What are your thoughts about this video?

[Mrs. W]

Take a look at this video and let me know your thoughts.

[Trenton P.]

It just shows how digital information is a lot more flexible than the textbook. With the internet, information is accessible and understandable material that doesn't take full libraries to store them in. In this little example, if a student has a textbook and wants to learn more about Frederick Douglass, then that student would have to be compelled to go to a library or another information source to read yet another book about Frederick Douglass that was probably written back in the 60's. The internet is different, sporting the ability to update information without rewriting the whole thing. A simple webpage could be linked to hundreds of related pages that are both helpful and easily accessible. I don't really see a problem with converting all our books into digital information, but perhaps there's something important I'm missing.

[David Q.]

Personally, I think that this video is showing how dependent we are becoming computers, and the internet. This dependency isn't necessarily bad, but we can't wholly rely on the internet. A complete dependency is never good. Being able to click on things, and get whatever you want is always useful. I agree with Trenton saying, "I don't really see a problem with converting all our books into digital information..." but I believe we should still keep those books.

[Sara W]

I believe this video shows us how useful the internet and computers really are. When using a regular textbook, we just get the straight information that we read. When on a website, we can click on diffrent links to get more insite or learn more about the topic. For example lets say we are learning about a certain dog, such as an American Bulldog. In the textbook it would just talk about the type of dog, where it came from, etc. However, what if it came from a little place such as Luxenberg, which many people have not heard of. On the internet, we could then click on Luxenberg and learn more about it. This video also shows that computers are easier and quicker. Instead of searching an entire dictionary for a word, we can just google it. We can find almost anything in just a few seconds, with just a click of a button. Without the computer however, people start to get lazy. Most would rather just do homework using google, instead of actually looking in our textbooks and finding the anwser, if we do not already know it. This is what i feel this video was showing us.

Sara W. , Period 5

[Victoria G.]

In my opinion, this video shows that we are too reliant on technology. Before we had the advanced technologies we have today, we used simple techniques to do what we wanted to get done. Now we use technology with almost everything. I'm not saying technlogy is a bad thing, but we shouldn't rely on it so heavily. If something were to happen and we lost all of the technology we have today, what would we do? We would have to go back to the way we used to do things without technology. Some of us have become so dependent on it that we wouldn't know how to function properly. To some people, textbooks and any other kind of hard copy are a thing of the past. We need to remember that technology isn't the only tool we have. It would do us good to do things the "old-fashioned" way once in a while. Things like copying pictures or taking notes from a book or even writing out a report *gasp*. It won't kill us if something isn't copied perfectly. It would also help some people if they didn't have spell check. If we constantly count on spell check then when a time comes where we need to know how to make a paper grammatically perfect, we won't know what to do I'm not saying that is the case for everyone, but there are a lot of people out there that are like that. Soon, if we don't reduce our reliance on technology, we might get to the point where we'll actually forget simple grammar rules.

Victoria G.
Period 3

[Michael R]

This video, in a ridiculous way, simply demonstrates the difference in digital and printed. The needing to zoom, save, enlarge etc. just shows how those who grow up with technology at their fingertips find it hard to utilize other outdated methods of research and data. It also demonstrates how lost we are when we are with out the laptop or p.c. or whatever. This is shown by not understanding any of the textbook even though all the necessary information was there. Other than this I'm not sure there is really a message. Looks to me like one student acting dumb for the cameras--nothing new there. I'm also not sure where Trenton and David are thinking that the video is lobbying to digitize our textbooks, for a few reasons. First, their not actually complaining about the information being in this alien format only it is not responding to their usual methods of searching through it. Second, every major textbook has been digitized anyway. The text cannot be simply put on the web for it would be illegal since almost always at least one of the authors are still alive, since there are always many, not to mention schools keep the books up to date, generally about 10-20 years old. This is not to say that the material cannot be found, worse comes to worse their is always Limewire or Acquisition, if you like Macs.

[Daniel]

I think that this Video is a Example of how much people today rely on computers and technology. At First I started laughing because he was clueless on what to do because he was acting like he had no idea what that "thing" (book) was. With one click of a finger you can read a whole entire book in less then 10 minutes and can look up the definition of a word instead of flipping some pages because of computers. They are obviously allot more easy to use and more convenient if you know exactly what your doing but that then again I don't think that is the point. My main thought after watching this video is that it seemed like there were showing what could happen in the future. Have books become almost like aliens to us and people not only have no idea what to do with them but how to read them or look up information. People have became more and more reliant on computers that books were no use to us anymore. That also made me think of what were to happen if this were to really go wrong. If Human beings grew up familiar with books, and all of a sudden of day all the computers in the whole world where to shut off. No one could fix them or turn them back on just, kaput. What would happen to the people? Im guessing they would look like the kid in the video but probably would freak out even more in a panic.

Daniel F

Period 4

[Brennan L.]

