This is the begninning of a paper I am writing for my Nonprofit class...this is just a draft and it is not even finished, yet I thought the ideas were interesting...

It is surprising that they would try a pilot program such as this on such a young age group, middleschoolers, as opposed to trying it out with high school seniors or in college classrooms. On the other hand, starting at such a young age may help those children get used to the technological pace of society today. I have not heard of any other programs similar to this since then.

I do not believe that programs like this are very realistic, at least for the next few decades. Although wealthier school systems may be able to supply their students with laptops on lend, the majority of schools are already lacking funds to buy necessities such as books and teachers, let alone laptops. In addition, if laptops are to be used in the classroom, teaching programs and student learning aids on the computer must be very structured in order to keep the student on task. There must be accredited standards that go along with the laptop programs if introduced in a school system.

In the future, when the cost of laptops decrease, these laptop programs may prove efficient. Students may eventually be able to learn at home from their laptops (using chat rooms with fellow students and teacher) to create a more centralized learning environment. Student centered learning would still be possible, yet will take on a different form because students will be interacting more online than in person. What do people think about this...having laptops to aid in the learning process?

Social networking is the first step to creating and maintaining social groups. Whether you are at school, at work, at a movie, at a party, or at the gym, you are forming conscience and unconscience social groups. These social groups may be strong or weak; usually school and work groups being stronger than groups formed at the movies, at parties, or at the gym. The more frequently you visit and interact at these places, the stronger social bonds tend to be. Without networks, it would be very hard to have social relationships, or any kind of relationships at all. Imagine going to work everyday, not talking to a single person throughout the day, and going home silently to your house. You would have no network and no social life at work.

If technology eliminates the need for pens and pencils completely, many jobs are to be lost. There will be no "middle-man" job, instead information will be directly sent to computers automatically by the source. How do you think this will effect the economy? With an increase in more technical jobs and more education necessary, with the digital divide create yet another, deeper separation within the labor force?

Micheal Phelps (olympic swimmer, butterfly), attended same high school as I did and used to be my friend, 1 degree of separation.

Tom Selleck (actor), my mom's first cousin. 2 degrees of separation.

Nicole Miller (designer), my sister's roomates cousin. 3 degrees of separation.

It is strange how after the 1st degree of separation there is little to no communication between myself and that particular person. Even though we are all "linked," we really do not know as many people as we think we do. So maybe this world isn't as small after all...

Tattoos present an individual with the opportunity to express himself through body art. Similar tattoos can convey similar values and beliefs, forming an underlying network of commonality. My sister Katrin has a total of four tattoos, varying in size and color. On her ankle she has an artistic stick figure about 4 inches high, on her arm she has an aboriginal design depicting a skeleton of a dragonfly in black and red hues, on her other arm she has a matisse painting of the human figure, and finally she has a tribal symbol on her forearm. No, she's not a member of a motorcycle gang, but she believes that her tattoos are beautiful works of art and she is proud of them. Often when we go out together, people will stop and ask her what her various tattoos mean. She is always happy to take her time and explain each one. This is a strange metaphor, but it is almost like when senior citizens stop one another and ask about photos of one anothers grandchildren.

Historically, tattoos have been used both negatively and positively to identify similar groups of people. Cults used tattoos to brand their members and to initiate them into their family. Minority groups were often tattooed to further divide them from the community in which they were immersed and discriminated within. These examples both support the idea that groups, who held the same beliefs whether religious or spiritual, were physically identified with tattoos, creating an isolated network of individuals.

Extending this idea to the animal kingdom and research, animals are often tattooed or "tagged" to create a network in which research can take place. Here, each individual can be linked to another animal and a conceptual map of individual interactions can be observed and recorded.

So what is the point of all this tagging and linking? To observe the patterns of interaction? Maybe. But it is my belief that humans are trying to understand the concepts of tagging and linking to create networks because they are fascinated with the idea of simplifying the world around them. By mapping out seemingly random encounters and decisions, humans believe they can unravel the world down to networks until they understand the very fabric of existence, or something very close.

Already, we have computer chips in pets so we can play lost and found when a pet goes astray. We hear of scientists and researchers presenting the idea of placing small computer chips in newborn babies for identification and tracking purposes in the future. Now I am not sure exactly how the data would be compiled and tracked, yet I have a mental image of a large computer displaying a map with small blinking dots, each representing a human being. People would be standing around this giant screen pointing to certain clusters wondering why and how this or that particular network formed. Since when did technology reduce us from being "numbers" to simply just "dots?" I am very interested in further educating myself concerning networks and how they affect society today and in the future.

On a personal level, I feel that the Internet has given me many more opportunities to communicate with others, to educate myself, and to entertain myself than the experience of the "real world" alone could have provided me. Without the internet, information about other countries, cultures, etc. would be very inconvient to become familiar with being limited to books, television, and other people. Communicating with people in other countries and cultures would be even more difficult; limitations exist such as cost (phone bills, postage fees) and delayed time in the real world that do not exist in the virtual world...a snailmail letter would not be recieved until days later whereas an email would be electronically sent immediately, not to mention at no cost whatsoever. In addition, entertainment is mostly free via the internet (movies, music videos, music files, online books and magazines, computer games) whereas many of these would have some sort of direct or indirect costs in real life.

Upon reading The Internet Galaxy, it caused me to reflect on whether these freedoms are actually freedoms, being combined with the surviellence techniques prevelent throughout the internet and being under the watchful eye of the government. I guess the main question that comes to my mind is this: Are we willing to be given all of these new and convienent opportunities and experiences at the cost of our privacy?? Yes, we do have the freedom to surf the net, exploring whatever kind of webpages we care to, but we are also being monitored. Monitored by companies and the government alike, for reasons both "legitimate" (to form habits of customers to better serve them) and "illegitimate" (identity theft, etc). Where is the line drawn between legitimate purposes and illegitimate purposes? Where will the government stop? Where will the public draw the line?

