Year 12 Exam : Our soul on an app

For the Year 12 English exam, I included an interesting blog post within the reading section. Most students may be unaware of the fact that this blog post is indeed real, and not something I made up to test their reading abilities.

The original blog post can be found here in its glorious full version, including images:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/post/inner-peace-in-the-palm-of-your-hand/2012/04/18/gIQA5pzXQT_blog.html

Upon reading the post myself, I went on a bit of a mission to investigate and research the apps the post was describing.

The Dream:ON app can be found here on iTunes:
http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/dream-on/id504521920?mt=8

and information in relation to GPS for the Soul can be found here:
http://www.heartmath.com/gps-for-the-soul.html



It's a bit concerning that society is willingly to allow their smart phones control every facet of their lives. Will we indeed be 'selling our souls' to iTunes? Will there ever be no such thing as 'free will?'

I find it rather ironic that many wars have been fought and many lives lost fighting for either independence or free will. Yet, as this blog suggests, society wants to revoke this privilege and be controlled and led by an app.

Do people truly believe that the meaning of life will all be revealed in an app? If this were the case, wouldn't we all just Google it? Maybe we are starting to feel unfulfilled in our lives because we are becoming too reliant on technology?

I wonder if we will see an iGod app appearing anytime soon?

This blog got me thinking about the Joss Whedon TV series Dollhouse, in which people voluntarily allowed themselves to become living 'dolls' in which the personalities of deceased humans are uploaded onto them. These 'dolls' are then loaned out to the rich to fulfil whatever they feel is missing in their lives.

Although these apps aren't uploading full personalities onto ourselves, will we ever get to the point where our lives and thoughts are predetermined from birth? Will we in the future have an all new definition of 'designer babies'?

Thoughts?

Blogging Task Part A

Hi All,

Here are the questions in relation to you blog study for class.

1. What is the blog/page title?
2. Does the title suit the topic/content of the blog/
3. What is the post title?
4. Does the post title suit the topic/content of the blog post?
5. What is the subject matter/theme/topic of the blog?
6. What is the subject matter/theme/topic of the post?
7. What other structural features are used in the post?
8. What style of language is used?
9. What # or # tags are used in the post?
10. What other # or @ tags could be used in the post?
11. What images are used within the blog post?
12. Are any links used in the blog post?
13. How effective is the blog in conveying its POV? Why?
14. What segment of the blog post interests you, and what would/could you link in your personal microblog?

Make sure you check out my post below, and add your comment if you haven't done so already.

Check back here regularly for more content to help you along.

Miss F

The Death of the Real World

In today's Year 12 English class, we commenced our study of social media. These students are digital natives, and have never known life without the Internet. Because of this, these students not only learn differently, but are motivated by different things.

Most students admitted to spending large amounts of time on social networking sites, including messaging friends who they'd previously spent all day at school with. In this class of 24 students, only 1 student in this class did not have their own personal facebook page. The majority of students in this class, also admitted to being distracted away from their school studies because of social media websites. If students are so reliant on this digital world, should it mean that schools and teachers should shift their classrooms to the virtual frontier?

Today's students seem to be so emerged in this digital world, that it would be difficult for them to imagine life without it. If the Internet suddenly disappeared, what would happen? How would this affect their academic studies? How would it affect their social interactions? Would life as they know it cease to exist?

As part of little classroom social experiment, I've asked my students to come to my blog and leave a comment based on this post ( hi guys!). So what I pose to my students within this virtual classroom environment is this:

Imagine that an electro-magnetic pulse hits Australia, and other countries around the world, as an act of terrorism. All electronic devices, including computers, smart phones, and the Internet, cease to work. How do you think this would affect your life, especially in the areas of socialising and education?

As a teacher, it is often difficult to motivate and engage with students 'in real time' during a traditional classroom lesson. I believe this is related to this generations constant usage and reliance on the digital world. The very nature of the Internet is instantaneous, so these students are often expecting results to occur just as rapidly in 'real life'. So how do you motivate a student to study long term and set long term goals when they're use to receiving things NOW! Even the task of getting student to come to this blog is a mission, when their Internet browsers seem to know only four locations: Google, YouTube, facebook and Wikipedia.

Will your facebook account one day be more important than your drivers license or your birth certificate? Will people start to forget or never learn how to interact with each other outside the digital realm? Are we all bound to be like the humans that are depicted in the Pixar film Wall.E? Who will be left to write the content of Wikipedia and other information sources if future generations aren't taught to be inventive or think for themselves?

Thoughts?