Week 7 Reflection

I particularly enjoyed the social reading article from this learning packs readings. While I have not engaged in social services such as goodreads before, I have messed around with sharing quotes through the kobo app on my smartphone. While most of my e-book reading is on a kindle e-reader rather than my phone, I did find this a very interesting use of social media technology. Beyond the sharing of quotes that you like, I found that people can comment on pages or sections of the book and people can start a conversation around that. I expect this level of communication around books to increase in popularity; I know from experience how great it is to find someone who likes the same books as you. You are able to talk to them about the things you love. This kind of technology makes it much easier to reach out to these kinds of people. Modern technology is able to used for much more than just social reasons however.

The article also brought up how Amazon want to track people's reading habits so that authors can write to cater to such statistics. I understand the business reasoning behind such technology but I think it cheapens any artistic quality to the book. While there are many authors that write books to cater to a mass audience there are many that are far more focused on the art of writing; it will be interesting to see how this technology impacts on them. It is quite alarming just how easy it is becoming to implement such technology. Despite how complex it really is, modern technology is becoming easier for the average person to use.

I think Bruce Derby's article talking about technology in schools sums this up quite well. Previously using technology in a classroom could have been a risky prospect due to the time spent learning how to use the technology in the first place; now this is no longer so much of an issue. In fact I think it is becoming increasingly important to engage young children with such technology early on so that they are better equipped to use it in their later adult lives. It is becoming increasingly obvious that tablets and smart devices are being used for more than just the social uses discussed above. This means that allowing a child to get familiar with the technology now could help them immensely in their future personal and professional lives.