I believe in order to address and solve these problems of privacy, both the government and the public need to agree on what and what is not appropriote. I do not find the idea of being watched attractive at any level or by any means. Yet the Internet will not exist totally unsupervised, especially by the government. Terrorism and other black market dealings could use the internet to aid in their missions. While I do not like the idea of surviellence, I must admit that a certain degree is "healthy," yet there needs to be a definate change in the way companies and the goverment address the issues of public privacy that satisfies everyone.

We all crammed into 3 cars and drove down Friday afternoon, with the third car an hour behind. About 7 miles from OU, the last car got pulled over for going 15 miles over the speed limit. Oops. The police reported that their airplane had caught them speeding and that they had contacted the ground police to come pick them up. On Saturday night, one of my friends got taken aside by a group of police while walking on Court St. The police asked to see my friends ID and asked for his social security number. He radio transmitted this information to the base to get further information about him.

Modern technology is being used to make law enforcement more effective. Without the quick use of technology communications as demonstrated this weekend at OU, the police may not have been able to catch my heavy-footed friend on the highway and the police may not have been able to correctly authorize the identify my friend on Court Street. Will technology get to the point where no crime, no matter how small or large, goes undetected by authorities?

I find it is frustrating watching my grandmother take a half hour out of her day to hang clothing on a clothing line with clothes pins because I know having a dryer would free up a great deal of time. And it's almost like watching some mid twentieth century movie watching my grandfather make mashed potatos with the old-fashion handheld beater set. There is something quite remarkable and nostolgic about the lack of technology and tradition subsisting within the walls of my grandparents house, yet I can't help wondering what it would be like if my grandparents were technologically savvy...

Would it be like an 80+ version of Futurama? Would my grandparents live in neon spacesuits and make friends with a talking robot? Okay, okay, this is quite ridiculous, but it is hard imagining a life where my grandparents would be explaining new technology to me, instead of the other way around.

I think this trend has been around for a very long time, and will continue to effect the elderly population in the future. In the past, this trend was not as defined because technology was growing at a slower pace so that the generation gaps in technology was not that far apart. With the exponential growth pace experienced today, the generation gaps are huge and effectually "leave out" the elderly population from new technology. Society has tried to address these problems through senior classes that deal with computing and technology and provide a low-pressure environment for them to learn at their own pace along with their peers. Although many seniors still live without the convience of new technology (whether on purpose or not) even with these classes available, I believe that in the future the government and nonprofits will make continual efforts to increase computing/technological knowledge among the elderly populations in order to make an efficient and less stratified society.

I guess I need to relate this to technology somehow...hm. Y2K...Y2006? Just kidding, but seriously, there was so much anticipation for the Y2K and how it could potentially cause technological disaster. Forgive my ignorance, but to this day I still do not fully understand what that scare was about. Why was it such a big technological deal to go from 1999 to 2000?

This article is about taking technology with you, literally. In all aspects of life, technology causes the divides between business, leisure, and social times of life to blur.

I think it is important for these divisions to remain somewhat seperate; technology shouldn't completely incorporate vacations with business because the purpose would be lost. Family and work are two of the most common important aspects in the corporate world, and combining these could lead to conflicts within the family and within the work setting. While technology could make things more "efficient" so to speak, it is not what makes sense in reality.

Technology may speed up a process and increase productivity, yet human interaction may also decrease. With this example from Starbucks, it is clear that technology has many benefits and drawbacks. Many critics of ubiquitous technology claim that technology will eventually create an atmosphere of social isolation. In a way, I agree with this. Take a more familiar example...decades ago, where were the children when they were not at school? Probably playing outside with their peers: indian games, hide-and-go-seek, tag, etc. Even on rainy days, kids usually found something to do. Today, where do you find the children? Inside, playing video games, talking on AIM, and more often than not, alone.

This has 150 hours of video space...seems pretty cool. But who really needs 15,000 songs except for dj's?

In Digital Ground, McCullough makes a comment that technology is very unnatural within itself, while "ground," the infrastructure of society minus technology, is what is natural. I am not sure what this juxtaposition of ironic ideas emphasizes, but I believe this idea parallels the conflict within human beings of control versus result. People want to be able to be in control of everything, yet they are not willing to give up control of themselves even if it means a more desirable result. People do not want to feel that part of them has become "unnatural" because they like to believe that they are part of the societal infrastructure, the "ground," that existed before technology emerged. Society wants to believe that they are in control of technology.

Recall movies based on the idea that technology becomes "smarter" than we can handle and robots, computers, etc take over the world. This innate fear that humans could eventually advance technology so far and actually lose control of it is even in the media. My question...does anyone think that technology will ever, in fact, take over the world as we know it? Personally, I think this idea is rather ridiculous. I think that humans will sooner destroy eachother THROUGH technology rather than technology totally demolishing humans.

Another thought: actually, this is pretty random, but, it seems like every movie that deals with advanced technology also includes some ridiculous alien invasion or pods hatching under our very feet in the sewers. Why is it that people seem to associate foreign life with technology? Is it because both future technology and the idea of alternate forms of life both are fascinating to us? Is it because both topics delve into the unknown? Does it relate to fear?

In the end of these movies, it seems like the aliens are always defeated and humans again regain control. Maybe our fears will eventually be realized, faced, and overcome, and we will be one step closer to attaining something more....but what?