Ishmel Johnson

English 1101

Unit 1 Education Narrative

It’s a warm fall day in September. It was the second week of school when everyone got their schedules, and I am going over mine with my friend to see if we have some of the same classes, but it was only for two classes. One was math, and another was programming class. We both never had a problem with math, so we were fine with that, but programming was something we never did before. I thought it was going to be another class that I must sit through and just do the work. I was sitting in class and listening to the teacher talk about what the class is going to be and the things we will do in this class. So far is how the other classes went and I am not very interested right now.

 The next day in class he tells us to take out the computers so we can get to programming. At first nobody knew what to do because he didn’t teach us anything yet. After nobody knew what to do, my teacher said play with it for 10 minutes and I did. I try to see what I can do. I started playing with it and made the program to make multiple squares repeatedly. My teacher notices this and tells us that time is up. I wanted to keep going but he said he wanted to show us something important. I didn’t know what to expect, my teacher opened his computer and showed us what he was doing in the 10 minutes he gave us. He made a program that makes it look like stars twinkling in the galaxy and I was impressed with it because he was able to be creative with what little time he had.

 Two weeks had passed, and I was becoming more and more interested in the programming class, but my grades didn’t show it. I wasn’t doing the homework I was given because of laziness. So, after class I had my programming teacher who wanted to speak with me. I was nervous because I knew what he wanted to talk about, but I didn’t want to talk about it. Before we talked about my grades, he asked me what I wanted to do in life. At the time I didn’t know the answer to that question, so I said I didn’t know. When he heard my response, he asked another question which was something you like to do. I told him I like to play games and that I liked programming. He said he was going to show me something on his laptop and when I went to see it was a soccer game he made. Then he said that he found something he wanted to do in life by doing something he enjoys doing. He also said you can’t have a goal without having some tough times, these are your tough times. Learn to be able to do everything you need to do first before you focus on one thing. To quote his word he said “Schools and teachers like me are here to make students who they need to become “after that he made time during his lunch to give me a study room quiet time so I can do the other classes work. I was able to do better with the time that he has given me but it wasn’t enough. I was still falling behind my other classmates. I was starting to worry that I just wasn’t a smart enough student to pass the grade.

During my  the year my parent teacher conference was coming up and I didn’t want to go mostly because of the grade and I didn’t want my parents to see that but unfortunately they already knew that I had one. On the car ride their my parents kept asking me why was I nervous and is there something that I need to be worried about. I felt like they already knew about my grade but they wanted to hear it from my voice themselves but I told them that their shouldn’t be anything to worry about. The more closer I got to the school the more nervous I was and finally we get to the school to meet my teachers. First it was my English teacher mostly because they wanted to hear from her first mostly do to that the class I have the most trouble in. Everything I expected to hear came true. She talked about how I wasn’t getting the best grade from my work and how I would get distracted in the middle of class which led to me not doing the best with my classwork either. I could tell that my parents wanted to find out the reason behind this so I told them I just get uninterested in doing writing work and that causes me to lose my train of thought when trying to do work. After that it was my social studies teacher. I was better with social studies rather than English so it wasn’t as bad. He mostly said the same thing as the social studies teacher which was I get distracted in class. My parents asked the same question again and I gave her the same response.

Finally we get to my programming teacher. I wasn’t to nervous with him but he gave my parents a response I didn’t expect. He told them the same thing the other teachers said. I thought to myself what I did wrong but he told me to let him finish what he was saying. He said that he’s making an attempt to do better in his class but that I should do what I do with him with the other teachers. He says once they see you trying to do better in their class you can see the improvement in your grades. After that he said he was gonna make me a deal. I will keep doing my work in his class as study hours but I must also do the same with the other teachers to prove that I’m actually trying to be a better student. I said sure at first because my parents was there but after thinking about it more I realized it was gonna be hard for me mostly because I didn’t really talk to other teachers besides him. The next day at lunch I tried to give it a chance I went to my social studies teacher for a week and the more I went the more nicer the teacher seemed and the easier the work has gotten. The same was said about the English class but it took me three weeks to be better. Of course I wasn’t the best but I did make improvement with my grades and felt proud about it as well.

Unit 2 RAB

My research question is “How will technology evolve in the future and how will it impact the world. “Technology is something that is used in everyday life whether you are using your cell phone to call someone to having electric cars. I am interested in this question because technology as we know is always changing and it will keep changing as long as mankind keeps having ideas on how to improve. I remember when I was in sixth grade when I gotten my first phone and I loved it. I believe the future technology of the world will have a great impact like it has been doing so far because anything technology related that has been invented has been used to help people as much as possible. It was a TracFone and it didn’t do much except for calling and texting my mom and dad whenever I needed them or they needed me. Now my little sister had an iPhone 13 and my brother has an iPad Mini and it makes me think about how they can do the stuff I dreamt about doing when I was there age. People older than me go through the same thing when they saw I had an flip phone at a young age. My parents talk about their past and how growing up it was harder to socialize with their friends if they weren’t in person or didn’t have a landline. My mother told me one time that she had to sneak using the landline floor from her mother so she wouldn’t get in trouble for using the phone for so long and whenever she did get away with it she had to make plans two weeks in advance just in case they won’t talk for a while. I expect to find research showing what people have a concept idea that works and predictions on how people can make their ideas work. I also expect to find people reasonings on why they decided to try to invent this idea in the first place. If I find information that goes completely against what I said before I will still write it and I will also show the sources that debates against me. There could possibly show evidence that technology will evolve from what it is today or it can even show that technology will evolve but it won’t be a great impact on the world. Anything can happen in the future and to the world especially now with the current circumstance of the world.

