Online education- Discussion

Joycelyn Ong Shee Hui (47120 )

We are seeing the rise of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) as a product of globalization.  It is no secret that online learning is gaining popularity and acknowledgement these days.  Gone were the days where you have to be physically present in a lecture hall to earn a scroll of degree. Globalisation has enabled education to be more accessible and flexible all around the globe.

Firstly, online education plays a significant role to promote what we call lifelong learning in the 21^st century. Who says only those from their 20s can earn a degree?  Learning does not necessarily stop at your 20s or after earning your first degree (Young, 2017). As long as you have Internet access, you can always enroll yourself in various degree courses made available by different universities across the world.  Not only that, you are able to select your own time of listening to lectures and discussion with the instructors and lecturers.  This is great news for home makers, working adults, or even grandparents who would like to learn something new without having to specifically register themselves for a physical degree.

Secondly, online classes are usually smaller in number. According to Kirby (2017), the average online class has around 19 students. This is seen to promote a more comfortable relationship between the lecturer and the students, enabling students to feel more at ease to ask more questions and have a one to one time with their lecturers.  Comparatively to a big lecture that sometimes have more than 50 students, there are bound for students to feel left out and overwhelmed.

Thirdly, globalization enables diversity in the virtual classroom learning setting. This is because online classes are not just opened to individuals from that particular country itself. For instance,  I can enroll in online classes offered by University of Melbourne. I can also meet my fellow course mates from different countries, exchange ideas through inter-cultural discussion and engage in deeper academic debates.  This is because even though globalization did enhance the allocation of a certain percentage of admission for international students in physical local universities, the numbers still reflect an unbalance scale where local students are still given the priority and the big majority (Fiske, 2012). 

Loi Wei Zheng (47448)

The great variety of online programs and courses is a huge advantage of online education. It’s no longer a matter of choice or distance, as we can always find a suitable course or program that we can follow from home. Looking back at traditional education, we select the program we wish but with the expense of traveling far and struggling hard especially during this competitive era. With online education, we can take any program or course present in traditional 3-4 years universities from all around the world. All you have to do is a Google search and you will easily find the online programs. (see distant learning) You may take a course even if you have no aspirations to apply that knowledge in your future profession, but out of curiosity to discover new interests and understand new concepts. 

Besides that, online programs are more affordable compared to traditional colleges. Though not all online degrees have less expensive net tuition prices than traditional colleges, associated costs are almost always less expensive. This is due to the elimination of commuting expenses, resources fee and sometimes payment for course materials since those are often available for free online. In addition, many colleges and universities have begun to accept credits earned via free massive open online courses (MOOCs), the most recent advance in online education (Jaschik, 2013). Free online courses such as these can help students fulfill general education requirements at little to no cost.

As for the tutors, they are able to prepare the most up-to-date content at much lower cost. The sticker shock associated with the textbook market is not news to anyone who has enrolled in even a single college course (Murphy, 2014). Despite the cost, our knowledge of most subjects continues to grow and evolve, making high-priced textbooks unreliable within a few years, and eventually of no use at all. The remote delivery of curriculum allows instructors to keep materials up-to-date, and the lower costs over time remove what for some are insurmountable obstacles to furthering their education.

In contrast, flexibility and lower cost of online education has led many students to opt for online platforms to earn a degree. The only limitation is the students’ passion for learning. Even though online learning is a still relatively young industry, but it does promise a rich future of breakthroughs. For instance, new models of teaching are already emerging that have the potential to take online learning to even greater accomplishments (Moodle News, 2017).

