Week 1 - Understanding Technology
hello and welcome to our curriculum on understanding technology I'm also subtitling this technology is easy the whole purpose of this curriculum is to bring you to a place where you feel confident in technology and your understanding of it thinking about technology can be daunting there's a lot of different things that we just don't understand and varying levels of complexity and there's a lot of things that we can understand and the main point the first takeaway and the main takeaway of the entire program will be this technology is either convenient for you or it is not the whole point of computers is to make our lives more convenient to make the tasks that we want to do more more easily done so every computer regardless of what it is or what it's designed to do will make a task easier and if you don't need to do that task then it's not relevant for you and so the first thing I want to get into your minds is when you are thinking about technology and thinking about new software new hardware that a lot of people are using the first question you need to ask yourself is do I need this is this relevant to me if it's not Don't go breaking your mind trying to figure out how to use it it's unnecessary you don't need it so why try to learn about how to use it right um there are very simple uses for technology which honestly 95 percent of the the population in the world um only uses the most basic technological functions there's a million more things that they could do with their technology that they either don't know how to do or they aren't interested in learning how to do so when you look at for instance your your kids and your grandkids and they're doing all these crazy things with the internet and with video games and their phones and whatnot that's that's all very cool and this thing that they've learned how to do because they want to and because it's convenient for them to learn it but that doesn't mean that understanding how those programs work is a necessity for you it may be that you will never need to learn how to do those things but if it's a form of communication and a way for you to connect with um whoever then sure it might benefit you to know so that you can um so you can interact with them on that same playing field which is typically some version of software right so we're going to get into the basics for this first week before we even touch a computer we're just going to talk about computers because I believe that that's going to be the first step in getting you to be confident in technology me for instance I I do know a lot about technology and there's a lot that I've used but I know a lot about technology that most people don't and I know a lot about technology that will never be relevant to my life and will probably never be relevant to anyone else's life except for you know CEOs government contractors Etc but those are again those are just things that aren't necessary for the regular person and just the same it's not relevant for you so let's start by asking these simple question what is a computer right there are many different kinds of computers and when I say computer your first thought might be a desktop PC here is a desk this is the desk on top of my test on top of my desk there's some monitors those monitors are connected to a computer which happens to be down here under my desk but the idea of a desktop computer that's the thing that you are using that's on top of your desk right so that's a computer well what about this right what about this right here these right these are phones right a phone is a computer what about this we all know what this is this is a calculator a calculator is a computer right and at the at the at the core of what a computer is this is all it is a computer computes it calculates and so the question is what is a computer calculating right um but just to add some more tools some more computers to the mix a tablet if you have a Galaxy tablet or Chromebook an iPad those are computers right if you have a gaming console such as an Xbox let's say a Nintendo right or um if you got a Game Boy any kind of any kind of video game system it's a computer all a computer is is something that can ingest software and compute it to present you with the data that you want to know with video games the computer is your system and what it's Computing is the game you're sending in information and that presents something to you that you wanted to see which is your character doing whatever it is in the video game in the same way uh a camcorder right or um of any kind of video camera the device itself is the computer it is designed to calculate a specific format and in the case of a camcorder it's designed to calculate video footage calculator is designed to calculate numbers and equations a tablet is designed to calculate exactly what a phone does exactly what a computer does applications software so that's the basis of a computer all a computer is no matter how complicated a robot whatever it is Hardware that is designed to calculate a specific task for your convenience so that is to say that if you have a computer and that calculates video games so a video game console but you don't play video games you don't need that computer and you don't need to understand what that computer does right we have a lot of different terms for the various things that we use in society today technologically speaking but they are all computers everything that we use technology technologically typically they're computers in some form or the other we just don't call it a computer and because we don't do that we're actually doing ourselves a disservice because when someone does see the word computer they think of something much more complicated than it really is right it's just a calculation and we just need to be able to know how to find the calculations that are relevant to our lives now that we know what a computer is any device that is created with a specific task in mind and and can do that task that's a computer so let's talk about what uses there are for computers like we already talked about calculating talked about gaming communication because again a phone is a computer whose primary device was to connect us telephonically right so that computer works exactly as expected we use it for communication the difference is with the Advent of the iPhone and other Technologies with