Contact Tracing Became Vastly Queens College Tech

Part A::: Having begun in the last module to consider the role technology plays in society, we’re looking further into how technology impacts you personally in this week’s discussion. This could be in your personal experiences or events you’ve observed around you. Because Milestone One is also due this week, let’s start to discuss issues and events that interest you. Based on the module resources and your own research, write an initial post that addresses the following:

• Describe an event directly influenced by technology that either you or someone around you has experienced. What did you take away and how did it enhance your understanding of technology’s role?
• Share a current technological issue that you have found interesting or that has personally impacted you. Post an article from a news source. How does technology help you better understand the issue?

Part B::: Post at least two responses to your fellow students. In your responses, consider both sides of your classmates’ issues. Compare and contrast your answers. What do you like about your peers’ explanations, and what would you add?

Peer 1 Post: I am thirty-one years old and I can always remember technology playing some sort of role in my life. When I was about six years old we had our first computer running windows 95, I can recall playing some of my first video games on the computer before I even ever owned a console. I was forever entranced with computers and technology, I remember one of the biggest problems I faced during the entirety of my youth was convincing my parents to get broadband internet. We always had dial-up and I wanted very badly to be able to play Diablo with my cousins and couldn’t, silly I know but this was the one thing I wanted as a child. I remember when I finally did achieve my goal you couldn’t peel me away from the computer if your life depended on it. That being said I like to think that as a child the things you choose as entertainment have massive impacts on what you grow up to have interest in.

Taking my past into consideration I like to look at my daughter and how she interacts with technology as a four year old. I know we had television and it wasn’t too different than it is today, but we certainly didn’t have personal televisions such as iPads, which she does have. It is really easy to set a child in front of an iPad with youtube open and let them self babysit, but what I have found is that some of the content available to kids is not very child friendly (Even on youtube kids). There are instances of discreet innuendos with hidden meaning, straight up violent content and stuff that can have a really negative impact on your child’s behavior. Once I realized this I was more careful about screening the type of videos she was watching, and also limiting time in front of the screen to help her keep an open mind and broaden her interests. Too much of anything can be bad and I don’t think technology is bad for children but I do think there is value in growing up with a good balance of technology and less advanced forms of entertainment.

Peer 2 Post: An event that is greatly influenced by technology is something that I have become familiar with for work, which is contact tracing for Covid-19. In my field of work, I go around to all schools in a school district to provide IT support. Once the concept of contact tracing became vastly used, our department implemented it by setting up google form for us that we would fill out. In the form, we would fill out, which building we were in, which room and which staff members we were in contact with. The forms submission is logged in a spreadsheet that is time stamped to be most accurate. At the end of the week, the spreadsheet it sent to our covid liaison for review if there were any covid positives throughout the district. This way the tracing is already almost done for our department, it just needs to be reviewed. Technologies role in this contact tracing routine is very helpful because it does the work of talking to each individual tech about where they were at specific times of each day. Using a system like this will help get the job done much faster and more efficiently.

A technological issue that I found interesting that has personally affected me is an issue I had at work. THe issue was dell desktops with the latest version of windows ten installed were blue screening and restarting out of no where during the middle of the work day. It took me and another technician a while to figure out what was causing it because we assumed it was with the PC’s themselves. Later on, we found out that the latest version of windows ten, 2004, did not support the firmware build on the active boards we have in the district. We manually updated the firmware on a few boards to test, and it resolved the issue on all of them. Technology helps me better understand this issue because it makes sense that all pieces of technology have to work together to function correctly, so one wrong driver can cause an annoying issue like this.