mzhang's blog

After all discussions held passionately in class about the potential racism reflected in books and movies, I think our discussions has gone way too far. The Hunger Games might not be the perfect example for us to examine the racist ideologies but due to its popularity among the teens, we take it as an entering point. As Alice pointed out that what we had got from the book was far beyond the book's orignial intentions and I think we should not put that much effort on the content, per se. 

After I watched the girl sitting in front of me playing her online games all through the class, I started to doubt whether or not a computer class should be held in this loose tension. I have noticed from the very beginning of this placement that the teacher does not give any lectures and the class begins and ends in chaos as always. Is it because that this is a computer class which is not a traditional discipline course?

I interviewed the teacher afterwards and the teacher gave her answers as that first of all, many of students had already have those computer skills before they come into the class and secondly, sixth and seventh grade girls will probably not focus on her lecture for long. 

In this classroom, there is no doubt that most of the students have access to computers and technical skills outside the class and according to the teacher, besides the transfer students, students in this school would receive the computer education from kindergarten. I agree that prosperous economic background of these students may bring them advantadges in utilizing computers but since if the kindergarten in this school has already provided the technique education, why the curriculum in middle school still stays in the same material? If the students were simply taking a break and surfing online randomly, school might need to reconsider the curriculum and the course arrangment, otherwise, the class would be a waste of time and resource.

While we were discussing about our entries into this tech & educ class, our group shared the point that it never occurred to us that we, human beings, are actually having a deep and complex relationship and interactions with technology. Through Clark's book, we were inspired to look at a bigger and more profound picture about our involvement with this semi-intelligent world. 

Hoever, even though we found Clark's book inspiring and open-minded, we could not deny that his arguments and interpretations provided in the book turned out to be distractive and be in a fog frequently. Clark came out of interesting and creative ideas and questions about this human-centered technological world but his proof and explanations, such as experiments and hypothesis, were pale and loose-connected.