Detailed Notes on Science, Technology & Society

Module 2: Science, Technology & Society

2.1 Information and Mobile Technology in Society

Driven by technological progressivism, educators have embraced IT.
Computers are common in classrooms, and universities often require students to have laptops and email addresses.
NAACE identifies schools with thoroughly embedded technology and those where it's underutilized.
Effective ICT use transcends knowledge-based learning, becoming unobtrusive and efficient.
Online teaching resources can improve grades.
Technology has reshaped society and commerce, offering opportunities for change.
Schools vary in their acceptance of technological change.

Knowledge Economy and Curriculum

OECD suggests we live in a "Knowledge Economy" requiring careful consideration of what constitutes knowledge.
Four types of knowledge: "know what", "know why", "know how", and "know who".
Growing demand for "know why", "know how", and "know who" compared to the traditional "know what".
Schools confident with technology are shifting away from knowledge-based curricula.
Focus on "Learning to learn" and "Enquiry based learning" to develop higher-level thinking skills.
Emphasis on ICT skills to support a wider, more relevant curriculum, not excessive concentration on ICT skills alone.

Pandemic and Learning Platforms

Schools that exploited learning platforms during the pandemic maintained operations with online materials and communication.
Business activities can continue remotely; schools' intellectual activities shouldn't halt due to building access interruptions.
All schools should have learning platforms to enable remote learning.
More students have internet access, facilitating remote learning.

Internet of Things and Education

The "internet of connected things" will significantly impact lives.
Technology exists but needs higher volume and lower costs to be pervasive.
Empowering educators and fostering collaboration is crucial.
Technology allows secure information sharing at local levels without national data repositories.
Students are forming relationships outside school using technology, which educators should acknowledge.

Education and Technological Progress

Countries need learning skills to keep up with science and technology development.
Education is intertwined with social institutions and global interactions.
Information technology needs a culture of learning alongside hardware use.
Without education, technology investment is wasteful.
Technology should be used for information communication within social structures.
Educational systems in developing countries should progress based on their own needs.

IT Skills in Education

Some advocate teaching IT skills themselves.
Servon: IT skills are crucial for later success (2002).
Basic skills can be taught quickly to older students.
Early focus on specific skills may lead to obsolescence.
Teaching analytics, problem-solving, literary skills, and creativity is more beneficial than specific computer skills.

Higher Education and Technology

Public universities face fiscal crises, driving IT adoption.
Deeper logic of higher education shapes the introduction of new tools.
Online education is a response to budget constraints.
Infrastructure and content for online education can be commodified.

Quality of Online Education

Question: Does online education match face-to-face quality?
Online education can mirror passive learning in large lectures.
Students need interaction with faculty and peers.
Dropout rates are higher in online distance education (Noble, 2001).

Stratification in Education

Large lectures and online education may be necessary for wide access.
True education is labor-intensive with low student-teacher ratios.
Higher education is stratified; wealthier students attend private institutions with better faculty access.
Online education may reinforce this stratification.

Education vs. Training

Question: Is schooling about education or training?
Noble: Training is for someone else's purposes (2001).
Education integrates knowledge, critical thinking, and self-knowledge.
Online education may reinforce trends toward training.
Education may become less accessible.

IT Integration in Classrooms

Stronger case for IT integration in real classrooms.
Professors can use email and websites for discussion and resource access.
Many students don't use the university library or know how to evaluate internet sources.
Warschauer: Critical assessment of information sources is crucial in the internet age.
Books are vetted by publishers and librarians.

Faculty Workload and Online Content

Email and chatrooms increase faculty working time.
Faculty spend time developing online content, reducing direct student interaction.

Politics, the Internet, and Mobile Technology

Some believe the internet will strengthen democracy (Norris, 2001; Boyd, 2003).
Others expect the internet to reflect existing political structures.
The internet means more politics as usual, but with new opportunities.
Political campaign websites now include candidate profiles and blogs.

Mobile Communication and Politics in the Philippines

Mobile communication technologies are increasingly popular in political communication in the Philippines.
Social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube are used for political communication.
2007 midterm elections in the Philippines were notable for violence.
GABRIELA, a women's organization, won the most votes in overseas absentee voting.
They used internet and mobile technologies due to limited funds.
Mobile phones were effective in reaching voters.
Internet and mobile media should complement traditional strategies.

Social Networking Sites in Political Campaigning

Social networking sites have profiles, public commentary, and social networks (Boyd, 2006).
Williams and Gulati (2007): Facebook played a role in the 2006 US elections.
Anstead and Chadwick (2008): Research is needed on national differences in online campaign communication.
Preliminary evidence suggests positive effects for candidates engaging with these sites (Conners, 2005).

Political Hyperlinking

Hyperlinks build presence and can be analyzed.
Links show connections among sites (Foot et al., 2003).
Hyperlinks build public recognition (Park et al., 2005).
Hyperlinking has a two-way function with outlinks and inlinks (Park et al., 2005).
Linking encourages deeper understanding of public affairs (Williams et al., 2005).

