The future of mobile technology with reference to education and social life

For a kid who stammered to say the table of 8 aloud in grade 6, mathematics was a nightmare! Let alone ratios, a mere multiplication table gave me sleepless nights. I thought that was education, until one fine day. We went on a little vacation to a beach in Mangalore that fine day. I collected seashells on the beach and shared it with my cousins on different bets that fine day.

"One for me, two for you. Three for me, five for you. "
That's how I learned ratios.

That's education for you!

"You, dog! You stole my shells. Don't pull my hair! Moooomm!"
"Okay, okay! Don't call mom. We'll share, we'll share!"
Well, that's social networking for you! :D

 We were just kids who pulled each others' plaits, ran on the roads like rodents, and got bruised knees. We grinned widely with pride, feeling like busy executives when our parents took messages for us when someone called. (Yes, I mean 'Landline' ).

And then came the golden year 2002! No points for guessing that it was the year of mobile phones.
Fast forward ten years- Smartphones are ruling!
It's 2015 and we're being the thinkers of the youth, anticipating the improvements of mobile technology to revolutionize education and social life!
Wait, haven't we heard that already?

Right from the advent of video lectures and Internet we have been hoping that they would change the face of world education. Video lectures and Internet enabled students who are geographically distant or remote, to connect with a teacher. Playing the lectures, pausing, rewinding and replaying helped learning at one's own place and one's own pace. Education can start and end at home. Adults will stick to their Smartphones and kids could be Home-schooled! Education has improvised into MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), elaborate Lecture videos and animations. When mobiles took over the turn of providing internet on the go, everything that could have happened with a computer at a fixed place, shifted to be happening on a Smartphone- truly on the go!
That is a boon. To whom? To all of them who already have the intrinsic urge to learn. 

We have all the sophistication today for learning on the mobile technology front! MOOC providers like Coursera are competitively providing light weight apps on the phone. Mobile Service Providers are striving their nerves out to reach us at as many nooks and corners of the earth, as possible. Smartphones have become the new Encyclopedias, Dictionaries, Journals, Black-books and what not.

But mainstream schooling, is still like it always has been- A classroom, a group of learners and a teacher. Learning is as much an internal process as a social one. Technology can help us communicate, but has little to do with learning and education, in the true sense. Mobiles could help us collaborate, make virtual groups, exchange ideas irrespective of time and place. Mobile technology could be the future of communication. But can't really be the future of education.

Social life, on the other hand, has been blooming fruitfully with Smartphones. Synchronous communication across countries have quenched the thirst for immediate conversations. Whatsapp and umpteen similar Messengers, Facebook, that can create groups and help reach out to people, Twitter and its microblogging, Quora and its Knowledge Base- they just became the heartbeat on everyone's Smartphones.

To be able to talk anything with anyone immediately is an amusing idea! The thought process among the urban tribes of similar interests, is quick and transient. It can change forms and give rise to new thought bubbles exponentially quicker than how it happened until today. Mobile technology has already proved itself by melting the dimension of space by eliminating the distance between the talkers. It undoubtedly shows potential to melt the dimension of time as well, surprising us with all that it has to offer.

  

The future of Mobile Technology with Reference to Education and Social Life

In a world fast evolving to become solely dependent on the virtual world, the future is now. Technology is innovating at geometric proportions, each year we have a version of our lives, better and with a faster interface than before. When the future is here [or so claim most internet and cloud computing based companies], what is it that the future holds?
When we look at the short history of mobile phones, it has established itself more in a decade, than what took gadgets like television scores of years. With the advent of smartphones and 'apps', we have everything we need in our little devices [not so little, ever since 'phablets' became a craze], right from our grocery shopping all the way to checking the stock market.

Mobile technology, which finds its roots in mobility or movement, is an innovation where you can connect with a specific commodity, be it a person or an item of your interest. taking this word in it's liberal sense, mobile technology, holds the key to the future of education, particularly with reference to places when manned forces are available in scarcity. The future, will see a host of technological advancements that make it possible for access of study material and language to a place like Africa, where a lack of a common language among people living fairly close to each other, is the reason for their anarchic way of life. 'Education without Borders', via technology is a hope and dream for the future of mobile technology
The popular concept of 'home-schooling' will benefit largely in the future, where everything from holographic projections from phones to infinitesimal robots controlled by phones will be a reality. On the downside, mobile controlled pre-recorded audio messages, that can be discretely fit into the ear, to retell answers is also possible, and stretching the possibilities to the realm of science fiction, text scanning lenses [controlled by the purposeful cellphones], which reply the pictorial images to the wearer, will be largely popular, if possible.
Schools will possibly adapt to this change by making apps for each of  their subjects with updates of what happened in class, it might even be possible to receive a high school diploma without attending the school at all, wherein the school provides a separate set of  facilities for children and their parents who wish to do so. Universities can create apps to quicken the selection process! Possibilities are endless