smartphones Smart TV and all these apps and stuff right a very simple process a very simple computer was made more complicated how by adding more functions more functions that some people wanted and some people didn't want some people needed some people don't need we don't need to understand all the apps you don't need to understand all the apps all you need to understand is which apps are relevant to you if you got rid of those apps the world keeps turning you don't need them if you wanted it someday you could probably download it again that is all a smart device does it's not smart because it has all these functions it's smart because you can add functions to it a calculator is not a smart device right a calculator is designed to do these equations with math you can't add Netflix to your calculator right the the point of the calculator its function has a very specific one one-sided task it does that one thing very well but it's not a smart device because you can't upgrade it to do even more tasks seem like old CRT televisions um or even some of the more um recent LCD TVs that don't have applications their function is simple it's just a TV its whole purpose is to gather signals either from the air or from a cable box to send you television shows and movies Smart TVs these days do the same thing but they don't necessarily do it with air cable or air and cable they do it with a streaming service such as Netflix or Hulu or Apple TV whatever you use and those services are stored in the internet which is why you need the internet in order to use those applications on your simple TV right all we've done to make it smart is we've given it the ability to have more tasks to run Netflix to run Hulu all these separate services that don't need to be separate because we have companies right and corporations that are vying for our dollar we have apps we have separate similar tasks that are smart TV now has to be able to separate for us it's not particularly convenient but it can do the task if we had a television for instance that could only play Netflix apps well then what do you do when you have a Hulu account where you want to have an Apple TV account you need a new TV that can do those but our Smart TV is capable of doing all those things whether or not we need them it is capable so um computers they do a task and computers in general are what we use to make most Technologies the computer gets more sophisticated as time goes on and all that means is using a computer we can make a smart TV using a computer we can make a gaming console using a computer we can make more calculators using a computer we can make tablets we can make anything we can make anything with computers and computers are the basis of our technology this this calculator became everything that we use today right so that's that's all it is we just made more complicated calculators but at the core of it all we still use computers to design new tasks to make our lives easier so when you look at a computer a desktop computer your phone Etc these are personalized devices and the whole point of these devices is so that you personally can can create a routine of tasks that you personally need and however you use it that's up to you it's your device it's your computer you don't have to use it for anything complicated but you can right it is yours to decide what task it needs to do and that's why computers are so complicated it's because they are smart devices because they're capable of doing new tasks they can grow with you so as you learn about new things that you can do and you want to do those new things you don't have to go and buy a new phone you don't have to go buy a new computer new console whatever typically with a PC personal computer or your phone all you have to do is download a new app and the phones in your computers are designed to be able to take on those extra tasks so again why own a computer why should you own a computer in this age it is absolutely necessary to at least understand how to use a computer because computers are how we communicate day to day as we know from going through covid remote work became very important because we weren't able to connect with people on the day-to-day basis even more so we weren't able to connect with our family members with our friends and we couldn't do that in person so we needed another way and some of the processes that we use now like Zoom they already existed prior to covet but because of covid we started learning about how we can use technology for our convenience these things that existed we can now use them to connect us we can use them for video calls and face calls right we can use them to connect us to the rest of the world even if we can't physically be there and that is why it's more convenient right so why own a computer because things like that happen the world changes and as the world changes we start to get more and more separated from others and it's ironic because technology brings us closer together but can also push us further apart so there is a balance that we need to have I think it is good to be able to communicate with people face to face but it is also good to be able to communicate with people when you can't be face to face and there are various ways that you can do that which we will discuss in later in later curriculum in areas in the curriculum so what is the difference between all of these different computers between you know the uh the calculator the gaming systems the communication phones and all those different types of things well we kind of already talked about that right the difference is they all have specific tasks our television its whole task is to provide us with TV and entertainment right our gaming systems their task is to provide us with games the calculator is Task that's provide us with calculations right so our phones primary task is to provide us with communication but we can use it for other things like games and like TV all of that stuff is kind of Consolidated our phones are computers right and and all our phones are really is a desktop computer that has left the desk it can now come with us and do the exact same things that we would do on a computer from the palm of our hand from our pockets right so they're just tools they're just tools to make our life more convenient um whenever we need them we don't need them all the time but we can use them when we do and it's to