Thinking about the past and how we have gotten here like how we as humans went from walking everywhere to get from place to place then learning how to train horses to hold carriages to make automobile cars. We are even moving past that by using electric cars which have proven to be a very eco friendly place. That’s how technology evolved to how we it is today and now it is time to think about how it will keep evolving in the future.  When you think about technology you think of all the advancements you see in movies. For example movies like “I, Robot”,  and “The Terminator” you see that Robots are made possible and almost made to be very human like where you think they could actually be human. While watching these movies you think that it is cool to see robots like this but that is in the distant future, but what if it is closer than expected. Of course I am not talking about Robots trying to take over the world but rather smart robots helping humans with their everyday life. Think how easy it would be to have an  extra set of hands that can help you with your everyday needs starting from taking out the trash to helping kids with their homework. Robots with a smart AI like these are signs that the world  will keep changing and evolving to help human needs.

A quote that I find interesting is written by Trevor English where he says “In theory, everything we just talked about an AI doing is possible. It’s just not highly practical with the technology we have now. The processing power to essentially create the human brain is enormous, but quantum computing might be our gateway to successfully creating artificial general intelligence.  From a technology perspective, we’re pretty far off from being able to create AGI. However, given how fast technology advances, we may only be a few decades old. Experts expect and predict the first rough artificial general intelligence to be created by around 2030, not too far off. However, experts expect that it won’t be until 2060 until AGI has gotten good enough to pass a “consciousness test”. In other words, we’re probably looking at 40 years from now before we see an AI that could pass for a human.“. I find this interesting because he talks about how far and close we are from having robots. Of course we aren’t going to have the technology like that for a while but the AI everyone has created is getting better.

Of course, everyone can’t stop thinking about what the future will be like and think it’s guaranteed that we will live the futuristic life everyone dreams of. For example, I dream about the day where people can have teleportation machines to make traveling easier, but we know that’s basically impossible to do in the near future for now at least. One of the biggest problems of the future of technology is how many people will lose their jobs due to machines replacing them. An article that goes into a better example of this can be on “CSGlobe” where it states “With new advances in the field of robotics being made every day, it has been estimated that nearly half of all US jobs will be vulnerable to computerization within the next 20 years. Previous employment areas which were once considered ‘human only’ are now being taken over by machines. Twenty years ago, a self-checkout machine was thought impossible, now there are almost half a million worldwide, enabling one member of staff to run up to six checkout lanes at a time. With AI becoming ever more advanced, there may come a time when computers are able to do jobs which requires human decision making. With automatic cars also just around the corner, will the sole job for humans in the future be the repair and maintenance of the machines which took their jobs? Or at least until a device is invented that can do that as well”. To summarize the quote that was said by the user “Amazing-Buzz” the more technology evolves the more that the machines can operate by themselves. When machines can do the jobs that humans can do without the risk or having to pay for workers then company owners would take advantage of this. All they would really need is to pay a couple of workers to supervise the machine to make sure it doesn’t break down. When you think about how many people would be jobless in the future it doesn’t make the future sound too good. Most jobs that you can think of have a chance of being replaced by technology. Doctors are no exception. Sometime in the distant future there will be AI machines that can handle the surgery so nobody would have to worry about human error. In the article written by Harvard Business Review they say “Medical artificial intelligence (AI) can perform with expert-level accuracy and deliver cost-effective care at scale. IBM’s Watson diagnoses heart disease better than cardiologists do. Chatbots dispense medical advice for the United Kingdom’s National Health Service in lieu of nurses. Smartphone apps now detect skin cancer with expert accuracy.”. To summarize the quote it says that AI intelligence are smart enough to do what train professionals can do. Looking at this article shows that’s just what current AI can do and  makes people wonder how they will continue to evolve even more in the future.

