Friday, May 15, 2009

The Speed of Information and Our Place in the World



While this does not relate directly to the teaching of psychology, it does relate to our growth as learners and implications on both teaching and learning. It is a video called, "Did You Know?" and it contains a number of statistical facts about technology, the number of people in the world/regions of the world, and global competition.








The original video on YouTube was described this way: Wonderful, concise video that helps raise awareness of the issues of globalization in our newly connected world first raised in Thomas Friedman's book, The World is Flat. Karl Fisch remixed content from David Warlick, Thomas Friedman, Ian Jukes, Ray Kurzweil and others, added some music, and came up with the following presentation.


Version 3.0 is described this way: 3.0 for 2008 - Newly Revised Edition Created by Karl Fisch, and modified by Scott McLeod; Globalization & The Information Age. It was even adapted by Sony BMG at an executive meeting they held in Rome this year. Credits are also given to Scott McLeod, Jeff Brenman




Within a psychology class, one could use it as an exercise in critical thinking. What do you think the authors' intentions were with the video? How would the average American view this video--any emotional reactions? If so, why? Were the positive or negative emotions-explain. Are the statistics accurate? If they are, how are they being used in crafting a message about the future of the world and our role as Americans within the world? What messages are being sent? How does the video use images? Does it over or underwhelm? Explain. How is text used to create a message? One could even go into personality theories and how each might react to this (e.g. Adler and inferiority complex, Rogers and unconditional positive regard, etc.)




I leave it to our readers to add their own questions to the comments section.

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