Clay Shirky: Changing the world through technology

Watching Shirky’s talk has really made me wonder, in what other ways can we change the world through technology? That is a big question because I think there are so many different things we could do, even his example of Ushahidi just started with a blog. I think the story of Ushahidi is amazing. Everyone can realize the truth, when their number once source disappeared, and that being media. These days I feel like everyone has become really dependent on media, and people trust everything they see. Sites like Ushahidi are so important because people can communicate and help each other. I personally think our world needs cognitive surplus. I don’t think people are as helpful to each other as we should be. Everyone is concerned with their electronics and we have lost all of the personal connection. It was really interesting when Shirky started talking about the day care. When I heard of it I thought people would be on time to pick up their children to avoid a fine. Once I saw the results I was shocked. As we started to talk about it in class it made sense to me. I was thinking why would people be late it would cost so much more money? It makes sense because if people can pay to be late, then they won’t feel guilty; it will feel like it is not on their time, because they paid for their actions. It also eliminates the parents’ personal relationship with the daycare workers.  Before it would make sense that the parents wanted to get to the daycare so the workers could go and they parents did not feel bad. Now with the fine, people just pay away their guilt. These story’s make me wonder, what could I do with technology to change the world? What could I start that would help kids who do not have homes? What could I do to get money and medical help to places that have been hurt by disasters or disease?  Shirky had a really interesting style. He had a different sense of humor that he would stick into his presentation, but it was kind of sly. It never seemed like he announced “here is my joke!” he just snuck it in. That made it funnier in a way, but sometimes I did not really get he was joking.  My topic is not very serious, so I was thinking maybe I could use something like Shirky did to make mine even more interesting. I found it really funny how he was talking about something so serious, and then he went to the cats. I liked the humor and, I have seen it in all the TED talks I have watched. I want to find a way to stick humor into my talk because I think it would make everyone want to watch my presentation more. This really relates to education and the world because I think we could use blogs like Ushahidi to help people around the world. Like I said earlier it makes me wonder what I could do with technology. If we used cognitive surplus in the right way, we really could change education and the world.