References 

Fiske, E.( 2012, January 20). Globalization — What it means for colleges and students. The Huffington Post.  The Huffington Post.  Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/edwardfiske/globalizationcollegeeducation_b_1121315.html

Jaschik, S. (2013, January 23). MOOCs for credit. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from  https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/01/23/public-universities-move-offer-moocs-credit

Kirby, D.M.(2017, January 31). Impressions of Online Education Are Changing. The Huffington Post.   Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/impressionsofonlineeducationarechanging_us_588fbafce4b04c35d5835118

 

Murphy, K. (2014, January 27). College textbook sticker shock causes students to leave book on the shelves. The Mercury News. Retrieved from http://www.mercurynews.com/2014/01/27/college-textbook-sticker-shock-causes-students-to-leave-books-on-the-shelves/

Young, J.R. (2016). Online Education Is Now a Global Market.  Retrieved from http://www.chronicle.com/article/OnlineEducationIsNowa/237993?cid=wcontentgrid_6_3list_10 

Moodle News. (2017, February 27). In E-learning and Ed Tech, personalize or perish. Moodle News. Retrieved from: http://www.moodlenews.com/2017/in-elearning-and-edtech-personalize-or-perish/

Cultural Imperialism

By Loi Wei Zheng (47448)

The-nization of Modern Culture

Definition

The word "Americanization" originally came to mean the movement of American immigrants in developing their American identities (Berghahn, 2010). However, the word is later used synonymously with the domination of the global market. Besides that, Americanization have also take the form of a cultural imperialism which is seen as America impose its culture on other countries. 

History

Thanks to a recent lecture that I attended regarding "History of Development", I'm able to understand that: During post-World War II period, America came to rise in political and economical power. This is due to the position that America played in the WWII that has distanced the country from the post-war effect, which has left most of the powerful European countries in ruins. Many factories in the European countries were destroyed and this present Europe as a good market field for America as the nation took the opportunity to place its national products in Europe (see Marshall Plan). This further aided United States (US) in gaining economic power. As a result, US has rose to become a powerful country with a strong economic background.

During Cold War period, US has began to spread their ideology which condemned against communism. The effort was further actuated during post-Cold War as US has made the projection of American values abroad as one of the three National Interest of the American Strategy (Tignor, et al,, 2011). As Us disseminate these propaganda and ideology to many countries, US grow to be an example of a strong country with human and economic freedom, the re-owned Land of the Free. US also became a symbol of the human rights defender who fights against tyranny in order to achieve peace in the world and to prevent World War III.

The Americanization of Malaysia

Looking at the influence of American culture on other nations' cultures. Malaysia is no exception. This can be seen through the various representation of America in Malaysia. Here are some aspects of Malaysian culture that I found have been Americanized.

1. Audio Representation (American Hip Hop & Breakdancing)

American music industry has influenced the youth to the rap and break dancing since early 1980s (Halim, 2007). The earliest recollection of hip-hop music in popular culture can be traced to the movies Breakin’, Breakin’ II: Electric Boogaloo and Beatstreet. All of which came out in 1984. These movies may not have had an impact musically, but they did spawn a generation of breakdancers. (see history of hip-hop in Malaysia) 

Musically, hip-hop was basically unknown to many until 1989 when a group of four people – Najee, Jakeman (yup, the same man behind hitz.fm Malaysian English Top 10), DJ Gabriel and a vocalist called Suresh – released a mixtape under the moniker Krash Kozz. The man behind the whole thing was Joe Siva, who was also the main person behind Valentine Sound Production (VSP), one of the early hotbeds for local fringe acts and releases.

During the early 1990s rappers have seemingly transited from using English to Malay Language. Rap groups such as KRU, 4U2C and Les Enfant, their music may be leaning more towards pop than hip hop but no one can deny the fact that songs like Kami Rappers and 2BD#1 gave us the first taste on how rapping in Bahasa Malaysia would sound like. 

As of today, there are many local hip hop dancers and rappers that have acquired world-wide recognition. Many of whom, had great influence from American artists. For instance, back in 2011, the song Malaysian Boy was a remixed Malaysian (Malay, Chinese and Indian) version of the popular Estelle feat Kanye West song, American Boy. The song depicted the cultural influence of US hip hop and the Malaysian Version of the American culture.

