This class has helped me get a strong understanding on technology and how it has impacted the world. Many of the technologies started early on in human history and only continued to improve to make it what it is today. But throughout time, the technology is getting easier to use, while also getting smaller and working faster. Throughout this course, I learned many technology milestones throughout history, many of which are still used today but are slightly different because of the time period and the technology that came after it. Everything that was learned in the course can be taken and used to help understand the world today and even the future because of technology only getting better and better.
We learned how the writing process lead to many new inventions and technologies that made things so much easier. There were four main writing systems that help shape and change the world. At first they started with symbols. Symbols drew pictures to get their point across to other people. Over time that eventually changed to a character type of writing called cuneiform. Cuneiform is the closet, besides the alphabet, that looks more like characters. Then the alphabet came into play. It is what modern day English uses.
There were different writing styles to create what we have today. Our present day writing system came from early people writing and drawing symbols to get their point across. Ever since the alphabet came about, it helped many modern day countries create a writing system. For example, the English language is huge, many countries around the world speak English. With the writing system coming into play, so did many inventions to go along with it.
Those many transitions are what lead to our spoken language today. along with the changing language came many new technologies. For example, the printing press was invented by Johannes Guttenberg in Germany. That gave everyone the opportunity to learn to read and write. Before it was invented, only certain people were actually literate enough to read and write books. Also, all of the books were written by hand, which took a very long time to complete.
I also learned about many transportation technologies. Many of which we use the same technology but today’s versions are slightly modified to fit today’s technology. I learned about the pony express and how that started the some of the first mail delivery services. That offered a much faster way of getting mail delivered to people, but it never lasted long because of trains being invented during that time also. Trains only increased the speed at which mail was delivered to people.
Some of the technologies that were invented during this time was technologies like trains and automobiles. There was way more than those two being invented during the time period. There was also the first flight in 1903 which helped pave the way for the aviation industry to flourish. The technologies that enhanced transportation, are still being used today, and many of which are a part of each and everyone’s daily lives.
The technologies of automobiles made everything easier for everyone. It made traveling faster compared to horse or walking, or even trains. Because of that, the number of cars that were bought greatly increased. He also made up the assembly line, which offered many people different job opportunities and also made assembling cars much easier and faster.
We also learned about many different communication technologies for earlier years and the present. I learned that social media has had a huge impact all over the world both positively and negatively. Social media is great because it lets people reconnect from all over the country and also advertisement is a great thing to do on social media because so many people use it. It’s a bad thing because it can destroy people’s social lives and not realize how great their actual life is.
Many of these technologies that we learned in this portion of the course are things that we use on a daily basis without even noticing it. We learned about the internet and how that basically makes up our entire life. We also learned about many other computer technologies like big data and how that could help with natural disasters. For example, we watched a video on how people are using big data to what people are doing after the Fukushima event.
Overall, I learned a lot from this class. Many of the technologies I’ve heard of but I never really went that much into depth about them. Everything I learned that year was very interesting to me. My favorite portion of the course was probably when we talked about the communication technology. I say that because those are the most relevant to me and my generation, and it is also what I grew up with. I learned that each technology that was brought up in class impacted the world in a great way, all for the better. The things that I learned in class will only help me better understand technology and help me understand future technologies. The many technologies that were learned are only going to get better with time because the technology will get better.