make it so that we don't have to come back home just to find information about what store is open or how do I get to this place you know or um where's my friend all of these things we no longer have to come home and spend that extra time trying to figure it out on a computer we can do it while we're out we can do it on the way it's for our convenience so um let's get into that those those ideas um those are all applications basically because remember we have Smart devices our computers have become so sophisticated that they are considered smart and all that means is they can do they can take on multiple tasks and those multiple tasks those tasks are called apps or applications it's just been abbreviated um just because it's it's easier and fun to say app right so that's that's what we're dealing with and what is an app an app is a tool made by someone else to make your task easier so what is your what is your task and you may have heard the phrase there's an app for that I don't remember who coined the phrase or what company is currently owning that phrase but it's still it's it's still relevant the idea is that for as many tasks as you can think of for a computer to do there's probably already an application that has been made for that task right because there are millions there are billions literally billions of people in the world and there are as many apps as as well I can't say that there are many apps there are people but there are way more apps than we will ever know what to do with some of them do the same thing right so how do you know which app is better than the other well we look at the reviews we ask our friends which apps they're using but the whole point is that if I need an app to communicate with people there's an app for that I can find something to communicate with people if I want an app to play a specific type of game there's apps for that I can look it up and find the specific type of game I want to play if I wanted to read a book I can find apps for that you can connect to your libraries through apps if I wanted to listen to audiobooks there's apps for that if I wanted to watch movies there's apps for that specifically on Netflix or Hulu there's an app for each one of those if I wanted to exercise more there are many apps that will give you guided exercise routines if I wanted nutrition information there are apps for that if I wanted health information there are apps for that anything you can think of there's probably already an app for that and especially if you're thinking of your own like like bank account information or your own health information personal stuff these services that are provided to you by those specific companies that you interact with probably have an app so that you can easily get your information and so that you can easily identify yourself and and be able to make quick decisions without having to come back home and get on your computer it's convenient for your sake if you want it you just need to know that it's there for you if you can think of it there's probably something there for you in the form of an app and all that is it's a tool like a Swiss army knife you don't always need the screwdriver but sometimes you do and you can find it in that one place on your phone or on your computer and and that's the that's the core of an application it's just a tool for your convenience because it is on you're a smart device your device that is designed for multiple tasks whenever you need to use them if you never use them that's okay it's okay to not need technology but it is important to know how to use technology for the times when you do need it and all all you need to know is what task do I need to complete now and maybe you can do that without a computer but maybe a computer can make it easier for you to do it and those are the kind of things you need to keep in mind so next let's talk about operating systems it sounds complicated but it's it's a very simple way of saying that many companies have decided that they all want to make money off of us so they created different systems that will not communicate with each other for instance iPhones or apple versus Windows or Microsoft they created operating systems separately so that if you're using one you can't do a lot of the things that the other system does that's Mac versus Windows um they Mac for instance uses a very specific file type which we'll get into file types later but you can have multiple apps like Netflix again let's use that downloading Netflix on a Mac is different from downloading Netflix on a Windows computer you probably go through the same process to find the application to put it on your your PC but the point is that the operating system is based on the company that created it so sometimes there are apps that only exist on a specific operating system like apple if you tried to find it on Windows you just can't because Apple has paid a lot of money so that no one else but the people that buy their product can use them and that is the That's the basis of operating systems they are designed to separate us from or their consumers from other compute com from other competitor consumers um and that's that's a process partially uh in conjunction with something called planned obsolescence why do we need an iPhone every year you don't they just keep upgrading why don't they just make an iPhone that has everything because then why would you buy the next iPhone if the iPhone you have is perfect right these things are are planned to be in obsolescence after a while your phone stops working the internet is throttled meaning it gets slower and you're kind of forced to upgrade that's a terrible thing that companies do to keep us dependent on the Technologies and that's a conversation a different conversation that can be had later but the point is that's how technology is currently controlled in our world today which can make things seem more complicated but the majority of users of of our Technologies of phones for instance are either Apple users or Android users which is more on the Windows side of things and for the most part we have ways to communicate that are not proprietary or they're not connected specifically to one experience or the other because as humans we don't care we don't need anything except our task fulfilled we'll let the companies themselves fight those battles but it's not necessary for us to know or care