Reflection 5

It’s been a while since the last reflection and I’m currently writing this reflection from Taiwan. That’s one of the privileges of spending a semester abroad in Korea; you have the opportunity to visit the nearby countries. Next to the fact that it’s nice to have a break from the normal dorm life, it’s nice to compare the way people live in other Asian countries to the way Koreans live. As we have been discussing emerging technologies in learning in this class, such as Facebook and Twitter, and the increasing importance of those technologies in current society, it might be nice to reflect on those technologies’ role in other Asian countries. From my experience it’s remarkable to notice that some other Asian countries Facebook and Twitter isn’t even allowed to use. Vietnam’s and China’s government made sure that www.facebook.com is not accessible. The fact that those countries are (slightly) communistic might have something to do with that. In Vietnam in order to access Facebook one needs to know the link (of that month or period) that does work, most of the time it’s the normal link with an extra word in it like; www.4link.facebook.com, but the link changes every time. China was not happy with the uprising of the Twitter hype because they do not want their people to openly criticize the government. They handled this ‘problem’ in a twofold way; 1) the link www.twitter.com is not accessible and 2) they have created their own Chinese Twitter as a substitute. This Chinese variant is of course completely government censored...

It’s remarkable to see that there still are some huge differences between the use of technologies between (sometimes) boarding countries. For that reason I am happy to have been studying in Korea for a semester. I have learned that Korea is a developed and industrialized society, highly intrigued by the endless possibilities the internet and technology offers. Compared to my home country, the Netherlands, this course provided me with all sorts of comparisons. The funny thing is that overall I think it’s a tie between Korea and the Netherlands, or more specifically between Ajou University and Maastricht University. At some points Maastricht University could be considered as ‘the winner’ in means of technology use, at other points its Ajou University up front and Maastricht University as follow up. 

What I really liked form this course was the fact that it made me think about things I normally wouldn’t think about because of it’s everyday use. Next to that it introduced to me new and often convenient tools and technologies I will probably start using more often. And finally it made think about the future of learning in combination with the use of technologies. I think learning will rely solely on technologies in the future in ways we cannot even think about right now. On the one hand I agree that this is a good thing, however on the other hand I think it could lead to a increasing individualization of society. It could lead to a situation with no more personal contact or group work, two things that I like about studying. It it will come to this point is something that still has to be seen, however I hope some features from our current way of learning remain the same.