1. Visual Representations

a) Food & Drinks

Another example of Americanization is how people accept the culture of fast food. McDonaldization, Burger Kingization, Starbuckization, Coffee Binization and Coca Colanization; the term as however you may phrase it - the process by which the principles of the fast food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world. Americanization has caused changes in food culture and eating habits of the Malaysian.

b) Language

Malaysia is an ex-British colony and many of us pride ourselves for being able to speak the language as well as those in Britain. However, the invasion of American English has since changed this notion. It somehow created a dual standard whether to follow one or the other. I have been taught since I was young that in Malaysia we follow the language spoken and written in Britain, yet American or US English has become the lingua franca among those under 30. No surprise, they were mostly influenced by American media. (see 

British or America)

c) Fashion & Dressing

American has outfitted the world in blue jeans, T-shirt and sneakers. Jeans and T-Shirt are the both formal and informal wear that fits into all occasions. Besides that, American fashions like Calvin Klein, GAP, Ralph Lauren, Nike, Tommy Hillfiger, Victoria’s Secret, Levi’s, Timberland has long since entered the nations market (Amriah, 2005). Moreover, there is an increase of American’s notion of fashion and beauty being advocated through advertisement boards and television commercials.

d) Entertainment

Americanization of entertainment industry is the most obvious. No doubt, American is the home to the production of major blockbusters -Hollywood, from music, dance to movie. Moreover, as Hollywood movies are frequently screen at Malaysian’s cinema, these form of mass culture are capable of imposing their ideologies on the unsuspecting Malaysian audiences.

Malaysia is not only Americanized, but also Koreanized/Japanized

Due to the decline of traditional social institutions (family and religion) and bodies of values that originally provided for stable identity sources, the youth are searching for surrogate role models and references in order to make meaning of their life and to define themselves. Popular culture reflects this fragmentation of the social and personal identity. The diversity of  popular culture, mass media culture in particular, seems to offer a large spectrum of alternative identity sources and meaningful references. Therefore, today we see not only American culture that has great influence in our society, but many other nations' culture too (Korean, Japanese). This is also revealed by the contemporary celebrity cult.

Foreign cultures bring both good and bad influence to our society.  By choosing other culture to practise in our life we should take into consideration whether the culture contradicts to our own especially during this fast-paced era of globalization. See the good in others' culture and apply them but avoid those of deplorable influence. 

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References:

Amriah, B. (2005). Economic globalization and its impact on Malaysia’s urban cultural space. Malaysian Journal of Society and Space, 1, 46-55.

Berghahn, V. (2010). The debate on 'Americanization' among economic and cultural historians. Cold War History. 10(1), 107–130.

Halim, A. (2007). Cultural globalisation and its impact upon Malaysia teenagers. Journal of Communication, 8, 179-193.

Tignor, R., Adelman, J., Aron, S., Kotkin, S., & Marchand, S. (2011) Chapter 20: the three-world order. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart 3^rd Edition. Retrieved from:

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/worlds-together-worlds-apart3/ch/20/summary.aspx

Globalisation : Two sides of a coin, double edged sword

By Joycelyn Ong Shee Hui (47120)

There are always two sides of a coin. The same applies to the increasingly overused notion of globalization. At first glance, it appears that globalization has provided us with the advancement of technology which boosts vast improvement of connectivity online and offline as well as enhancing the quality of living. However lately there has been a discussion on the rapid growth of automation which can lead to a rise of unemployment among the labour market worldwide.

 Nof (2009) explained that the term automation derives from the Greek word automatos, which means acting by its own will, in simple terms today implies self-regulated operation without any human intervention. Among the examples of the application of automation in our daily lives are machines and devices that draw its strength from a major power source such as electricity and solar energy (Nof, 2009). The question is, why the sudden emergence of automation? As a matter of fact, automation started way before the Industrial Revolution where people already started to build windmills and water aqueducts. As the Industrial Revolution blossomed, many forms of innovations and inventions such as steam boats and telegraph are introduced to enhance work productivity and promote efficiency in daily lives (Nof, 2009). Years passed and modernity drives us to an era of striving towards endless technology possibilities. Fast forward to 21^st century presently, robots and artificial intelligence are seen as a better substitute to replace humans for more sophisticated work.

