Technology and Careers

This week I read an article about a freelance musician. He writes soundtracks for everything from political campaigns to History Channel documentaries. He earns more than $500,000 in a good year. He has no employees. He works at home. And this is all possible by use of $50,000 worth of technology. Of course, he is very talented, but technology made it possible for him to reproduce the sound of a symphony orchestra and pocket all the money that would have gone to the orchestra. An author of the article calls it “a miracle of productivity”. It is incredible how talented driven people who adopt and learn new technology can be ahead of the game, capitalizing on it and enjoying what they do at the same time. Can it even become more effective than that? Technology turns things that were impossible years ago into simple reality. It creates a lot of opportunities for home-based businesses as well as work-from-home jobs. A study of the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that there were 19.8 million Americans in the 2001 that could be classified as working from home. This number is growing steady from year to year. Some of other home-based jobs include: call center worker, mystery shopper and survey taker, online auction seller/buyer, other web business. Technology creates opportunities and I have another great example to prove it. Markus Frind is a Canadian entrepreneur who owns PlentyofFish.com, the world’s largest online dating website. According to reports in 2006, he earned around $10,000 a day through Adsense’s contextual advertising program. According to a recent article Plenty of Fish now receives 45 million visitors along with 1.1 billion page views every month. His annual income from PlentyofFish.com alone is currently $5 to $10 million a year. What is fascinating is that Markus Frind is a one-man show. He virtually ran Plenty of Fish by himself, along with help from his girlfriend and other voluntary moderators. Carr said that technology becomes a commodity item and does not bring a strategic advantage. I see it otherwise. A person/business has to be creative and unique, timely, persistent and hard-working. And when you add technology to the mix great things can happen!

Technology in education

There was an article in Washington Post this week about new technologies used in universities for student’s educational purposes. It talks about clickers – devices similar to ones used on television game shows. They first appeared about a decade ago and nowadays we can find them almost in every college (however, I still to see one.) Basically, the professor asks a multiple choice question, students answer it by choosing an appropriate button on the clicker. The response is immediate which helps the professor to understand what percentage of students has grasped the subject. Not only it provides an instant feedback whether students understood the material, but also involves students deeper in learning process. Research also shows that students like using devices and attendance goes up. Sounds great, right? Then, article went on saying that clickers soon will be substituted with laptops with applications like iclicker and smart phones. In fact, some universities already use both technologies in its educational processes. How effective is it? To what degree can professors use it and control it? I think it is complicated. On one hand, it is true; technology can make learning process more effective (if we want it of course), we can engage more and receive and immediate feedback on how we are doing. But what should we do if our neighbor chooses to use his/hers laptop or phone for personal use? How irritating must it be for the teacher? A report in the Boulder Daily Camera describes how students are frustrated and distracted by their peers watching movies, typing and doing other stuff. I experienced it firsthand. In one of my classes I have a neighbor who sends messages on the phone non-stop, in another – who chats on facebook during the whole class period. There are instances when I simply cannot concentrate on the material because I am so distracted. Whose responsibility is it to draw the line what is acceptable and what is not? I am sure the role of technology in education will only increase. There will be more computers, more clickers and other gadgets. I can understand their value in our education. I just hope that with the development of new technologies, new rules, regulations and controls of how those devices should be used will emerge.