During my time researching my topic question I have learned a great deal of information. I have learned that the technology that we think is going to be closer than we expect. Not the really futuristic ideas like flying cars but instead things that make technology a part of us. Virtual reality is one of the ideas. The virtual reality of the future is going to be way different than the Virtual reality we have now. To give a better understanding the VR will include human senses into it so that people will feel more immersed in it. Imagine you decided to try your VR after a long day of work or school and want to relax. You could take a small trip to a virtual resort. You smell the beach waters and make you think you’re actually there and having no care in the world. I also learned about the downsides to having technology and how it causes more and more people to lose their jobs every day. When you have machines doing the jobs that humans do without having to include risk as a factor then more companies will do this. It’s cheaper to use the machines because they can’t get hurt, don’t have to pay for health insurance and they can’t demand more money. It will be sad to see more families struggling due to this type of situation. Before finding my research, I was asked, if I was to find research that contradicts my topic would I still write it and I said yes. I did find some research that contradicts me as well as sources that back my side up. To summarize sources that go against what I say dreaming about the concepts on how it will work is different than putting it into action. When you think about how to solve any problem whether it’s technology or problem solving in general you think you find the easiest situation until it comes time to put it to the test. The same goes with trying to create the technology we want like teleportation and flying cars. Although we are not close to making that idea reality, we are close to making other things. I believe my generation and younger generation needs to learn this information because soon it will be our world. They need to know that technology will keep evolving the more we evolve as well but there are also side effects of what they could cause. Before they really create anything, they need to know the pros and cons.

Reflection

This term I learned a lot about myself in terms of being a reader, a writer and a scholar. I found out hidden problems I had and how I was able to overcome them. Ever since middle school I haven’t been a good reader. I would read an article or paragraph and then move on without understanding. While you read you are supposed to understand what you read or else it would be a waste of time and won’t understand future details in a passage. As a writer I forget to proofread my own work so I end up making simple mistakes like grammar and sentence structures just to name a few. Looking back at the beginning of the semester I used to proof read once and not open my mind to how others would read my work. I was thinking like a writer instead of thinking how to make my work easier for a reader who doesn’t have prior context. In terms of being a scholar I was not the best. I would procrastinate while accepting any grade that I can receive. Having that mentality through my school life has messed me up before, if in the past I had the mentality I have now then I could see myself with better grades. After going through this term I realized I will not be able to get by doing the bare minimum. It was harder than I expected and if I didn’t change I couldn’t see myself doing well.

Being a reader was always my hardest problem I had to face as an student. Due to myself being distracted easily I would get off track and lose my train of thought which caused me to have to reread again.  Slowly over the months I would see myself getting better and better the more that I read. Whether it was articles given to us to read or books that I would read in my own free time.  As I stated in Unit 1 Education Narrative I said ” I thought it was going to be another class that I must sit through and just do the work. I was sitting in class and listening to the teacher talk about what the class is going to be and the things we will do in this class. So far this is how the other classes went and I am not very interested right now. “.  I chose to talk about this quote because it related to how I felt at the beginning of the semester. I was never really into reading in general and the work I would submit showed that through my grades. There were many times I doubted myself in terms of being able to accomplish this goal. It was a struggle for me to overcome and I still do not believe that I have fully overcome this issue of mine. But I am a better reader than I was at the start of the term. Knowing that becoming a good reader is not just about reading a passage. It’s about understanding what you read as well. As I said before “While you read you are supposed to understand what you read or else it would be a waste of time and won’t understand future details in a passage.

As a writer I believe this is where the area I best developed over the term. Similar to my skills as a reader I was not a great at writing as well. My work that I have submitted would have bad grammar like misspelled words and run on sentences. I had a habit of writing words that wouldn’t fit well with the topic I was talking about. Thinking the more words I have written would mean that it would be a good work, this was not to be the case at all. The more I wrote during this term the more I realized that the way I have been writing was all wrong, paragraphs in your work are supposed to follow a structure depending on the topic you write about. That way it is easier for you to let your words flow together which makes it easier for a reader to understand your work. After learning how to structure my sentences I also had to learn how to proofread my work better. At first glance I always thought my work would be good enough as it is. Of course this would not work, after reading “The Maker’s Eye” by Donald Murray the way I proof read is different now. I mentioned before during my previous work called “The Maker’s Eye annotations’ when I said “These lines give me a good understanding on how to improve on my revisions. My main problem is when I look back on my work I look at it from my point of view when I need to look at it from the reader’s point of view.”. Understanding that as a writer my work will always make sense to me since I am the person who wrote it but this clouds my judgment of my work. I needed to look at it from an outside point of view. That’s how I could find the faults within it. I haven’t perfected this skill but I am getting better at it.

Being a scholar was hard to do since I carried all of my previous problems I had into this term. I was not where I needed to be but thankfully I have improved. Looking back at the assignment titled “Time capsules” I see what issues I am still having and which issues I have fixed.  A piece from that assignment at the beginning of the term said ” Make sure to keep pushing yourself and don’t slack behind. Also try to improve on working to get rid of your procrastination. Make sure your writing skills have improved so we won’t struggle in our English classes anymore.”. Thankfully I have seen an improvement in terms of writing skills which would have made  my beginning of term self proud. Although I do still see improvement, I can’t say I have successfully completed all of them.  I was able to push myself harder but my procrastination  hasn’t gotten better. It is better than what it would have been at the beginning of the year but not enough to say that I have successfully conquered it. I am proud to see the growth between the beginning of the semester and my current self. Looking back I am proud of myself to say that I have improved. and Hopefully I will continue to improve in order to be the best version of myself in terms of reading, writing and being a scholar.