Kc’s Comments (group member since Mar 02, 2013)

Kc’s comments from the EDCMOOC group.

Thanks for moderating. Was very interesting. Hope to see you in Sept!

This short story was the basis of the film Total Recall. It can be found online here www.english.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-li...

We will be discussing this on Saturday 7th September GMT(0) 21:30-22:30

...and a RT from the author. Perhaps they'll be a few more online tomorrow!

I'll use Tweet Deck - works for me! www.tweetdeck.com

How about a question about the continuous monitoring of students and the ethics of analytics and big data in education? Analytics (learning analytics particularly) are starting to trend following the US. Where can the line be drawn between privacy and legitimate service improvement? (or perhaps there is no definitive line)

I really enjoyed this book. I also agree the ideas kind of surpass the book, but it's youth-focus will widen the audience which is a good thing. Reading this while the Snowden revelations are big news was doubly interesting. Made me think..

Hi all,
If that's OK, shall we focus on 1. 3. 6. and 7.?

Best wishes,
Kirstie

Hi all,

Lots of themes here: war, religion, education, technology, family, sex, relationships, health, economy, population, genetics... so it's quite hard to narrow this down to 4 questions! Here are some themes I was interested - please comment, add or refine!

1. The mynah birds are a constant presence throughout the book, and feature at the very start and end. What is the significance of these birds? Are they "faithfully repeating the good advice they don't understand" and who do these birds represent?

2. What is it to be really human?
(Throughout the book, some characters - Murugan in particular are portrayed as 'acting' or fake in some way - playing a part for others). In what sense does Will become a true human?

3. Education "you can't be a good economist unless you're a good psychologist. Or a good engineer without being the right kind of physician" - is this true? Is education able to provide this? How?

4. How far is the utopia of Pala sustainable?

5. East and West - Pala rejected nuclear families, consumerism, religion (or the societal control bit, not spiritual aspects) and embraced Buddhism and some sciences.

6. The Moksha Medicine: Are Will's visions true knowledge or the chemical effects of a hallucinogenic drug? What did it help him to realise?



7. I liked this quote: "Armaments, universal debt and planned obsolescence - those are the three pillars of western prosperity." - it struck a chord.

Is the conclusion an admittance of defeat?

Kirstie

Please add any thoughts, observations, questions here.

Hi Chris, definitely so. Nothing better than immersive reading. Having a family though I have also learnt to read through noise and intermittently whilst being asked questions :-)

The Twitter chat will be on Saturday 6th July 21:00GMT

(for those in NZ, this will be Sunday morning)

If you have any thoughts, themes, ideas for questions, please post them here.

Removal from reality is a strong theme. Has most technological inventing been to remove us from the harsh reality of nature? What have we lost?

We will be discussing this short story from E.M. Forster on Saturday 1st June, 9:30GMT on Twitter #edcmchat

The book is available as a free download http://ebooks.gutenberg.us/WorldeBook... and also as a free audio download http://archive.org/details/machine_st...

It is fairly cheap if you prefer paper.

PingLW wrote: "Of interest:
a search of 'Vinge Rainbow's End' on Twitter
ie. https://twitter.com/search?q=vinge%20...
produced quite a lot of interesting recent comments on the book.
Would ..."

Yes, why not! spread the word..

TChat questions for Saturday 6th May (9:30GMT)

1. Who/what is Rabbit?

2. What is 'natural' anymore in Vinge's world/environment? (culture/nature) Are the tradeoffs worth it?

3. "Doing without understanding": What parallels does 'no user-serviceable parts inside' have with technology today?

4. Wearables: are we heading that way?

Ping, good questions.

What themes are emerging that you would like to discuss?

I am still on the first few chapters, but some early themes emerging for me are around:

- Virtual lives and personal identity
- 'Doing without understanding' - there is something here about automated tasks, how the soul is removed form learning and education.

Other posts have suggested parallels with the open source movement.

Please post suggestions to inform questions for the chat on 4th May (9:30GMT).

Begs the question 'what is school for?' This got me thinking about the push for STEM subjects over the arts and humanities and education for the purpose of industry (only). I wonder what Morris would have made of Moocs?

He was happy with technology up to a point, as far as it made our lives better, but not technology just for pursuing profit or for making rubbish. I think he may have liked some aspects of the web, groups like this for instance!

*demonisation - typing on the phone..