Final Reflection

Even though it’s my final blog in this course, it won’t be my final blog forever. Through this course I learned how to write blogs posts and share them using WordPress. I haven’t been the kind of a person who shares thoughts on online platforms or social media, but I think I found myself in this aspect of technology. Now, I believe I can really contribute to online users throughout blogging. I always had this bad perception about online posts that they don’t simulate reality unless they are posted on credible websites. I think this bad idea developed as a result of social media since it was my first experience connecting to the internet when I was a child. People say: first impression lasts. Even though my first impression that was influenced by fake people on social media was bad, it won’t last from now on. I, basically, discovered another tool to learn, which is writing blog posts. No need to say that this was the most important thing to learn in this course.

In order not to be vague, I consider writing blog posts a tool to learn because I gain experiences and knowledge through making researches to transfer such knowledge to the audience. I conduct such researches using credible websites, and that takes us to another thing I learned from this course, which basically the skill to differentiate between fake and credible news and articles. I developed this skill through some activities throughout the semester such as fake news group activity in which I collaborated with my colleague, Loujian, to find one fake news, true news, and another one that’s fake or true. This skill is one of the main factors that will help me in the rest of my academic life to spot fake headlines and articles’ titles.

The materials and learning outcomes of this course are more realistic compared to other courses I have ever taken. Students from all majors can take this course and learn as well. For example, a political science major student can learn how people interact online, what their motives are, and what influences them through curation activity for example. A psychology major student can effectively learn from articles that we used to read about people traits online such as digital confidence profile. Further, the course obviously can help a MICT student how to be digitally literate though many activities such as Read and annotate, and Fake or Not Fake assignment. For me, my best part of interest that helped me in my major concentration was the game. Even I worked on the idea in order to help other people learn something, I think what I really learnt was constructing the scoring system using visual basic. I have never written visual basic code before and I never thought it can be integrated with Microsoft Office. As every CS student, I was proud that I could make this part of my game work even though it didn’t require much effort compared to the projects we build in our CS department. Moreover, I won’t skip a career presentation without integrating visual basic features in it since I’m sure that my audience will always be surprised.

On top of all what I learnt in this course comes Soliya experience. It was one of the experiences that I will always remember. I consider this experience as a short trip with the people I met in Soliya. In this trip, we visited each Soliya member’s country. I could easily know about their cultures and thoughts about religion. I socially enhanced my communication skills on how to open constructive talks. I also mentioned in my Soliya refection more examples about my experience, which I, undoubtedly, never forget.

If I would pick three things to show them to others, I would pick firstly my Curation assignment. I would like to transfer to others knowledge through people who can effectively influence them, such as Da7ee7 and Ahmed Samir (Egypchology Youtuber). Secondly, I would pick my game. I have many friends who drive but they have no idea about road conventions and car technicalities. Thus, I would like to show them, and other people as well, such conventions and convey to them driving rules in an attractive and interactive way. Moreover, my game show how much someone learns from this course to some extent, so I would like to present it to interested people. Finally, I would like to tell others about Soliya and how much someone can improve his social skills through this program.

A reflection about an experience, class, or event needs to include also some modifications. The most important modification I would like to add to this class is the group work. Even though we had some group work activities and presentations, they weren’t enough. So I would suggest that there will be more group work activities in which students can know more about the rest of the class. The second thing I would suggest is to have more presentations whether individual or in group. The presentation shall be kind of informal and short. Otherwise, I really enjoyed every single activity, talk, article and video shared in and outside the class.

I would suggest that the person taking this class be kind of extrovert in order to get the most out of it, but that doesn’t mean that an introvert person, like me, won’t learn.

Finally, I would like to say that even while writing this reflection, I was learning. While looking for a way to make my reflection kind of creative, I have discovered an online tool that converts text to video. The link of the tool is attached below and you can watch the video below, it was my trial to convert my reflection to an interactive video. Thank you Dr. Maha for this awesome course 🙂

https://www.articlevideorobot.com

Contribution – Social Media Ethics

Throughout the semester, we got to learn about ourselves, while at the same time learning about others who have different cultures in the context of online platforms and
digital world. We discussed social implication of nowadays technologies and also how humans interact with each others online. In fact, Social interaction among humans has always been an important issue to debate about, especially at the time social media becomes one of the main factors to enhance such interactions. Basically, Social media is computer-based technology that facilitates the sharing of ideas, thoughts, and information through the building of virtual networks and communities (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn). Even though we had many activities that entailed social media such as Scavenger Hunt and Curation, we had never came across the term “ethics” in social media. Social media has a much wider reach beyond marketing and technology. Other implications are rarely discussed. There are rules of ethics and etiquette for social media that must be followed.

