How Computers Have Changed How Human Beings Function and Think by Making Learning Easy - Essay Example

English 14 October How Computers have changed how human beings function and think by making Learning Easy Introduction The most crucial area on technology that should be clearly understood is the philosophical nature of technology. From the onset, technology was created by human beings for their uses and especially to make their work easier. At times, human beings tend to be self-centered and make technological projects that only benefit them, but in general, the aim of human beings always pursuing technology is to make their lives better in general. Before any kind of technology is released for use by humans, it is usually tested so as to make sure it has met the required criteria (Fazlollahi 203). 2. What Does Technology Entail? The word technology has been coined from the Greek word technikoes, which generally refers to an art which is related to skill. In other words, the term technology can be seen as applying art on science (Singh 1). This art is applied to create tools, develop skills and even collect materials that improve the quality of life of the human beings. Technology has really developed in many aspects over the years. For example, indigenous people used different ways of writing in order to store the information they collected using methods like writing on stones. With technology, writing has been made easy as papers and pens have been provided, and have made the work easy. In his work, ‘Writing is a Technology that Restructures Thought’, Ong says that “although we take writing so much for granted as to forget that it is a technology, writing is in a way the most drastic of the three technologies of the word” (30). It initiated printing and electronics came about. Human beings have really embraced technology from in all aspects of life; when it comes to religion, education, social, and even in the political issues, technology is in use. There are different tools of technology that have improved the lives of human beings. This essay will embark on giving an analytical perspective about the computers and the human beings. Computers have changed the way human beings by making learning easy. 3. Computers Computers, which are tools of technology, have brought changes to the lives of humans, and especially in the way they operate and think. For example, the thinking capacity of the people before technology, such as those that lived during stone-age is different from the thinking capacity of people today. In her review, ‘How Computers Change the Way We Think’, Turkle says that “the tools we use to think change the ways in which we think. The invention of written language brought about radical shift in how we process, organize, store, and transmit representations of the world” (1). A computer is an electronic device which is used in processing data. The data it processes gets in in form of input and it is then processed on the basis of a set of instructions that are supplied and stored in the memory, in order give the required results in form of output. Every computer comprises of two basic parts namely; the hardware and the software. Hard ware refers to the visible or physical parts of a computer, such as the processor, display or screen, keyboard, disk drive, and mouse among others. The software refers to the particular instructions that give directions to the components, so as to perform the required operations (Ravichandran 2). The two parts function hand in hand and thus the computer is not complete if one part is missing, or in other words, it is useless without the two parts. When I was in primary school, I only had a slight idea of what a computer is, and did not know that with it, learning could be easier. In primary school and part of my high school education, learning was not very easy as everything was done manually; that is, the teacher had to write all notes on the blackboard for the students to copy. The school on the other hand, provided very few books that were supposed to be shared among students, such that the ratio was one book for approximately three students. Books such as dictionaries that are very important were very few, so it took the students a lot of time trying to recopy the whole book, so as to at least have a copy of the dictionary. In my second year in high school, computers were introduced in schools. This was a real blessing because now learning would be quite easier. There was a lot of transformation with the computers; learning became very easy because students would receive notes from the teacher in soft copies and also in a simplified manner, and thus enhancing their understanding. In the world today, the education sectors in various nations have made many changes with the emergence of computers. Students are now able to easily access notes from the internet (Oak “Role of Computers in Education”). The teachers are also able to store vast amounts of information in very little space, unlike the manual way where they had to keep loads and loads of books. The previous way of storing information was very tiring to the teachers as the books would get misplaced, leaving them only with the option of repeating everything done. When stored in the computers, the only thing the teachers are required to do is to save their notes and other records and retrieve them when needed. According to Oak computers have made imparting education easier and more interesting compared to when things were done manually, this can be attributed to the memory capacities of computers that make it possible to store large chunks of data (“Role of Computers in Education.”). Computers also made the work of the teachers easy as the students are able to type their work using the font desired by the teacher, and this makes their work easily legible. It is clear that some students who had very poor handwriting regarded this as a blessing, as they would not suffer punishments so as to improve their writing. As the world continues to advance, computers are becoming part of the day to day lives of human beings. This has led to people embracing computer literacy from as young as the age of five. Even before a child learns how to read and write, he or she has some skills in operating a computer. Works Cited Fazlollahi, B. Strategies for Ecommerce Success. Hershey: IRM Press, 2002. Print. Oak, Manali. “Role of Computers in Education.” Buzzle. 2012. Web. 14 October 2013. Ong, Walter J. “Writing Is a Technology that Restructures Thought.” The Written Word: Literacy in Transition-Wolfon College Lectures1985. Ed. Gerd Baumann. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986. 24-50. Ravichandran, D. Introduction to Computers and Communication. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Limited, 2001. Print. Singh, C.P. Introduction to Educational Technology. New Delhi: Lotus Press, 2006. Print.  Turkle, S. “How Computers Change the Way We Think.” The Chronicles of Higher Education 50.20(2004): 1-5. Web. 14 October 2013. Read More