snowflakes

“Our embrace of high-tech gadgetry could turn life into a series of rushed encounters and clipped exchanges, producing ideas of diminishing depth.” – Langdon Winner

What effect does “instant communication” have on you? What effect does “instant communication” have on your relationships with other people?

Corners of our lives once sheltered from direct technological intervention are now bombarded by the demands of incoming and outgoing messages … However, people text-message alone. It is mainly an isolating experience in society … Of its role in the future only one thing is certain: it will be larger than ever before. – S.D. Robinson

Film Creation Idea:
Write a script for a text messaging dialogue between two friends (they are not face-to-face) for one of the following scenarios:

• two friends discuss running against each other in the student council election
• two friends argue about an environmental issue
• a person tells a friend who has taken a part-time job that he/she is upset that they are spending less time together.

Film your script while paying particular attention to your actors non-verbal behaviour, watch out for various types of body language. Add the “dialogue” – the text messages – as titles to each scene in iMovie. It is not necessary to have any audio captured with the video at all.

• What is the person doing with his or her hands? Is the individual tapping a finger on a table? Are the arms crossed?
• What is the position of the individual’s body? Is the person leaning forward? Leaning back? Is the body turned away from another person?
• What is the position of the individual’s legs? Are they crossed? Is the person tapping his/her foot?
• Where are the eyes looking?
• Does the person smile? frown? yawn? cough?

Consider these and other questions in your planning:

• Who are my 2 friends? Describe their emotional and psychological states, too.
• Where are they? Remember that the video you shoot will be shot at school.
• What is the issue? What point are you trying to make?
• How will you show that their conversation is rushed, incomplete, frustrating?
• How can you show that their responses to each other lack depth?
• How can you show or demonstrate how alone they really are?
• How can you demonstrate how texting is an isolating experience?
• How can you show them being “bombarded by the demands of incoming and outgoing messages”

Consider capturing/grabbing your iPhone/iPod message screen and then get those pics into an iMovie.

iPhone spell-checker frustration.

Write a post on one of the following topics about technology:

• technological change in schools
• technology both shapes and is shaped by society
• the need for public policy that controls technological change
• genetic engineering
• determine a plan of action to address a technological problem that your class or school has
• look at how a television program or modern movie treats the issue of technology
• create a bulletin board display or electronic collage about technology and society
• create a 3-5 minute digital recording of you reading an interesting news story about technology

The Chimney Sweeper(Blake 1789)

Read William Blake’s poem, “The Chimney Sweeper”(1789).

What is this poem saying about humans and technological advances? In what ways has the condition that humanity finds itself in changed since Blake wrote his poem. Write a post of your thoughts about this poem.

Write a post on the subject of robots. Possible themes you might consider are:

• robots of the past, present, and future
• benefits and dangers of having robots
• the depiction of robots in film and television

What technological invention has been most important to you? How has it influenced or affected you?

What would you like to see invented in the near future that would be of great help to make you life more comfortable or interesting? Describe the effects this invention might have on your life.

Pretend you are a member of a Parliamentary Committee that has been assigned the task of investigating the effects of cell phones on the lives of Canadians. Make a list of the various fictional people you would call as witnesses to your commission. Work out what each expert would say. Write a script or narrative account of the witnesses report to the commission.

Pretend that the members of your community have decided to turn off their cell phones, televisions, computers, consoles, hand held devices, game gadgets, etc. for a week. Write a persuasive letter to the editor of your local newspaper as part of the publicity campaign that would be used to inform the public, enlist their support, and provide them with alternatives to their electronics.

When(if) you have children do you plan to put any restrictions on their technology habits?

Consider TV, computer, console game, hand held game, cell phone, ipod, smart phone, ipad etc.

Share what you enjoy most about today’s technology.

Make a prediction about how our use of technology will change in the next five years.

Choose one high-tech invention that you have used, and write an inductive essay that praises or condemns it.

First freewrite on your subject for at least five minutes – automatically, never letting your pencil or keyboard stop – then look over what you have produced in order to learn your point of view.

Now, take more notes, gathering examples. Arrange these in order from least to most important, and from this rough outline write a draft.

In the second draft adjust your tone: Is your whole argument serious or objective? Is it argumentative? Or is it more humorous, subjective, and therefore persuasive? Whichever it is, be consistent.

Now read your argument aloud to family members or classmates, revise any part that fails to work on your audience, then write the final version.

The American author and philosopher Henry David Thoreau, who left town life for his cabin by Walden Pond, wrote, “Our life is frittered away by detail. … Simplify, simplify.”

In your opinion, has technology simplified or complicated our lives? Defend you answer with personal examples.

Are you a technophobe? Or do you rejoice in high technology? Defend your answers with examples.

How is technology changing the way families interact?
Consider entertainment, transportation, social media, etc.