Social media. Popular rapper, Iggy Azalea, after a recent spat with the paparazzi, commented that

"Internet is the ugliest reflection of mankind there is"

The anonymity that the internet offers, when combined with the accessibility that the mobile phone offers, has grown to create a deadly concoction of negativity, bullying and social crippling. The future of the mobile technology will see a giant growth in this trend, as unfortunate as that is,. because anonymity is golden spoon of the internet, without which many of its users are unwilling to sit of the meal. This is not to say that advancements in social media will not take place in a way that benefit its users. I am all for social media, which provides a platform like no other, to observe and learn the world around us, and interact with like minded people. Unfortunately, many people are not using it for this purpose, which is the basic problem.
The future of social media is, to explain the concept in brief, fame. One of the biggest reasons for YouTube's success is that people used this to show their talent in a field and based on popular vote, got recognition and got to do what they loved for a living. I think this, this ability to show people that they can live the dream, is the principle behind the future of social media. By creating apps where people where people can display their talents and this is sent to the pockets of a talent scouter, one hits jackpot. For example, if Simon Cowell decides to make an app where musicians can send their work to him, or any professional can contact the industry of his interest directly, without a middleman, or a 'middle process', for the lack of a better word, is eliminated!
The other key of social media is voyeurism, because strangers judge and comment on people they neither know nor truly care about. Apps that facilitate this, like a messaging app that will send a message from you to a total stranger, and you can begin a conversation [taking pen pal to an all new level]  or one which can make friend groups and detect each other's location [okay,  now this is starting to sound dangerous, but if you're willing to indulge in the app, you are probably willing to indulge in the consequences too] those will make big sellers, and I can see a future that accommodates them. There was a point in human existence where, sharing what you ate or where you went on a daily basis, was unimaginable, but here we are!

A boon and a curse are the two sides of the same coin.
We live in a world where ensuring everyone knows what you're doing is more important than what you are doing itself. Maybe, just maybe, we can use this incredible tool to educate people so that the future unravels a world where who you really are holds the the upper hand over how many people 'like' [or double tap] you.

Topic: The future of mobile technology with reference to education and social life

"A ray of hope it is,

 A hand with a belief of rise it is,

 A gem called education we call it as"

My grandmother used to tell the stories of how in their generations they used to walk kilometers together to attend school and in all prospects, i feel that phase of life was in itself one of a kind, hmm!! but the time has passed on and with time things have changed by infinite folds and in many ways, it has done more good to this race of humanity and one such technological marvel is mobile and just imagine when one marvel gets in sync with another, the outcome  and its effect would just be insurmountable and it wouldn't be wrong to say that this synchronization would be the greatest invention in the history of mankind.

On a serious note, the global community is under a threat of discrimination, radicalization, poverty, malnutrition, rising inflation, unemployment and even the nature is threatening with actions like melting glaciers etc and in this kind of a scenario, education is the only ray of hope, which can actually save this sinking ship of ours and we can actually alleviate all the sections and with the used of mobile technology and as i mentioned above, syncing it with education we can actually create a platform where in we can study, share and spread the light of education to any part of the world, be it the crumpling Sudan or be it the remote parts of India and also to the dabbawalas of fast paced Mumbai and how are we going to begin it? hahaha!! funny question, it has begun and it has grown big and its going to be very big in the coming years, be it Khan academy, which is based in USA, or be it the raging and trending Idea Internet Network or be it YOUTUBE, we the global community is going all out to help our society, especially the oppressed one to rise up and show to the rest, that education just and just needs will and passion and nothing else, i again want to repeat "NOTHING ELSE".

And to further widen this debate, how this mode of embracing education is different from the conventional classroom teaching is, this mode of mobile technology doesn't discriminate anybody, be it a disabled kid or one suffering from Alzheimer's disease or be it HIV affected child.

Using mobile technology, its indeed possible to increase the literacy rate of the remote parts of every country and i feel it would be a great coming together if United Nations( UNESCO) joins hands in this initiative and tries to create mobile schools, where we can directly take a high quality education from the best of the learning cradles like Harvard, MIT etc and into minds of the kids based in the mobile schools, it would end up becoming an Education Revolution. If we are able to give this kind of a beginning to these kids, i am sure the future of these little folks and also the whole global community would be in safe hands, but to actually unite mobile technology, education and the students, it would need a collective effort, be it the respective governments, the NGOs and especially the corporate giants, who can become part of this great initiative and include this as Corporate Social Responsibility and some have actually begun to shake hands with organisations, who are making this possible, Bill Gates, the pioneer of modern day technology, the richest individual and the greatest philanthropists the world has seen, he has allocated funds to KHAN ACADEMY to this great initiative.