We all have our own beliefs as to what is right and wrong in life, therefore most people live by their own morals and ethics. However, it seems that when it comes to social media and having an online presence, some individuals or companies believe that ethical behavior is moot. Some people might use social media inappropriately which leads to some ethical violations in some cases. In general, personal relationships and interactions have changed and some may feel that because they are hiding behind a computer screen and typing the words instead of speaking them, it really doesn’t count as unethical behavior.

Since we haven’t discussed ethics on social media platforms in this course, I would like to contribute with an article that tackles such topic. We are taught as we grow up through face to face interactions, experiences and lessons what we should and should not do. It’s important to transfer our values and ethics into social media. ASHA, American Speech Language Hearing Association, revealed an article names “Ethical Use of Social Media” (Link is attached below). In this article, ASHA provides guidance through their code of ethics on how to use social media in an ethical way. The article tackles the principles that the code entails. For instance, one of these principles is to avoid misrepresenting others for the sake of promoting services. Further, the article gives examples and scenarios to articulate what the code tries to convey. For example, the first scenarios elaborates the difference between a defamatory post on Facebook and unprofessionalism. The scenarios differentiate between situations in order to understand the moral behind the code they set.

Social media is becoming more and more legitimate in both the professional and personal world. Being ethical and having a code of ethics for your social media campaign or even for your own personal social media channels is vital to stay digitally literate.

https://www.asha.org/Practice/ethics/Ethical-Use-of-Social-Media/

Curation – Egychology

Egychology is a YouTube channel created by Ahmed Samir in 2015. Ahmed Samir is an Egyptian Youtuber who graduated from the American University in Cairo with a bachelor in Mechanical Engineering. He is presenting a wide range of topics about different fields and sciences on his channel. His videos are usually between 5 to 15 minutes long. Samir has been tackling Egyptians’ curious questions in a scientific attractive way. He lets people ask him questions in the comments and based on people’s requests he prepares an episode using scientific books as references to what he presents. Samir and Da7ee7, a famous Youtuber, are friends and they almost followed the same path of transferring knowledge to Egyptians and Arabs. Samir has a motto which is, as written in his Bio on Facebook, “Light Up The Darkness – نوّر الظلمة.” He intends to lighten people’s minds with recent studies and science about daily phenomenon since traditional education in Egyptian schools almost fails to attain this goal.

Egychology episodes hundreds of thousands views on YouTube which implies that his work is successful. Samir loves what he does, which is research and conveying information to others. It’s, as mentioned in one of his videos, his hobby to read and learn new things that people are curious about. Further, he likes to share conclusions and answers with people. Samir finds himself developing by working on his episodes. His parents also have a great impact on his success. Last month, April 2019, Samir said on his account on twitter that he wasn’t to appear anymore. Samir wrote “Even beautiful things come to an end It’s an eventually that often can’t be avoided.” Moreover, what he was asked on ask.fm why did he stop, this was his answer: “It’s time for it to stop. Every episode kills me a little. Every episode hurts me beyond measure. Every time I set my expectations so high and those expectations are destroyed, I realize that maybe I really am not cut out for this. My team and put an insane amount of work to make egychology successful, but because of how bad things have been going I’ve lost all passion. I could barely shoot the last episode and I really didn’t want to release an episode tomorrow, but this is kinda for my dad. He wanted to see this episode. So it’s one last one just for him.” On April 25th, his father posted on Facebook that he talked with Samir and convinced him to continue presenting Egychology episodes. Samir mentioned several times in his very first episodes in 2015 that his mother had a great influence on him, motivating Samir to make such videos. It’s obvious that he has got many factors to make him successful, which can be summarized into: his parents, his passion, his knowledge, and his digital literacy skills (Research).

