Week 6 -- Armageddon Science

I have always found the Cold War fascinating. One semester of my undergrad I actually took three separate history classes all dealing with the Cold War. So, as you can imagine, the part of the text this week that kept me interested was the nuclear and atomic sections Clegg discusses. Particularly, I really enjoyed the history of the atomic bomb as discussed in chapter three (Atomic Devastation). I thought the following quote from President Eisenhower was particularly interesting after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima during WWII: "We have spent two billion dollars on the greatest scientific gamble in history -- we won (50)." I think that this quote sums up the book in a nutshell, at least what I took from it. We are in an age of constant competition, especially between governments. No country wants another country to one-up them and even in the news last night there was speculation as to what Obama was going to do in response to the Pakistanis arresting those who helped to bring down Bin Laden. Every country and every government want to be, as Eisenhower would say, the "winner." We are living in an age where winning literally means having the most physical power and, ultimately, the biggest bombs. As was brought up in discussion, we are a world addicted to science and progress and, in this case, that means major destruction and devastation to the globe and the inhabitants in it if this power ever extends too far (which I personally believe that it will).

As for the discussion itself, I really enjoyed the last question: How do we teach the ethics of science in a social studies classroom? I loved Dustin's point comparing the ethics of science to the importance of civics. Science is, as we've seen throughout the course, a driving factor that plays into every aspect of our society. Just as we learned that technology is everywhere (not just electronics), so too is science. It fuels our culture and, as we have seen, can alter it greatly. From Sputnik days of fear to medical scientists working tirelessly to find cures for diseases, science plays a huge role in our lives as individuals and as a people. It is important that we illustrate for students this fact and teach the history of science and the impact it has made on our society if we want them to find interest in the topic. Like Dustin said, just as we aim to teach healthy civic attitudes, we should also aim to teach about ethics... and this includes science! These shouldn't be separate!!

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2008#comic

Week 5 -- Starstruck: The Business of Celebrity

When reading this book I was thinking about how great the discussion would turn out for this. We could relate it to celebrities today and really go deep into the idea of the "celebrity" as Halkett talks about. I don't know if I just had high hopes or everyone else is more in tune with celebrities today that I am, but I was a little disappointed at how surface level some of the answers remained throughout the course of the conversation. I thought that we did a good job of coming up with questions and linking ideas relevant to the book, but for some reason everyone wanted to talk about actual shows or celebrities when they talked. I think some of it had to do with the fact that people were kind of celebrity gossiping in the text area of elluminate... but maybe this just goes to further exemplify the authors claims of the celebrity industry greatly affecting our lives whether we want it to or not.

Besides the discussion, I honestly think that this is super relevant to every aspect of our society. It helps to relate almost all the other books we have talked about... the economy, government, even technology. It helped me to understand each one of the other books' importance as well as how the celebrity culture we live in truly affects our society (and, by nature, our classrooms). From MTV to Huckabee to Twitter and tabloids, the media/social media perpetuates the idea of being successful equates with being famous. With the UK classroom study it is obvious that this fuels our students to mimic what they see and 70% of teachers state that celebrity culture influences their students' aspirations for the future. If the next generation aspires to be like the cast of Jersey Shore or even Paris Hilton, then I think we are missing the mark as educators.

This goes into the ramifications for ourselves and our students question in the Prezi. Like Dan was saying, he had to sit his son down and explain to him that slapping someone is not an appropriate reaction as it was displayed in one of his tv shows. What happens to the students that don't have a father like Dan (whooop-whoop Dan!) or another role model to exemplify positive behavior? As teachers we need to constantly be influencing our students to make responsible and good decisions.... the question remains, however, as to how can we do this when they are so infatuated with the media telling them otherwise? I think that while it is good to use examples of celebrity in our classroom, it is also important to show the fact that it is an industry and that everyone is susceptible to buying into it. How one does this along with pacing guides and standardized tests to teach to...? Maybe that question is exemplary of our current values when it comes to education.

Week 4 -- What Technology Wants (addition)

Found this video on YouTube and had to share:

Week 4 -- What Technology Wants

This book was a little “out there” for me in the fact that I am not that savvy with technology. I still have a “dumb” phone, don’t know computer codes, and don’t own anything but a computer and iPod. However, I really liked some of the things Kelly had to say in the book. One section that I think would be completely applicable to us as social studies educators is when he talks about world cultures. On page 288 he states that minority cultures benefit from technology and we can benefit from them: “Once connected to standard roads, electricity, and communications, their differences can potentially make a difference to others.”  I had never thought about technology in that way. So often we think about technology as something that hinders a people group and causes them to give up their way of life. But think about it – without technology, we wouldn’t know what the Great Wall of China looks like or that an island called Guam even exists. We wouldn’t be able to connect with people across the world or even across the country. Technology in this sense has caused the world to not only see different things and be able to experience them through travel or pictures, but also it has caused the world to (sometimes reluctantly) accept differences. We have an appreciation for Indian culture because as technology has grown, so has our awareness of it. This can be said with most things throughout the world.

This directly relates to our teachings of literally every social studies. What people didn’t even know existed hundreds of years ago is at our fingertips in the sense that we can find someone, somewhere who has experienced it via the internet. Our knowledge has grown so much in the past few centuries and so has our technology. We must be willing to explore the physical world and technological world in order to engage the next generation and provide them with tools to become responsible citizens.

Is Kelly correct in equating technology to biology? 

Like what was stated throughout the presentation and discussion, I think that it all comes down to how you define technology. While yes, many ideas have happened around the world at around the same time, does this organic organization go all the way back to the beginning of the world? Kelly obviously says yes – pointing back to the big bang and the composition of the world. Though I am no expert in the many theories of the beginning of the world, I thought the whole reasoning behind the big bang theory was that it was random and not ordered. But other things, like DNA, are very orderly and organized.  The universe and DNA are very organic and can be considered “living organisms.” However, do each of them “have its own wants” or a driving force behind them as Kelly defines as a part of the technium? I would say no. I don’t think that the universe has a motive for existence or that DNA works to undermine the living things it is in – however I am not a biologist.