Maximizing YouTube

YouTube is popular among young internet users in the Philippines.
GABRIELA used YouTube to expand networks.
Political advertising is expensive in the Philippines.
GABRIELA duplicated an ad on YouTube to reach the middle class and young urban poor.
GABRIELA Sec. General Joms Salvador: YouTube video helped the campaign a lot.

Mobile Phones in Politics

Mobile phones are popular in Asia with high penetration rates.
Mobile phones are easier to use than the internet for those with limited reading skills (Steenson, 2006).
Mobile phones reconfigure relationships (Steenson, 2006).
Pertierra (2005): Impact depends on culture, economy, and power structures.
Wei (2005): Mobile phone use in China challenges and helps state authority.
Menduni (2005): Politicians in Italy are heavy mobile phone users.
Jamer and Folkesson (2003): Politicians in Sweden believe mobile technology helps dissemination, but see email as better.
Dale and Strauss (2007): Text messaging can encourage young Americans to vote.
The Philippines has high levels of mobile text messaging (Suhaimi, 2008).

IT and Social Reflection

IT developments reflect the social world.
Uneven distribution of IT reflects uneven distribution of basic resources.
Equalizing access to IT won't solve poverty.
Fundamental questions about infrastructure and economies must be addressed.
Technological progressivists imagine computers fixing the education system.

2.2 STS Trends and Challenges

Globalization and the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR)

4IR is a major driver of change, expected to have a stronger impact than the first industrial revolution.
Integrated developments driven by 4IR are shaping a new era of globalization.
Globalization, especially in the era of 4IR, is viewed by some as a major enemy due to income inequality, pollution, and machines replacing human labor.
Globalization is often confused with globalism, an ideology supporting a neoliberal global order versus national interest.
Income inequality is rooted in institutions and governance, which have privileged capital owners.
Industrial revolutions typically change the labor market, but this should not lead to mass unemployment.
Inventions often create more opportunities and jobs.
The main worry is job disruption by new technology and the impact on lives and communities.
Labor market has become more polarized.
Skilled elite groups of people who can use technology to be more productive, tend to replace the labor of others and are paid accordingly, substantially resulting in income inequality.
Side effects are transitional and not of large scale; significant impact can be generated by poor leadership.
Job polarization can be fought by addressing the skill gap proactively.
By studying tasks and jobs, it is possible to understand which ones are easy to automate.
Analyze individual skills of the workforce and identify how else these workers would be more likely to succeed, and then get them educated in those skills.
Innovative technology can lead to better policy-making, more sustainable business models, new jobs, and income opportunities.
More and better collaboration is required among the private sector, academia, and government.
Significant changes would need to happen within infrastructure, education, regulation, and governance.
This will require courage, strong leadership, and entrepreneurship from all parties involved.
Our future will be defined by the decisions we make today.
All of us in the business community do have a responsibility to leave behind a better world for the next generation.

The Essence of Technology

Humans are reliant on technology in their search for the good life.
We utilize ways and means from nature to achieve growth.
Technology is goal-oriented, instrumental in achieving a goal.
The deterministic view appended to technology crumbled in postmodernism.
Martin Heidegger argued that technology's essence and being are different.
Technology can be a means to achieve man’s end and that which constitutes human activity.
Each period reveals a particular character regarding man’s being through technology.
Through technology, humans confront the unknown.
Technological revelation is but one way to perceive the world.
We view the world as a field of resources, attributing monetary value on seemingly priceless entities.
We categorize nature as renewable and non-renewable.
Humans are reduced into the amount of productivity they are able to render during their lifetime.
A good life is one which is practical in essence; a life which makes use of our labor and which we get compensated fairly upon.
The sciences are one of the most sought-after courses.
Since humans appear not to really know what they are seeking for, the search continues.
There is a looming fear that the path we are treading will not take us to the right direction.
Too much reliance on technology can cause humans to lose track of things that matter.
It will prove to be a herculean task to distance ourselves from science and technology.
Rejecting a working, tried-and-tested process seems foolish.
It should be done in order for us to retrace our steps to be able to achieve the good.

Nutritional Impact of Biodiversity

Biodiversity is a vital element of a human being’s nutrition because of its influence to food production.
Biodiversity contributes to sustainable food production.
A society must have access to a sufficient variety of nutritious food.
Nutrition and biodiversity are linked to the ecosystem, species, and genetic diversity.
Nutritional composition between foods can differ dramatically.
Healthy local diets necessitate maintenance of high biodiversity levels.
Intensified food production affects biodiversity and thus impacts nutritional status and human health.
Habitat simplification, species loss, and species succession often enhance communities’ vulnerabilities.

The Future of Dietetics

New opportunities include population growth, increasing cultural diversity, and new information about diet's role in health.
Growing public interest in nutrition, food safety, and functional foods drives the need for dietetics professionals.
Dietetics experts face competition from web-based information services, food producers, nutritionists, and alternative medicine practitioners.