All and all in order to save this humanity from all the social evils, we just need to  make sure that the light of education is being bestowed to every growing child and its their right, we have the idea, we have the technology, we just need to take this to the next level and carve a community which lives in peace, which shares love and which stays away from hatred.

And as i have said in the above paragraph, if one needs to save this humanity, we must empower women and bestowing this light of education on them would be the best way to achieve it, by educating a girl child we can help them fight the taboos which this society of ours has put on them and as they say, if you are empowering a women, then you are empowering the family. We can actually create magic by the used of mobile technology, its indeed not an exaggeration thought, instead a possible dream when true, would bloomed this withered ROSE of humanity.

Haahah!! if mobile was a human being, then Nobel prize for "............. " hahah!! You know what i mean!! :D

                                   

The future of mobile technology with reference to education and social life

Surprises come unannounced and so does shock. A world with indispensable need for technology has actually kept us running in the race, without much as of a drop of sweat! Our social circle has no doubt increased. Oh! Where? On facebook, twitter, Gtalk and any other social networking site. You name it, I have it boy! And gone are the days when we needed to switch on our systems, wait for the CPU to turn on and then the slow-clap moment opening of the monitor. Today all we need is a soft touch, and there you are connected to your world (Otherwise considered virtual! I wonder why?)

I was in my ninth standard when I got my first working phone. And the feeling was incredible. Who cared if it was a not so smart Nokia phone with merely any features that the mobile technologies provide today. All that mattered was that now I need not ask my mother, or rather beg her to let me use her phone to make that one call to my friend whom I had not met for three entire hours after school. It's a long wait, trust me. 

So, when I finally got my first phone I was content with the mere thought that my phone had a camera, probably with a resolution lesser than what today the front camera offers. But I was happy. 

Then came in  the oh-so-enchanting era of smart phones. And now, the phone which was my best friend seemed too disgracing. You cannot blame me though. Everyone had a phone with the android bug, and it looked so tempting. So it made sense when I urged, no, demanded that I needed a smart phone. You have to keep on fitting in, right? Or so I thought. So on the condition that if I top my board exams, I can have my dream phone my parents agreed to my demand. It was a clever proposition, though. I did study, harder, for that phone. Two months later, I had my first smart phone.

Now, what was the reason for extending this heart-warming (okay not!) tale was the fact that how important a mobile phone became for me is not only my story but is a common notion for all the members of this generation alike!

I read this really cool line, " Respect your parents. they passed college without google and wikipedia.". I could not have agreed more.

And our phone now has it all. Even if we are too shy to talk to a person face to face, it does not take much of an effort to type out a page length text on WhatsApp. And that emoticon: cherry on cake! When Dennis Richie passed away, it was yet another news but when Mark Zuckerberg decided to buy WhatsApp, #MostTrendingTopic. 

The present is already too much in love with the mobile technology that it would be stupid to even question the future of mobile technology. 

I am just reminded of a line, "I imagine you in colors that do not even exist". That is the limitless scope of mobile technology. Beyond boundaries, beyond imagination. It has made us more exposed to the reality even itself creating a whole new virtual world.

Today, we use mobiles to check our schedules for the day in  college, check our attendance(yes, and also that dreadful text that reaches to your guardian with each bunked class. Really effective*facepalm students*). I can almost hear the slow clap in my head for such advancement.

Accept it, we need phones. And mobile technology advancing each and every day is working as a boon only if we keep it to that. Misuse of any power given is a crime. Mobile phones or not. So, if WE are intelligent enough to not let ourselves be carried away, the flourishing mobile technology is an angel to our lives: education and social life alike. After all Candy crush break is important after all the hustle, a WhatsApp class, best friend, relatives and whatnot group is also a prime necessity now. We need to stay connected and believe it or not thanks to the mobile technology that we still are. 

Of course, real time, real world connections are more important. Many start arguing at the mere fact of staying connected through phones as a symptom that the person is soon going to be unsocial, no anti-social rather. I find it really funny at how good people are at assuming. It is really Fascinating. 

The reality although remains that their incapability to balance the thin line between reality and the virtual world has what made them this bitter. 

There is no one to blame, though. All we need is an open mind to accept the changes that the technology has been offering us. we are now letting people access education to far corners with this very mobile technology and also have come across better relationships through those texts when we are down. 

All in all the future of mobile technology is bright. Education, social life, and personal life. We just need to learn to accept the new. After all change is the only constant yet variable spice of our lives. ;)