A frosty morning in front of my house
My name is John and I am currently studying Technical Communication and E-Learning. I am in the second semester of this M.A. and this blog will be my reflections on the lectures, labs and tutorials up until the end of this term; if it is anything like last one, it is going to be busy!
Already this course has influenced me in many different ways; doing a full time course on campus is something that is in itself quite a challenge for a small-scale farmer from West Limerick. I was taken to my first school on a horse before any of my classmates or lecturers were even born! Technology has propelled our society forward to a huge and largely beneficial degree over the last forty to fifty years. (Farm animals stay largely the same though; cows, like the milkman, still supply milk seven days a week whether it is needed or not, horses still provide transport in some countries and in others, they provide fillers for beef burgers.)
I must stop wandering off the point, someone has to read this!
After seeing “The Virtual Revolution – The Cost of Free” in our class on Friday, I now understand how Google make their money. The portrayal of how our mail and web searches are monitored for key words so that people can try to sell us something is quite illuminating; although my mails are so dull they would send an algorithm to sleep! Gathering vast amounts of information can, I believe, be used for either good or evil. The collecting of information about religious affiliation in the Netherlands before the Nazi invasion is a cause for reflection. Who can get access to all this information in the future will be a big issue, but it’s too late now, the genie is out of the bottle.
Another first for me, my first entry in my first blog, hope I can keep this up!
jharnett2 