Challenges

The profession faces technological, social, political, global, and environmental forces reshaping the food system.
Dietetics professionals are advocates of food safety, quality, security, and healthfulness.
The emerging modern lifestyle puts pressure on the food system.
Eating habits are associated with leading causes of illness and death.
Keeping pace with science and technology is a challenge.
Dietitians could adopt the internet for client communications, learning, and promotion.
The public has more options for nutritional guidance with the rise of homeopathy and other types of alternative medicine.
Dietetic associations must help their members keep up with this competition by building up the dietetics brand.
Professionals should increase diversity in the profession and work cross-culturally.

Health, Biology, and Biodiversity

Living organisms depend on their environment.
Human evolution was due to improved access to these basic needs.
Advances in agriculture, sanitation, water treatment, and hygiene have had a greater impact on health than medical technology.
Lack of basic necessities is a significant cause of human mortality.
Environmental hazards increase the risk of cancer, heart disease, and asthma.
Unsafe drinking water and poor sanitation cause infectious diseases.
The interrelation between human health and biological diversity is considerable and complex.
Current biodiversity loss puts the balance between human health and biological diversity at risk.

Environmental-Related Illnesses

Some illnesses related to the environment include Parkinson’s disease, heart disease, cancer, and asthma.
Activities that promote health can have adverse environmental effects.
Food production causes environmental damage.
Health care facilities also have adverse environmental impacts.
Altering the environment can prevent some diseases.
Climate change could have a serious impact on human health.
Biodiversity increases resilience.
Safeguarding coral reefs is essential to reduce the risk of floods.

Ethical, Social, and Legal Dilemmas

Relationships between human health and the environment raise dilemmas.
Many issues involve managing benefits and risks.
Pesticides increase crop yields but pose hazards.
Stopping all pesticide uses could reduce agricultural productivity.
Public health authorities regulate pesticide use.
Energy production and use can pose hazards.
Global warming requires balancing benefits and risks.
Steps to reduce greenhouse gases could have adverse economic consequences.
People with lower socio-economic status have greater exposure to harmful environmental conditions.

Vulnerable Subpopulations

Decision-making processes should be fair and democratic.
It is important to consider vulnerable subpopulations.
A vulnerable subpopulation has an increased susceptibility to adverse effects.
Justice demands taking care of people who are vulnerable.
Protections must be meted out carefully.

Hospitality and Tourism

The leisure and hospitality industry is a driving force of the global economy.
New technologies have reshaped service provision and reception.
We explore state-of-the-art technologies and envision potential future services.
The technological backbone of hospitality establishments needs to be overhauled.
Domestic and international tourism has seen steady growth.
Generated revenue has propelled the leisure and hospitality industry to become a key driver of the global economy.
For sustained growth, experts argue for major improvements in the type and quality of hospitality services.
Specifically, these improvements are targeted towards attracting the new generation of technophile individuals traveling on a tight budget.
Implementation of these improvements compounds to a complete makeover of the service packages and the underlying technological framework currently used by hospitality service providers.

Goals of Improvements

Personalization of experiences is necessary to market services to individuals traveling on a limited budget.

Personalization creates individualized guest experiences by incorporating flexibility and customizability to the offered service packages.
Most of the current packages marketed by HSP offer rigid and tailored experiences.
These packages bundle different combinations of popular services in different price brackets with little to no means of negotiating adjustments.
This leaves travelers to choose between all or nothing and they usually end up opting for the latter choice.
Crafting personalized value propositions for each guest requires a massive effort on both the guests’ and the service providers.

Digitalization of services is imperative to appeal to technophile guests.

The goal of digitalization of services is to transition to a digital business model by pushing hospitality services to guests’ touch-point.
A digital service platform affords guests the ability to browse, plan and pick activities at their own convenience thus facilitating seamless integration of technology into their travel experience.
Booking and reservation services, location-based services and personalized communication, and social media integration are a few examples of digital services that entice technophile guests.

Third-Party Applications

Revenue erosion to these third-party applications and services is a growing concern to HSP.
In order to compete with these third-party applications, HSP must develop their own applications which provide better on-property and off-property services to guests.
Through special incentives such as loyalty points, coupons and bonuses, guests can be encouraged to use in-house applications over third-party applications.

Importance of Sound Technological Infrastructure

Providing digital services with the same quality as third-party application services requires a sound technological infrastructure base with specialized computation and communication capabilities.
This warrants the overhaul of current technological framework used by HSP.
The future of the hospitality management industry is being shaped by the current boom in the Internet of things (IoT) technology.
HSP must stay on the leading edge of IoT technology to maintain a competitive edge in the market.

Internet of Things (IoT)

The IoT is the interconnection of everyday physical devices like sensors, actuators, identification tags, mobile devices, etc., such that they can communicate directly or indirectly with each other via local communication networks or over the Internet.
The incorporation of IoT technology in the hospitality industry qualifies hotels as smart buildings, which are important facets of smart cities.
The IoT paradigm offers HSP a nuanced means of interacting with guests and collecting their real-time data.
This opens up new avenues for immediate, personalized and localized services as HSP can gauge guest behaviors and preferences with higher accuracy.

Creating a Beneficial Platform

Overall, the new technological upgrade of the hospitality industry should create a mutually beneficial platform by facilitating partnership between guests and HSP.
The technological framework must be future proof; providing an easy upgrade schedule for addition of new/improved services.