Sunday, October 26, 2008
This is super confusing
Well i read the article about the semantic web and i cannot even begin to understand what ontologies and XML language is and a lot of the other technical terms, but I do have somewhat of an understanding of what the semantic web is. From what my understanding was, the semantic web is software communicating with software, webpages communicating with web pages, etc. It seems like once we have the semantic web it will make searching a lot easier in the way that it will be able to, through the XML language, understand the difference between a post office box number and a street address. I liked that scenario about sending the flowers to the clients because that would be really cool to be able to send a message like that and have the computer know which are the correct kind of addresses to send the flowers to. The semantic web seems to have its advantages such as being able to use your "agent" to go through and schedule your appointments by connecting to the doctor's computer to see when he/she is available and then compare it to your schedule to see when your available. I do think it's going to make people really lazy that we won't actually be calling to make our appointments rather our computers will be doing it. The other thing they mentioned in the beginning of the article is that all the devices in our home will eventually be connected and that when we answer our phone the volume will automatically turn down on everything. That is just mind boggling. However, I don't know if it's related, but that type of thing already happens in some vehicles. In newer cars when the vehicle slows down the radio will automatically turn down. I do think that the semantic web does form a threat because it is one step closer to artificial intelligence. I do not want to live in a terminator world. It is scary to think that technology will get that advanced someday. I may not understand all of the special lingo explaining how the semantic web works, but I do understand what it is going to do to our world and there are a lot of good things that it will bring to us, but there is also in my opinion some bad things.
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2 comments:
While you may not understand all the lingo~ you are VERY insightful about the social implications.
My more specific question though is: How does this affect what we teach and how we teach it?
Your predictions about possible societal change are possible so what should educators do to prepare students for a world with a semantic web?
I completely agree that the article was difficult to understand. I also feel that the semantic web will create an environment that is more efficient. However, I also think that it will create a future generation of individuals that are slightly under-motivated, due to the fact that many day to day tasks will require signficantly less critical thinking. As a result, I feel that it is crucial that future educators implement technology-focused, project-based learning with an emphasis on the essential element of critical thinking that might otherwise be diminished.
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