why it's happening all we need to know is that we have a way to communicate we have a way to play our games to watch our TV shows and to talk to our friends and family that's the the basic functionality the basic tasks we need fulfilled which we can do no matter what phone no matter what computer you have right so let's get into what what the difference is between hardware and software software is the stuff that you download on your computers or your phone right because the computer is basically any technology that is electronic and has connections to the the digital world that's a computer right anything that's calculating a task for you as a computer and yes technically there are computers that are non-electric right um but we'll that's that's a Nuance for another time Hardware is the physical device right this is the hardware this is the hardware this is the hardware all of these are Hardware right this is the physical device that houses the you know the sound card and the motherboard and all the devices that make the buttons work that's hardware software is the operating system software is on this phone Android software is on this phone apple right basic calculator doesn't really have software it has just a screen and those buttons correspond to specific lights being turned on and off right a computer the software is your operating system if it's Windows if it's um Google right these are this is a software this is a program that is download downloaded Google Earth software any application is software right any any application you've downloaded for a specific task anything you have that does a specific task on your computer is software and then the hardware is literally the house that allows you to select and run that task so with that we'll get into the last part of understanding technology or the end of our our first part of our curriculum which is internet basics so the concept of the internet it came up early on uh maybe 20 30 years ago and I was actually privileged enough to have grown up in an era where internet was really first being adopted and now being at the Forefront of technology I see where it's come from where it has been initially we had something called America online and this was back when we had kind of those big clunky white computers that sat on the desk which coined the name desktop right and all we did to get online is you needed an America Online CD you had to plug it into your computer which was software right and you load up that software they had you select the name and password and you would log into the internet and from there you could go on different web pages and those web pages were generated by various users and they had things from email and from Messengers like um aim the aim message or America Online instant messenger and they had you know games that you could play on web pages and they had information that you can find and you can create pages and lots of colors and it was a way to share information across the network interconnectivity and that's what the uh the the word internet represents it is a way to connect people who are not close together and so internet was very new and exciting thing but the problem remained that it wasn't quick and it wasn't efficient and so it was not convenient so there was not much reason to adopt it other than to maybe go and look up information but back then you needed a landline connected directly to your computer and it took over your phone line so you couldn't talk on the phone and connect to the internet at the same time and eventually the internet became more sophisticated and it transitioned over when kind of we transitioned air to cable networks as well and we no longer used those systems in the same way most people missed the transition it was very quick happened in the day and then everything was different and we didn't really notice the transition unless you were paying attention and it became what is now called Web 2.0 which is what we currently use today it's faster we have Wi-Fi networks we have companies that will sell you fast internet speeds and we can do things like look up in no time flat it even I think it still tells you on these web pages um you know I used to but there used to be a a little button here on Google when you search for anything it would say found response in .00 whatever seconds so to show you how fast the internet was moving and that was relevant because with web 1.0 with America Online you had to use dial up you had to use your phone line to connect to the internet and that could take up to 30 minutes just to connect to the internet and you really couldn't even do this stuff when you're on in all you had was maybe chatting with your friends to check to see if you have an email send an email and then you'd have to wait anyways for days at a time it wasn't really much more efficient than sending an actual letter the difference is you then have the physical requirements and you know the the the monetary value of a letter right so you just kind of you could do it quickly it was just waiting took a long time so now with 2.0 we can do these things very quickly and efficiently and that's a really big convenience boost right going from not really needing it and having really no benefit from it because it would take so long and you had to come home just to get this information to now we have the ability to do that in no time flat and again to take it with us and that is a huge convenience with technology today so internet Basics what do we use the internet for why do we need the Internet well we need the internet to look up information if I wanted to buy a cat for instance and I wanted to know what cats are the friendliest I could just start asking Google and Google has through um machine learning algorithms which we'll get to later in our curriculum which can it can anticipate what kind of questions you might ask and it's not based on you it's based on the billions of people who use the internet across the world and the kinds of questions they ask you might ask well how does it know what people and other question countries are asking and how does it connect that data well because computers are designed to be able to translate web pages so anything you type in one language can be translated and understood by a computer so it can look up questions like what cats are the most affectionate it knows that I'm probably asking