About This Blog
The world is highly technological at the moment and will become even more so by 2030. How do we deal with such rapid advances in the ubiquitous use of technology? What effect will it have on our self hood? Who will we become? Some say “cyborgs” if you are at all a science fiction fan you would get that idea of part man part machine. I don’t really know about the younger generation (I know that phrase dates me) being labeled “digital natives” because I feel quite at home in the digital world and I am not a “pup”. There is a phrase from my part of the world that goes – “A dog of my age is no pup” thus the term “pup”.
This Blog is about finding and nurturing that part of our “self” that never changes or as far as we can see – should never change. It is that part that makes us human. There is an inner self that has been here since before time began and remains with us regardless of the number of tech we add to ourselves. There is a spiritual part to us that I believe we have to nurture in order to survive in this fast paced digital world which is set to get even faster. I am a Christian, yes and I hold strong to my belief but I am not into religious debates, I am into what unites us, like Love (which I always write with a capital “L”), compassion, kindness, courtesy, gentleness, faithful, hopeful, tolerance (except when it comes to your core values), social equality, racial equality and much more.
By spirituality I am not talking about anything “far out” or religious, I am merely talking about having a sense of the presence of a “Higher Power” and recognising the need for a balance in how we live our lives. This balance must take into consideration, our health – eating right, exercising, meditating, and taking care of planet Earth. If we do not take care of what makes us human we will burn out and suffer from all manner of stress related illnesses.
Finally, I am also interested in how we treat the poor. I take my lead from Jesus Christ who spent most of His time with the poor. He calls the poor the “greatest in the kingdom” and I believe if I want to be great I aught to hang out with the greatest people in the kingdom. So I have a passion for the poor because I believe (having been poor) that they have potential locked up in their minds waiting to be mined and brought to “light”. So “emerging technology” provides an avenue through which anyone can creatively use these uncharted tech to make ground breaking change where it is most needed, among the poor in the nations of the world.
Oh! Also I would like to work with the United Nations and other International Agencies in the quest to empower the marginalized on our planet (a few of my classmates expected this so I could not disappoint them and also it is true).
Now after saying all of that I also must add that the primary, initial use of this blog will be to allow for reflection on the taught course Teaching and Learning with Emerging Technologies, a part of the MADTCE course at the University of Manchester, UK.
Kojo
Reflections!
Indeed, it is good to reflect and not only for MA-DTCE, but in life as a whole. I am an ever reflective person, but I find it difficult to document my reflections, otherwise I will be writing throughout my whole life.
You should then write the things that are far reaching and innovative. If you come up with a way of doing something that is already being done then record it for the rest of us and for humanity.