Warlick Chapter 3

I used to tutor a family from Seoul. One time over dinner, the father, Hyangwook mentioned that there were about 35 four-year universities in Seoul alone. I remarked that this seemed like a large number. Hyangwook explained that because Korea didn’t have many natural resources from the earth, their natural resource was producing citizens who were extremely knowledgable and educated. According to Warlick, information is the raw material with which people will work in the Information Age. I think this will become a worldwide “export,” as demonstrating information and technology literacy becomes more and more of a priority.

One of Warlick’s suggestions for students at the end of Chapter 3 is “when appropriate, ask your teacher how a real scientist does this, or a real historian, health worker, politician, or mathematician.” I think this is so important, and probably something schools don’t do nearly enough of. With the technologies we have available now, experts don’t necessarily need to come to schools to speak with students. They might have a skype conference call where they can showcase the technology they use in their jobs to students right from their work environment. This sort of tool would allow students to individually explore careers of interest and report back to their teachers and classmates.