Virtual Learning

Personally I think that virtual learning would be very cool. Right now I take most of my classes online, which helps to me to be able to do the work from my home. The only downside to this is that I am not in the classroom where I would be able to get hands on help when I needed it or if I had a question that I needed answered in order for me to finish an assignment. This would be the best of both worlds. I could "be" in the classroom while actually being in the comfort of my own home. Sign me up! : )

I'm gonna be a super model?!?

I would have to think that if everyone had the ability to make them selves slim or athletic that the world would lose a little something. Don't get me wrong I feel as though I have been on a diet for the majority of my life and to even entertain the notion that I could simple inject myself and suddenly be 30 lbs lighter does put a twinkle in my eye. But it also makes me wonder what would happen to the models and professional athletes. : ) I guess we could all be making millions, but wait, that wouldn't really work out either, since we would all be beautiful and athletic it would kinda take away from their uniqueness. Another smile : ) But now that I think about this it has opened another can of worms (so to speak). These nanobots would be the ticket for doctors, because if no one had to watch what they eat or work out again (because these little fellows are going to take care of that) then eventually they would have to send in the second round of nanobots to take care of blocked arteries, high cholesterol, etc.

Nanobots

The thought of scientists desiging nanobots that would be able to repair the human body is amazing to me. They could be used to explore your body in order to find out sources of troubles. My husband has underwent exploritory surgery twice and the recovery was a very difficult process. Hopefully in the near future the nanobots will be able to help cure cancer or at least check for spreading. Just thinking about this is unrealistic to me, in my head I catch myself visualizing an R2-D2 robot in combate with a cell! Who would have thought about this 15 years ago.

Purchases

I would love it if there would be a way developed that would make it possible for me to make purchases just by having a machine scan my eye or hand print. I think this would not only cut down on identity theft but also just theft in general. It would be great to go to Wal-Mart and not have to worry that my purse, with all my money, debit cards and credit cards, will be stolen. The one thing that I hate about going on vacation is I have a fear of leaving my purse in the hotel room ( I guess I have seen one to many Datelines) fear that the cleaning people will steal from me, so therefore I am left packing around a heavy purse all day.

Personal Information

Personally I would not be comfortable knowing that all my information would be stored on the internet for everyone to see. There are too many people who would use the information in a negative way. Identity theft would definitely go up. People would have access to everything about you including your home address, place of employment, marital status and yearly income. I would not feel safe knowing that a random stranger could find my information and if he/she chose to, could pull up map quest and find my home. The only benefit that I could see would be for business' such as loan companies and future employers to have access to certain information for verification purposes only.

Digital Native

I believe that I am a digital native, even though I was not born into the digital world I did grow up through part of it. I am accustomed to getting my answers quickly, if I don't know something, I always just Google it. I would much rather talk to someone via email than to call them on the phone. I work in an office and nothing is ever mailed anymore, if it is not emailed to me then it is faxed. No one wants to waste the time of mailing someone a copy of something in the mail. We have all gotten accustomed to getting what we are wanting or needing immediatly. I am not really sure how schools could change for digital natives because I am not in a classroom setting anymore (all my classes are online). Which in my opinion has been a huge change! Even compared to a couple of years ago, the amount of online classes offered have tripled!

Nursing and Technology

Since I am undecided on my major, but leaning toward nursing I decided to use it in this assignment. Nursing is so widely affected by technology. Every aspect has been changed as advancements have been made throughout the years. Blood pressure is taken with an electronical monitor where several years ago nurses used a stethoscope and blood pressure cuff. Temperatures are now taken by running a thermometer across your forehead. There are so many things that have been impacted by technology that it is hard to pick the ones to write about. I am very familiar with ultrasound machines and I remember when I was pregnant with my daughter 7 years ago the ultrasounds were the grainy black and white images, now with the 3D and 4D machines you can see every detail about the baby. If you are a patient in the cardiac unit you will be hooked up to a machine that monitors your heart rate constantly, as apposed to someone coming in every hour or 1/2 hour to listen to your chest. Every vital that you have can be monitored by a computer at the nurses station. As technology becomes more advanced so with the abilities of nurses.

We Think

The internet is full of information and ideas. I had quite a few complications during my last pregnancy so everytime I went to the doctor he would be trying to explain a condition or procedure to me but I never really understood. As soon as I would get home I would get on the internet and not only research what he had told me but I would also read other peoples experiences. That way when I went back to the doctor I would have a list of questions or concerns for him. At one point he laughed and said "I hate when my patients are smarter than me." As much good information that there is on the internet I am sure there is an equal amount of false. In my English class my instructor told us not to get any information from Wikipedia for our research papers. Due to the fact that it was not verified and anyone could post it.
But on the same note sometimes peoples opinions and comments are not warrant or welcome. In some cases the internet makes people think that they can do or say whatever they want to just because people can't see their face. There is a blog on the internet that I frequently read about a couple who had a baby girl prematurely. The blog has been about theirs and their daughters struggles. Recently there have been nasty comments left for these people that had to be deleted. No one would walk up to this couple in the NICU and say mean and nasty things to them so why did they feel it was acceptable to post them online???

21st Century Learning

Learning has changed so much since I was a kid. I mentioned in my last blog that my 6 year old daughter does a majority of her learning on a computer. Something which was unheard of when I was growing up. The only time that we used a computer was in the computer lab and that was a very rare occasion, usually twice a year, to type and print out writings for our portfolio. Forget about doing this in kindergarten, our experiences with computers did not start till 5th grade. Apparently that is when they decided that we were educated enough to work the computer and the dot-matrix printer. Education has really came along way, children in kindergarten are now behind if they don't know how to read and CATS testing now applies to 5 year olds. Me, being the one who wasn't taught the proper way to type till High School is now taking 90% of my college classes online. Education is constantly evolving to meet the needs of our growing world. In some ways I love that my daughter is so familiar and comfortable with using a computer, but on the same note I fear that she will not be taught in the same fashion that I was. In other words I do not want her to grow up depending on a computer for the answers. Just like the video said, we are training people for jobs and problems that don't yet exist. I know that our children are the future, and they need to adapt there learning to reflect this but I wonder sometimes if we are just pushing children to hard and it will have an adverse affect and children will get "burnt" out sooner.

Did you know?

As I watched this video, I couldn't help but to think back to when I was in elementary school and we got our first computer. It was the type with the black screen and everything that you typed was is neon green and you played games like Oregon Trail. Now 20 years later my 6 year old daughter was taking tests on the computer in kindergarten. I was taken a back when I heard this because I couldn't imagine a 5 year old being able to understand a computer when she was just learning her ABC's. Now in the first grade during our parent teacher conference her teacher told us that she was going to put Allison in a math lab because they do all there work on the computer and Allison does better that way. It is amazing how much technology has grow in the last 15 years. It is really awsome to know that you can get on the internet and talk to people all around the world. Being a MySpace user it was surreal to learn that there are that many people who have accounts. I know that when I log on I never thought that there were probably a 5 billion people online at the same time. It kinda makes you feel like a small person in a great big world. Technology is all around us, even if you don't own a cell phone or a laptop, you are affected by it in some aspect of your daily activities. So everyone needs to be familiar with it or essentially you will be left behind.