Journal for Session 11

This session is for group presentations.

Dr. Shahi’s final comment is really impressive. He said that most of the groups cannot make good use of the medium provided---the webpage. He said that if we had made better use of the medium, for example, by adding videos, can make our presentation better and more vivid.

It’s true that most of the presentations did not look very different from slides presentations. There were four presentations, so that we could compare with each other and learnt from each other as well.

I learnt to how to create a web page in this session. I have never tried  this before.

I rate this session 8 because it is a really new and fulfilling experience for me.

Journal for Session 10

Technology Assessment and Forecasting;
Developing a Framework for Understanding What Comes Next

In this session, we talk about technology assessment and forecasting. Some techniques for technology assessment are introduced, such as Delphi, scenarios, brainstorming, SWOT analysis, road-mapping and gaming and so on.

We also talk about some approaches of technology assessment, such as participative TA, constructive TA and so on.

There are a lot of aspects needed to be assessed, such as economic, ethical, environmental, social influence and so on.

Traditional technology assessment is technocratic, but nowadays, participative technology assessment has been developed and many stakeholders are engaged in the technology assessment. Such a participative method not only provides more comprehensive understanding of certain technology, but also promotes consensus and the implementation of related policies.

However, participative technology assessment should be complemented by technology literacy, especially in developing countries. If someone knows little or nothing about technology, how can he make good judgment of it? To promote technology literacy, another problem to be solved is the availability of technology. If someone has never used modern technology, how can he understand it?

Just as other democratic issues, the implementation of participatory technology assessment approach needs not only participation. It also needs education and availability of technology.

My personal rating for this session is 8. It’s always good that we can watch videos and participate in discussions. According to one of our readings of last session, learning can be made more effective by using immersion, engage multiple channels of experience and interaction. I think our professor has done this very well.

Emerging and future technologies---Journal for Session 9

In this session, we were mainly talking about emerging and future technologies, such as nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, computer\human interface systems and so on.

However, just as the author of one of our readings said, technology is not the full answer to life. We need a lot more other things to develop better life. We need philosophy, arts, ethics, wisdom and other things to make a better life. We also need these things to wield the power that technologies offer to us.

One most interesting thing that attracts me is the placebo effect, which relies on the spiritual effect from a patient’s mind to help cure diseases or injuries. Although placebo effect is proved by a lot of experiments, it is still not widely accepted as a way of cure in the western medicine. Maybe more researches can be done in the future to provide more undeniable proof for such a low-cost and high effective cure.

There are so many fascinating technologies emerging today, giving us hope to solve a lot of problems, but there is also potential that these technologies will be abused by people with malicious wills or people without enough wisdom. I really wonder what our future will be like.