 

In Ireland, it was proposed to increase the numbers of “staffless” libraries, in which CCTV cameras, card-swipe access and automated book-lending terminals are chosen over human librarians in order to enable operation for a longer and sustainable period (O’Halloran, 2016). This shows policymakers are more inclined to turn to automation in the long run to increase profits. The trend is slowly catching up in Asia as well. One of the most recent case studies involves a factory in China where it is reported to be run by 60 robot arms that operates for almost 24 hours across 10 production lines. The article titled “Robot Efficiency Makes Case for Workplace Automation” revealed that the factory used to have 650 workers to aid their production in mobile phones. However, at present, there are only 60 employed people in the factory. Among them, three are given the tasks to examine and supervise the production line, and the remaining 57 of them are assigned with monitoring computer control systems. The rest of the work which are not handled by humans is eventually conducted by machines (Houser & Javelosa, 2017).

Not only that, in an article by Bowler (2017), Richard Baldwin who is an economist introduced a new concept which is virtual migration to further explain the consequence of automation. Virtual migration means citizens in a country could actually lose their job to robots from other countries. Though the robots are not physically present in that country, globalization makes this process possible with great Internet connectivity all over the globe. In the same article, Baldwin citing examples from book The Great Convergence, mentioned that “security guards in US shopping malls could be replaced by robots controlled by security personnel based in Peru, and hotel cleaners in Europe could be replaced by robots driven by staff based in the Philippines.” (Bowler, 2017, p.3). However, at the same time Microsoft founder, Bill Gates and Tesla and SpaceX founder, Elon Musk expressed concern over increasing unemployment due to automation. In an interview, Bill Gates advocated for taxes to be implemented on robot companies to overcome the potential loss of overflowing usage of robots in job replacement for various sectors (Nash, 2017). On the other hand, Elon Musk attributed this scenario to our continuous dependence on technology, and predicts that in no time, both automation and artificial intelligence will take control over 15 percent of the workforce all around the world (Karandeep Singh, 2017). 

Based on several readings that I have read, I can describe globalization as a double edged sword. While it has certainly make the world “closer” to each other, but it is true that over dependence of technology can eventually lead to our own destruction. Who would ever thought our own inventions will eventually surpass us and replace us ? I also found a thought provoking video on Youtube titled : How to Become Relevant when a Robot Takes Your Job.  You can watch it to have a better understanding on this week's first blog post. Feel free to click on the links provided in the references sections and comments , discussions are welcomed. I would end by saying that a balance during policy making and decisions on matters related globalization especially in today’s economy is essential where capitalism reigns supreme. 

 

References 

Bowler, T. (2017, Feb 1).Will globalisation take away your job? BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business38600270

 

Nash, C. (2017, Feb 20). Bill Gates calls for robot tax to offset jobs lost to automation. BREITBART. Retrieved from http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/02/20/billgatescallsforrobottaxtooffsetjobslosttoautomation/

Nof, S.Y.(Ed.). (2009). Springer handbook of automation. Heidelberg, Germany : Springer. Retrieved from http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/952/bok%253A978-3-540-78831-7.pdf?originUrl=http%3A%2F%2Flink.springer.com%2Fbook%2F10.1007%2F978-3-540-78831-7&token2=exp=1487729594~acl=%2Fstatic%2Fpdf%2F952%2Fbok%25253A978-3-540-78831-7.pdf%3ForiginUrl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Flink.springer.com%252Fbook%252F10.1007%252F978-3-540-78831-7*~hmac=4ad35b9701b630586991dccc2274862db200b18bb544b9f33faf1d8534eee7e3

Houser, K., & Javelosa, J. (2017, Feb 17). Robot efficiency makes case for workplace                       automation. Eyewitness News. Retrieved from http://ewn.co.za/2017/02/17/after-                   replacing-90-of-employees-with-robots-this-company-s-productivity-soared

Karandeep Singh  (2017, Feb 20). Elon Musk Believes Artificial Intelligence to Be Dangerous; Cautions About Mass Unemployment. Racing Junky. Retrieved from http://www.racingjunky.com/elonmuskbelievesartificialintelligencedangerouscautionsmassunemployment/

O’Halloran, M. (2016, Nov 28). Minister says further 23 ‘staffless’ libraries to open extra                  hours. The Irish Times. Retrieved from http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/
         minister-says-further-23-staffless-libraries-to-open-extra-hours-1.2885167