I was looking through the syllabus and realized that we have a final exam and the 15 page self reflection still to do after this. I was thinking of a change.

A thought I have was for the self assessment why is there a mandatory number of pages? I believe that someone should assess themselves as they see fit whether that is 5 pages or 15 pages it should be up to the student since it is an assessment about their semester. Thoughts?

Also I think an in class final exam would be ridiculous. The time and energy spent on the midterm was so above and beyond what I think anyone ever imagined so I can only think the final would be the same way. Having this paper the self assesment and a final exam all within 2 weeks seems absurd...

Thoughts?

Class 4/19

So today was an interesting presentation to say the least. I honestly knew very little about wikileaks before today and I still really cannot decide how I feel about it. I understand the argument that was coming from both sides and I honestly am sitting on the fence.

However with this said I hate losing and want to argue for my side...


Is nonsense like this found on wikileaks? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJiCU6Jw0Co