Week 2 Critical thinking, but good learning...

What I am going to say now is probably a bit counterproductive, but important.
Karl Marx said: “Subject everything to doubt.” If the book or your professor (even me :) says that there are 5 types of something or 4 methods of something - think a little and you can come up with a few more or merge some of the offered points. When they say “something is such and such” – it is usually not (sounds almost like Zen :) But while our learning remains the same as in ancient times when there was no Internet, few books, and stable socio-technological environments, learning is often seen as memorization of these points and then spitting them out during the test. Yes, you still have to do it, but the value of creative and disruptive thinking is high.

For example, if you ask me what hardware is – I wouldn’t know what to say (but you should go by the book on your quiz). Technically, hardware is something responding to computer processing or being a part of it. But now with ubiquity of computing anything can become hardware if you manage to network it with the rest of the system. It can be your refrigerator, your TV, your car, even a brick or the surface of the table (see smart matter research).

Same with software (read the definitions on p.77 and you will see the problems even in dividing systems and application software) where on a deeper level of understanding the terms “program” or “data” can not really be satisfactory defined. Especially now when a new (not mentioned in the book) type of data/programs is becoming increasingly dominant. These artifacts are created by users (another problem of separating users from producers) like widgets, gadgets, and a bunch of other Web 2.0 products with open interfaces and continuous collaborative morphing.

So keep all this in mind not becoming too dogmatically trusting… Yet, the quiz grades are determined by the computer and will require good orientation and memorization, unfortunately :)