Unit 5

Living in the 21st Century with

Technology
WUC118/03
Computers in a Networked Society

© Wawasan Open University 2017

 Unit Objectives
By the end of this unit, you should be able to:
Differentiate between Open Educational
Resources, Massive Open Online Course and
mobile learning.
Identify the benefits and challenges of using Open
Educational Resources and mobile learning.
Discuss the purpose of e-commerce and list the
types of e-commerce.
 Unit Objectives
By the end of this unit, you should be able to:
Describe how technology enhances productivity
and creativity.
Explain the health and social issues that
technology has created.
Describe the latest trends in computer technology.
 Topics
1. Open Educational Resources, Massive Open
Online Courses and Mobile Learning
2. E-commerce
3. Creativity and productivity enhancement
4. Technology-related health and social issues
5. Keeping up with technology
 The purpose of the
OER movement
• Expounding the value of open access to
educational resources and provoking the world’s
leading universities into accomplishing their social
missions.
• Creating a sense of “openness” and forming the
essential legal infrastructure for OER.
• Bringing learning to a broader population of
students via open online textbooks and courses.
 The purpose of the
OER movement
• Providing educational resources to a large
number of teachers around the world.
• Producing and assisting a community of
educators and learners devoted to the
acceptance that openly licensed educational
resources are able to deliver excellent quality at
a lower cost and advanced learning outcomes.
 The benefits and
challenges of OER
• It gives teachers the opportunity to use
alternative textbooks while maintaining
instructional quality.
• students save on textbook and supplemental
material costs.
• Educational institutions also reduce their costs by
not having to subscribe to or purchase pricy
educational materials.
 Massive Open Online Courses
(MOOC): Definition and types
• Web-based distance learning programme
which is free and designed for a large
number of geographically dispersed
students.
 The features of MOOCs
• Course participants are most likely to be distributed all
over the world.
• The contents of the course are located or can be
found all over the Web.
• Participants can interact not only in online classrooms
but also via personal blogs, social networking sites,
websites and other online methods.
• Course materials are free except for the assessments.
 The types of MOOC
• An xMOOC is structured on the traditional
classroom. It has pre-recorded lecture videos
with assessments.
• The “c” in cMOOC stands for “connectivist”,
which means that learners in cMOOCs use digital
platforms like social media, blogs and wikis to
make connections with other learners.
Definition and types of MOOCs
 What is mobile learning?
• learning through the Internet by using personal mobile
devices such as smartphones and tablet computers.
• Learning materials can be obtained via mobile apps,
online educational hubs and social interactions.
• By using mobile apps and tools, students can
download course instructions, complete and upload
assignments, and work in online social groups to
complete tasks.
 E-Commerce
• E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the
marketing, buying and selling of goods and
services on the Internet.
• The concept of e-commerce encompasses various
categories of business activities, namely electronic
data interchange, online funds transfer, data
collection, Internet marketing, online transaction
processing and supply chain management.
 E-Commerce

• Examples of how companies and their

customers have benefited from e-
commerce:
– The revenue of Amazon.com has grown
tremendously since it started its online
bookstore in 1995. It celebrated its 20th birthday
with a market capitalisation of more than
US$245 billion.
 E-commerce licensing models

• On-premise e-commerce
• Software as a Service (SaaS)
• Open-source e-commerce
 Types of e-commerce