this question and I can do that I can click on it and it will tell me exactly that now that's because we are connected this is the age of information the age of connectivity right so all of our information whether or not we know the people who first asked this question right maybe it was multiple people who asked the same question at the same time in different countries across the world but this question was asked enough that Google recognized when someone starts typing what cats are the most it knows we probably want the word affectionate or friendly so the internet is useful because we can find the information we want and we can find it quicker and if we don't know what we're looking for the internet can anticipate and help us help guide us to whatever answer we might be looking for and through that we have web pages for instance this webpage the first one that comes up is one that was created in 2022 so that's one year ago almost one year ago today that someone made a web page about this particular question that I asked today but we can also go and look and see this was also asked in 2021 right we could go further and we can find 2019 go even further right we keep looking and we can find there are a lot of pages that ask the same question this one was made six days ago on a Blog website right there are there are many web pages all over the world 2018 right here people have asked this question many times before and people have answered the question many times before um it's an idea that in this day and age where our ideas our thoughts are connected so widely that there are very few possible new ideas that can be created because someone somewhere has thought of it and now we have a way to share that thought with the entire world which is why it becomes much more difficult to create new things someone may have thought of it already and someone may have presented it already years ago or even before we were born to all of that information we now put on the internet for all to see so it is very convenient for you and for me to be able to look up or ask questions about anything and find an answer because someone somewhere has already asked that question for you how valuable is that for you well we now have a list for instance of the cats that are most affectionate in order at that so Persian cats are probably the the most affectionate and granted of course some cats are more affectionate than others you know there's genetics involved but the on average these cats are the most affectionate ones so can I trust that information that's true well a bit more research and probably but we'll get into that validating the truth of information again later uh in in our curriculum but you can search anything on the internet so I can even if I just didn't want to read information and I searched you know what cats are most affectionate I can look at images which is under Google as well and it will give me images that are tied to web pages that show us the most affectionate cat breeds and we can see lots of images of these cats I can look up videos right next to images and I can find videos that people have made about the most succession that cats and I can click on any one of these and it will take me to you know the webpage that housed it for instance if I wanted to just click on this video here on this blog here's well an advertisement first and then the video this is the video that I just selected the internet is designed to make it very convenient for you to find the information you want in the medium you want to consume it whether that's images whether that's articles whether that's videos and it's that easy it's that convenient and it starts off as as simple as opening Google or your your um your your browser of choice most browsers because Google is you know it's just a massive company that has been trusted across the world as being a primary service provider for information Bixby does it as well but Google is the one that is known for its reliability its design most sorry most browsers are designed to start off on Google and why because when you open the internet for everyone when you open the internet you are trying to go somewhere to learn something so it automatically opens up and gives you the opportunity to type in what you want to know right and that can be anything and as soon as you type it in and press enter the internet provides you with a plethora of information that you can then choose to consume right anything how do I here's a song how to watch the VMAs how do I Say Goodbye lyrics how do I change my name on Facebook how do I delete my Facebook account these are all questions that people have asked and this is the thing that empowers you as a person who either uses or doesn't use the internet this is your first and primary superpower when it comes to understanding technology is that it was designed with you in mind with your convenience so if you want to understand technology all you need to do is ask it how do I do this task so with that we're going to go ahead and end this particular curriculum and we'll go ahead and start with a question and answer section where we will talk about the concepts the ideas anything you can think of about computers and ask yourself the questions well what is what is this how if I wanted an app to do this if I wanted to do this task how would I do that because that's That's the basis everything you will ever do on the internet how do I do this how do I learn this how do I hold on to that question forever because in the same way that we learned off computers in the past before computers this is how we learn in the future how do I do it and you can ask those questions and find the answers these days so thank you for listening and we will continue next week with our next series on creating files and particularly what is a file then we will do some practical application and I'll guide you to some different resources on the internet specific web pages that you can use to practice those skills but for today let's keep it regular and chill and all we're going to do is talk about some of the different tasks that you might need or want to do and how do you think you might use a computer whether that's a calculator a phone a gaming device a tablet whatever how would you use that device to do this task and ask yourselves does it exist because again it probably does so have a good one
2023-09-22 02:41