Samir stated to Hayatweb that Egychology is a service at the end and that’s its aim since he started the channel. Samir simplifies every piece of information so that it can be conveyed to a wide range of audience. In part of the blog, we will investigate two examples of Egychology episodes. The first one is under the name of “What’s after death!” In this episode, Samir goes through the meaning of being dead biologically and the cause of this, which he simply defines as the body inability to replace its dead cells. Then, he explains that death causes the heart, brain and lung to stop. In most of the episode, he stressed on the idea if the heart stops before the brain. In this case, the brain still perceives everything even that the body is dead. He mentioned some statistics that support his conclusions as well. The second episode is under the name of “History Lies.” In this episode, Samir presented some historical incidents in which people manipulated other people’s minds. He elaborated on the idea of memorizing and how it happens in the brain. I watched many of his episodes and I’m really surprised by the way he simplifies science. I finish a ten minutes episode and I feel I have learnt more than one week at university.

Samir and his team use effective digital literacy skills starting from researching, through preparing, and to presenting. They research what topics the Egyptian Society is interested in. Then, they make sure that the sources they use is credible. They summarize and conclude their sources in order to paraphrase it, as I mentioned, in simple words and ideas. They use some recent comics in order to make the episode funny, which ensures that the audience will never get bored. Their technical skills in recording is also one of the factors that make Egychology a successful channel. Furthermore, they always cite sources in the description of the episodes. I think Samir’s team if one of the few digitally literate team in Egypt who make use of the internet in the perfect way. Samir is now in Canada studying for his Master’s in Alberta University. One week ago, he mentioned on his Facebook page that he finally will be finishing academics after his final exam in Master’s which is very soon. I really wish him the best of luck. You can use the links below to know more about Ahmed Samir:

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheAsead/featured

Da7ee7 and Samir in the Science Week in 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJd3v5huDeU

Samir Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ahmedsamiread

Egychology Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Egychology/

http://www.hayatweb.com/article/93951

https://ask.fm/AhmedSamir10/best

http://www.hayatweb.com/article/93951

Do Not Track – Breaking Ad

In 2012, Brett Gaylor, a filmmaker and longtime open web advocate, designed what’s called the “Do not Track” project. The mission of Do not track is to raise awareness about online privacy making you feel under permanent surveillance: every second you spend, every click you make, will help the authors to build an accurate portrait of your digital behavior. Interacting with the second episode, Breaking Ad, my online behavior has changed dramatically: I’m not accepting websites’ cookies anymore; I don’t use public internet in coffee shops and restaurants; and I’ve blocked cookies in my browser.

Julia Angwin, investigative journalist, co-founder and former editor-in-chief of The Markup, describes cookies simply as a text file that saves your device and some information about you to remember you next time you come back to visit a website. For the most part a cookie will contain a string of text that contains information about the browser. Using this text file, a website can create a consumer profile for you. Why do websites do so? Basically, to compete with other websites in the name of knowing more about someone or people in general, Julia tells in the episode. Further, websites that have your cookies can even track your online activity and share your interests and history with other websites in return for money.

People on the internet always allow websites to use cookies without knowing what is behind giving such permission. The episode explains why cookies are important for the online performs: in the 1990s, the internet was free and people didn’t have to buy a ticket to access it. However, internet started to spread and everyone wanted to create his own webpage and upload media and share blogs online. Thus, companies were figuring out a method to pay for storage to such data, so they began using advertisements in order to make money. Ethan Zuckerman, creator of the original pop-up ad, which first appeared on Tripod.com in 1997, is sorry for inventing this method to pay for storage and hosting webpages. He also thinks that it’s time online sites and services moved on from using advertising as the primary means to make money.

Cookies are the basis for billions of dollars of online advertising. They’re also under fire from privacy advocates, the government, and even makers of Web browsers. But the key problem is the fragmentation of how people access online content. The issue even developed to creating a fingerprint for people’s devices. An article on Forbes states that advertisers and publishers are increasingly turning to fingerprinting. It allows a web site to look at the characteristics of a computer such as what plugins and software you have installed, the size of the screen, the time zone, fonts and other features of any particular machine. These form a unique signature just like random skin patterns on a finger.