• Business-to-Business (B2B)
• Business-to-Consumer (B2C)
• Business-to-Government (B2G)
• Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C)
• Mobile commerce (m-commerce)
 The pros and cons of
e-commerce
Pros
• E-commerce acts as an equaliser by allowing start-up
and small and medium enterprises to enter the global
market.
• E-commerce enables mass customisation by applying
easy-to-use ordering systems which permit consumers
to select and purchase goods that are customised to
their personal and unique specifications.
 The pros and cons of
e-commerce
Pros
• E-commerce allows consumers to shop or
carry out other transactions from anywhere in
the world, round the clock, 365 days a year.
• Consumers have the opportunity to access
vast amounts of information on goods and
services online.
 The pros and cons of
e-commerce
Pros
• E-commerce provides consumers and companies
with the opportunity to interact with each other
and to build their relationship.
• E-commerce permits many innovative business
models and decreases the time between the
commencement of an idea and its
commercialisation.
 The pros and cons of
e-commerce
Pros
• E-commerce benefits society in many ways,
such as by providing individuals the opportunity
to work from home, allowing people from rural
areas to buy goods and services that were
unavailable to them in the past, and providing
public services like health care at lower cost and
improved quality.
 The pros and cons of
e-commerce
Cons
• To develop an e-commerce platform in-
house requires a large investment and a
considerable amount of knowledge.
• Hosting e-commerce on the right platform
is vital.
 Creativity and Productivity
Enhancement
• Creativity comes from how we observe the
world and how we interpret it. It brings us
new concepts and ideas.
• Technology enables us to see the world
differently by accessing information from
anywhere in the world.
 How does technology enhance
productivity?
• Technology enables smooth collaboration
among employees, business partners,
vendors and consumers and it improves
efficiency and reduces costs.
• Companies can provide excellent customer
service by streamlining customer
communications using technology.
 How does technology enhance
productivity?
• As organisations and businesses are connected
to online databases, employees can easily insert
and access data from anywhere.
• Technology has also improved the education
system. Many working adults now have the
opportunity to further their studies through online
virtual classes and borderless education.
 Technology-related health risks
• person with iDisorder shows signs and symptoms of
psychiatric disorders such as Obsessive-Compulsive
Disorder (OCD), addiction, narcissism and Attention
Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) due to the
overuse of technology.
• spending hours a day browsing the Internet, reading
on electronic readers, typing on laptops and texting
on smartphones can affect our eyesight.
 Technology-related health risks
• Bending our heads down for hours while working on
laptops creates poor posture for the neck and holding
smartphones between the neck and shoulder can strain
our necks.
• putting stress on our muscles, tendons and nerves by
spending a lot of time typing on keyboards, swiping on
smartphone screens or texting messages.
• Spending hours in front of a screen working, watching
movies or playing video games can lead to obesity.
 Social issues that technology
has created
• Technology has caused a reduction in social skills
and communication breakdowns because many of us
are engrossed with our tablet, smartphone or laptop.
• fraudulent activity such as identity theft.
• Cyberbullying not only involves children and
teenagers, it also affects adults.
• Online gambling impacts every generation and leads
to social issues and financial problems.
 Keeping Up With Technology
• Joining online forums will help you to keep up with
technology.
• Following people in the technology world who are on
Twitter or any other social media.
• Subscribe to online newsletters.
• Use Web search engines to do research, and observe
your surroundings.
• To get deeper into the world of technology, it is important
to attend seminars.
 The latest Internet technologies
• Facebook connect the whole world to the Internet by
using giant soaring drones.
• group of researchers at MIT have developed a new
wireless Internet technology which is 330 percent faster
and has double the range of existing Wi-Fi technology
• Li-Fi (light-based Wi-Fi) is a new technology which can
be 100 times faster than conventional Wi-Fi.
• virtual assistant, such as Siri and Cortana.
Summary of Unit 5
• Open Educational Resources, Massive
Open Online Courses and Mobile Learning
– The purpose of the OER movement
– The benefits and challenges of OER
– Massive Open Online Courses: Definition
and types
– What is mobile learning?
– The benefits and challenges of m-learning
Summary of Unit 5
• E-commerce
– E-commerce: Definition and purpose
– Types of e-commerce
– The pros and cons of e-commerce
• Creativity and productivity enhancement
– How does technology enhance creativity?
– How does technology enhance productivity?
• Technology-related health and social issues
– Technology-related health risks
– Social issues that technology has created
Summary of Unit 5
• Keeping up with technology
– Why is it important to keep abreast of
technology trends?
– The latest Internet technologies