the world at your fingertips

 On July 1st 1997 Dr. Jan Hawkins wrote an article titled "The world at your fingertips." In it she detailed how the world will be impacted by the changes in technology, with great emphasis on the benefits this change will have on education. Two years later, Dr. Hawkins passed on, but like all the great minds before her, her ideas took root. It is this ideas that have given birth to an explosion of awareness and realization, prompting experiments across the globe. Case in point it took  Albert Einstein fifteen years to prove the general theory of relativity and five years to get the theory published in a recognized journal when he first proposed it.

In the current world a scientific paper, article or essay is posted online Timbuktu on Tuesday night and when the author wakes up they find four hundred unread emails, thirty missed calls from various journalists requesting an interview with an entire brigade of paparazzi outside their homes waiting to take the first picture. It's called going viral That may not happen exactly as stated but you get the drift; the world is wired small and tight! access to information is closer than the proverbial doorstep, it is in our ears, our palms OUR FINGERTIPS! We have material to learn more, to inquire, to improve, to inspire we may have well exhausted material on what we have.


Dr. Jan Hawkins saw a future that meant it would be easier to teach and to learn, a future that included faster and more efficient ways of solving tasks. She saw better time efficiency and increased personal as well as professional development. Hawkins was right, indeed technology has enriched as well as increased us, but(there is always a but sometimes even two) to what extent have we made use of the technological gains we have? It is about time we asked each other as we do ourselves, how well do we use the world at our fingertips?

#100Daysofblogging #Day15

I intend to introduce another argument on knowledge and how its influx may not be as rosy as Hawkins highlighted, but that is another post for another day.  

The birth of this post was the possibility of avenues to read and satisfy our curiosity, expand our understanding scope or for whatever reason you read. It was this condensed list of free online course

Gratitude

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” — Albert Schweitzer

TRULY GRATEFUL TILL THE END

Into  the sunrise lake of my own sunset

I  shall wade and sink with nary a ripple.

There in the penubra of the dark skyline,

               I shall be, blissfully,

                   nothing again.

Blown  away  by  the worst  wayward winds,

Trapped, stranded in the dreariest doldroms,

I  have stayed  undaunted, kept unshaken

                 the faith in better

                   things to come.

The  heaving  halo of  the partly sunken sun

Now  sends thin shafts  of  shimmering light

That streak through my lengthening shadow.

                 Still, I shall remain

                  grateful and true.

 

-Anonymous

I am grateful today for the journey this year has been, there were times I did not think I could hold my sanity, my tongue or my existence. I am grateful for slowly I find that I can tame them all for they are just a part of me and on their own they are still nothing without me. 

#100daysofbloggin #Day14