Even though I blocked the cookies on my browser, there’s a recent invention called Zombie Cookies developed by “Turn”, an American advertising agency, which breaks blocking rules. Zombie system can also identify users to internet access providers. The science of tracking continues to develop. A bit like the new substances that are undetectable by anti-doping tests, trackers are always one step ahead of the activists who are developing the tools to escape them. Consequently, online users have to update themselves with the latest internet policies and take care of every click they do online. My tip to all of you is to first, start watching and learning from the http://www.donottrack-doc.com documentary, then start following the tips & tricks provided and always be careful when it comes to sharing/posting information about yourself on the internet.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2013/06/17/the-web-cookie-is-dying-heres-the-creepier-technology-that-comes-next/

Soliya Reflection

Soliya’s Connect Program is an online cross-cultural education program integrated into curriculum that provides young adults with a unique opportunity to establish a deeper understanding for the perspectives of others around the world on important socio-political issues. It is actually a pretty impressive place, and the group meeting rooms are pretty advanced. We can get into rooms of more than 2. My group room contained about 8 people from different places around the world: Italy, Palestine, Tunisia and Switzerland. Unlike other online platforms, such as Skype video conference, I felt the professionalism in the work of the Soliya team. Further, the platform was much easier to deal with. In other words, the user interface of the platform was simple and direct. Understanding the website didn’t require a genius and didn’t have a pretty heavy guideline on how to make things work. It’s very comforting when I have instructions that are clear and understandable.

Going in into my first meeting with the group was pretty amazing. We started out talking generally about everything, then we got into separate rooms and had small groups’ discussions. I enjoyed my talks with Alex, one of my peers in Soliya who is from Italy, I learned a lot from him about Italy. When he described how the life in Italy is like, I told him that it’s almost similar to Egypt. Their traditions and education is pretty similar to ours. In the second session we discussed cultures. In this session everyone shared an image to define his culture and, obviously, I shared the pyramids. In the third session, we discussed stereotypes and religions and what it entails to be religious. In this session, everyone shared the principles of his/her religion and what is forbidden and what isn’t. It was a great session actually since I’m always interested in what people believes and why.

I learned in this experience that we humans, are all the same. Just minor differences in appearances and life experiences, but we are all the same souls that are sharing every bit of them with the rest of the world. I can go out in the world and interact with everyone, with full confidence. Soliya has given me the opportunity to actually test it with people from around the world but virtually, just to learn and understand how that is. I found out through one of the sessions that I’m a media consumer communicator since I never produce media. Moreover, I don’t even share media online. For example, I haven’t shared a post on Facebook since 2014. This made me question how much I’m interactive on social media. I found out that I should have a role online. I have to share my thoughts and opinions. I have to contribute to people’s knowledge online. I once read that one of the main things that differentiate humans from other animals is that humans cooperate without meeting each other. For example, someone in china is creating a mobile app in order to help all other humans around the world. Cooperation between humans is one of the main pillars they are strong and developing. Thus, I decided to cooperate in order to enhance constructive communication between us all over the world.

To conclude my experience, again, I’ll have to say that I’ve enjoyed it a lot and I’ve learned a lot. I’m going to be trying my best to communicate with people from all over the world more often, gaining more knowledge and experiences that things like books do not teach. This is real value that needs to be more of the concern of some people in our society. Mainly people who do not know how to communicate with people with different religions, skin colors, etc. I’ve seen a few of them around my University and I would recommend it to them without a doubt.

Here is Soliya’s website, check it out:

http://www.soliya.net/

Game Final Draft Reflection

In this draft, I changed confusing scenarios and narrowed down the rules of the game to the US/Egypt traffic conventions. Further, I added a score system in order to make the game more interactive. The player has to keep positive score in order to win. Getting a high score implies that the player has a good background about practical and theoretical driving conventions. You can find here my online game first draft: http://bit.do/No-Need-for-Speed

If I had more time, I would have tried to publish my game online instead of asking the player to download it and play it offline. This is because some features of the game needs Microsoft Office in order to work. On another note, while developing this game I could get a wide range of accidents’ statistics and their causes. Moreover, the driving test banks (Link in Game References) enriched my driving skill for future driving experience. Further, worldwide traffic-related death statistics (Links Below) raised my awareness about how much it’s dangerous to drive unwisely. Again, car accidents are the small-sized wars.

Upon players feedback, I think the main problem that my game has is that it needs to be published online instead of providing a download link, asking player to download itand then asking again to enable content when online. Too many steps for playing a game. Otherwise, the players enjoyed my game and loved the background music and realistic scenarios.

Here’s the link of my final game, download it and I hope you learn the most out of it: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nOXmrmZSui6a6X67H-Oxr-8IVfHWBR7b/view?usp=sharing

*Please Select the option “Keep” instead of “Discard” when your browser finishes downloading the file.