This video shows a lot of what the world is becoming today. The boy in the video is wanting to click on the words as if they are links, and wanting to save the picture, and drag it to a folder as if the textbook has technology built into it. Computers are the new way of learning things. Rather then looking through a book, ypu can look online and find the information there. For example, I had a homework assignment in history where it required the use of our history textbook. I did not write down my homework, so I asked a friend what pages the homework assignment was on. She said that she used the computer to find the answers to the problems on the homework assignment. This shows that people these days rely more on the internet. On the internet, it is easier to find the things you are looking for and to comprehend what you are reading, or looking at. We rely on computers to get us through the things that we need most. The boy in the video is acting like the book he was looking at was actually an internet reference website. Obviously they were just setting an example, he did not actually think that it was a computer. However, it just comes to show that computers are taking over our life.

[Kristen S]

Today’s generation relays on technology more than ever. If you look around, most of the highest paying jobs require skills on computers, and phones. Teenagers are constantly walking around with iPods’ in their ears and on network sites like Myspace and Facebook. Even schools are entering more and more technology into their education. Foothill Technology High School being the newest High School in the Ventura County has chosen to be based on technology. The next generation will be completely run by computers. Computers and the internet have gone such a long ways in only a few years, and to imagine what they will be able to do it a few more. It is so much easier to do an assignment on a computer than to take time writing it out and getting sore fingers. On the internet you can get facts all the way to people’s opinions about a certain topic. There really isn’t anything you can’t do on a computer and nothing you can’t find on the internet. Also, unlike pen, a mistake can be quickly and neatly erased on a computer. It is also good for the environment when we turn in homework assignments on the web, rather than using lots of a paper. I am very glad to have the internet. (:

Period 5

[Brittany B.]

I think the video is trying to send a message to the teachers and schools about how obsolete text books are becoming. We live in a digital age, our schools should be making more of an effort to keep up with technology. With the text book, all you get is what there. One can't link to another page and read more. There is only a couple of paragraphs and thats all the information you get. Most of the people responding to this are seeing internet reliance as a bad thing, but it really isn't. More information is accessible on the internet. Logically, if there is a more informed source shouldn't it be used? People seem to have this idea that print is somehow better than internet references, when they contain the same information. Also as they pointed out in the video, the internet is far more convenient and useful because of things like zooming and photo dragging. The video isn't trying to show some kind of bookless doomed future or people's inability to comprehend printed sources. It's trying to show the present and how there is really no need for books in our digital age.

Brittany B!
Period 5!

[Trenton P.]

Michael R said:

The text cannot be simply put on the web for it would be illegal since almost always at least one of the authors are still alive, since there are always many, not to mention schools keep the books up to date, generally about 10-20 years old.

http://cnx.org/content/m15226/latest/

Actually, some authors are publishing their textbooks online with nonrestrictive licensing. That means no need for new editions, personalized standards by area, and at no cost.

[Cierra W]

I think this video shows that students can learn with out a textbook. Last year we got Biology texts books, they were huge, old and useless. Mr.Duston gave them to us and said put them under your bed and at the end of the year give it back to me your never going to use it this year. And it was true. When we have vocabulary we had to look up he would have us look it up online instead of inside the book. I really this shows that students can learn with out the textbook, most of us don't even have them for our classes, I have two, a history and a chemistry. I do use both of them, but most of the information I get from them I could very easily find on the Internet.
And the cost might be cheaper for schools too, I remember in 8th grade I helped the school move books from classrooms at the end of the school year because while my school was getting new books another school was getting our old outdated books. With it on web or on a disk it might be cheaper for the schools, saving money that we need.
And Trenton brings up a good point, with the Internet getting more information is easier, there's so much to this idea, if there's a word I don't understand I could look it up, or if I cant remember the date the Pearl Harbor got bombed I can look that up.

[Ashish P]

One on hand, the video shows us how much less dependent we have become on libraries and books and how we have come to an age where instead of finding a book about a topic, we can just search the topic on the internet. There was a time about 10-15 years ago where the only "scholarly" sources that existed were from professionally written books and textbooks. Now we have entered a new age where those books are seemingly useless considering that I could find the same, if not even more useful, information on the internet.
On the other hand, this video shows us how unreliable and seemingly useless books and textbooks have become. Text books, like the one shown in the video, only offer a few short sentences about a certain topic. In our World History textbook, the great philosopher, Socrates, was described in one small paragraph. If I were to search the same topic on the internet, I would not only get an enormous bundle of information about Socrates, but I would also discover minor things about him that were not included in a textbook. Things like: his last name, his family, his dog's name, his exact birth date, and so on. Books have become obsolete as of now. Even with simple things like this Ning, we can have a class discussion... at home! With online technologies like Zoho, the Ning, or the Wiki, we can not only find useful information, we can turn in our homework at home; we can ask questions from home; we can hang out with friends at home. So many possibilities have been opened just because of what the internet has done for our education.