Statistics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate

https://www.asirt.org/safe-travel/road-safety-facts/

Design Justice Reflection

Design is often used to refer to expert knowledge and practices contained within a particular set of professionalized fields, including software development, architecture, planning, and industrial design, as well as in various media and audiovisual industries, such as graphic design. The article basically tackles the idea of equity in workforce in the context of designing. In other words, there has to be diversity among designers in all life fields and this diversity should be fair among humans’ colors and races. The article has some sections in which each section debates one aspect of Design Justice such as principles, intersectionality and design justice definition and implications. The term “Design Justice” aims to a full inclusion of people with direct lived experience of conditions that any design team is trying to change.

Design Justice Principles are focused on design target represented in sustaining and empowering our societies. Another principle is that we should center opinion of people who are directly affected by the design process in order to prioritize the design impact over the designer. Further, we have to share tools and knowledge seeking for a community led and controlled outcomes.

The article then discusses intersectionality in order to elaborate on some examples of inequality in workforce companies. Intersectionality is a term that was first proposed by Black feminist legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in one of her articles in 1989. She discussed some instances in which the antidiscrimination law failed to protect black women workers. For example, a black woman claimed discrimination by Huge Helicopter incorporation, but the court could not accept that Black women might be able to represent all women, including white women, as a class. In the cases she discussed, she noted the role of statistical analysis in such incidents. In brief, the analysis shows that courts required black women to include wide testimony of all women (Black and White) that countered such discrimination actions. Also, courts sometimes limited the admissible data to black women, but, unfortunately, black women low number of employees made it impossible to build valid claims.  In another section, the article tackles the “Matrix of Domination” term which is closely linked to intersectionality. Through this term, we can refer to race, class and gender as an interlocking system of oppression rather than looking to each one on its own. In fact, I think the writer digressed a little bit by discussing this term. This is because the article aims to explain Design Justice. Even though, the intersectionality section elaborated on one of the writer’s aspects, “Matrix of Domination” section digged into racism and oppression with little contribution to focus on Design Justice.

The article then introduce a tentative definition for Design Justice which is “Design justice is a growing social movement that aims to ensure a more equitable distribution of design’s benefits and burdens; fair and meaningful participation in design decisions; and recognition of community based design traditions, knowledge, and practices.” The writer states that Design is a profound term which is fundamental to humans. In other words, people design the world around in all life branches and as a result it reflects on us as the world design us.

According to statistics in 2016, there’s no flattering progress towards gender and racial equity. In general, white people dominate software industry jobs. Women in the United States hold 25% of software jobs while black women only hold 3%. This reflects broader raced pattern in the US economy. The writer gives an example about LGBTQ to resemble how we should obtain design justice. The LGBTQ community, and in particular, drag queens, did successfully organize to force Facebook to modify its ‘real name’ policy. Many LGBTQ folks choose to use names that are not their given name on social media platforms, for various reasons, including a desire to control who has access to their self-presentation of sexual orientation and/or gender identity (SOGI).

Design Justice Community is growing rapidly which will definitely evolve the human species. Inclusion and anti-discrimination proved its power to develop and stabilize communities. Inclusion in design fields will reflect on each member of a community. In Egypt for example, if we could progress to such justice, we will be able develop much faster. If we could include both genders, religions and colors, we will see its effect as soon as possible. However, in Egypt, we meet many incidents daily in which, for example, men are prioritized over woman in workplaces and tasks. If we could include women, we will be able to benefit from their experience and we will gain a broader workforce. Another example is that sometimes companies, especially marketing ones, refuse to hire black people from Upper Egypt. In fact, Upper Egypt cities themselves need to be included by the government itself. Most of the government attention is focused on either Delta cities or coastal cities. Black people are always seen as people who have less right to live well. For example, Al-Sadat was attacked verbally by Egyptians as they said that he’s not fully Egyptian to be a president. It’s not fair to differentiate between people based on their colors since it wasn’t their choice.

In this article, I learned that everyone deserves equal treatment, absolutely no matter what the case is. Racial discrimination is all around world. Giving the same treatment to everyone would fix lots of problems that we have nowadays. One major principle of equity is inclusion. Through full inclusion I can do whatever I aim or dream of. For example, if I’m planning to make a business after graduation, I will focus on including people who are affected by whatever I design and market. Even during this course, being included in a group whether in an activity or a presentation produces best outcomes. For instance, last class we were required to build pyramids. All of us went creative and productive because we all were included in designing the mini pyramids. Even though design and equality terms seem to be not related, both bonded together have profound meanings that will shift humanity to another level of improvements and evolution.

References:
Costanza-Chock, S. June 2018. Design Justice: towards an intersectional feminist framework for design theory and practice. University of Limerick: Design Research Society. https://drive.google.com/file/d/14mgIv3UcLSCR_CeJ4T01_-X4GFAOhqVM/view

Game Design Prototype

In 2013, 54 million people worldwide sustained injuries from traffic collisions. This resulted in 1.4 million deaths in 2013, up from 1.1 million deaths in 1990. About 68,000 of these occurred in children less than five years old. Almost all high-income countries have decreasing death rates, while the majority of low-income countries have increasing death rates due to traffic collisions. Middle-income countries have the highest rate with 20 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, accounting for 80% of all road fatalities with 52% of all vehicles. Car accidents are similar to wars in the context of dead humans. Thus, it’s much better to raise awareness about such disasters in order to limit the harms. And that’s, basically, what my game aims to.

My game, “No Need for Speed”, is trying to help players understand different car accidents scenarios and what to do during such scenarios. It puts the player in the place of the driver in which he decides what to do in difficult situations during driving on different roads. For example, one of the scenarios is that the player is driving on a high way and he needs to take a U-turn. He looks in the mirror and he sees no body which means it’s safe to take the U-turn. He looks to the left to see if there are any cars coming. There aren’t so he proceeds with the turn. Out of seemingly nowhere a pedestrian or maybe a cyclist appears. In this scenario, I’m asking the player to choose between:

  • Pass the turn and take another far U-turn.
  • Press brakes and take the risk of driving on a high way.

The rest scenarios will differentiate in the sense of technicalities, reaction time and self-confidence. I’m trying to raise awareness regarding all aspects of driving. Thus, in another scenario I will be asking about is it safe to press the hand brake while driving in a slippery road.

A third scenario will be Asleep at the Wheel. Another common cause of accidents is a driver falling asleep at the wheel. Studies show that it is reasonable to estimate that about 7 percent of all car crashes occur because someone fell asleep while they were driving. In this scenario the player should decide in an urgent situation while he is tired and sleepy if he can drive or request an UBER that will make him late for a minimum of minutes.

I have other situations in mind such as No Control, Driving in Dark, Following Too Closely, and other situations that cause car collisions. I thought of this idea because of the recent train collision that happened in Ramses Station. It was the driver’s fault that led a number of people to die. So, in general, a driver is leading the vehicle and passengers and his fault will affect all those and even people around. I don’t think that government is raising awareness about such important issue and thus we need to be aware of its importance. As I mentioned, it has no less effect than small sized wars.

CLT Reflection

Reimagining Education

The workshop was presented by Alec Couras a professor in Education faculty at the University of Regina. He mentioned in the beginning of the lecture that he spends much time on many different platforms in order to connect with his audience and students. He mentioned that his CLT skills helped his students to enhance their online platforms, enabling them to be creative and skilled even outside the course materials and sessions. The professor stated that learning has been changing globally because of the world being dynamic. He also stated the YouTube and Google search engines can develop one’s scientific literacy. He said that if a student can’t learn anything new that can’t be found on such search engines, then the classes he/she attends are waste of time. He introduced the term ‘neuroplasticity’ which simply means the brain’s ability to recognize itself by forming neural connections throughout life.

The lecture was the most interesting lecture I have ever attended this is because its content was realistic. The professor isn’t like any typical professor or teacher I have ever seen. Such typical teachers just explain their courses’ material which are usually old material. He, however, gave examples of real life interactions between people and technology such teaching session through Skype between Americans and Chinese students. He emphasized how important it’s to use technology in today’s education.

What’s in a grade?

In this keynote, there were five groups each group consisted of a professor and a student. Each group debated grades and what do they mean and what academic excellence means. Basically they demonstrated different points of views about academics and how an evaluation can be done. Each professor elaborated in his own way of teaching and students stated what they do and don’t like about classes and university. In general, I think college and education system are only small part of one’s life. Thus, each person has to develop his own skills and innovative thoughts by interacting with people and engaging in real life situations by working or pursuing extracurricular activities. Grades aren’t everything for humans, but, unfortunately, that’s how many students perceive it while going to school or college. Life after graduation is totally different, even if it depends on one’s grades slightly, grades aren’t the central thing of the world.

The lecture was interesting and engaging. The comparisons through the panel groups were elaborative and mind opening. In fact, I appreciate professors who see from students’ perspective and start working on engaging students and educating them at the same time.