Unit 1 Reflection

 For the three sources that I chose, I felt that they were of good quality. They were written by reputable authors and the information they contained was believable and of great quality. All the sources that I chose gave quality information that I used to help respond to the course inquiry. As a writer, I feel that I have gotten stronger with analysing sources and writing about how they speak about a specific prompt. The first source that I chose, an article about COVID-19 misinformation, I felt was a good one because it is relevant to current events and has a say in the course inquiry – how misinformation about the virus can be spread in a few seconds as opposed to centuries earlier where news usually spread by word of mouth. This is all thanks to our advancements in technology. The second source, the article on Frontiers for Young Minds, shows how technology has enabled us to share our work with people from around the world in a matter of seconds, and have that work reviewed for editing (even if it’s by children). Lastly, the BBC video on ChatGPT, my third and final source, I felt was the best one of all as it directly comments on our advancement in technology and how this advancement will look for our society in a few years.  

 

For this project, I took advantage of many types of technology. The use of Google (or the internet in general) was helpful since I was able to find my sources relatively quickly using a simple search function. My first three sources utilized news articles (The New York Times and The Washington Post) while my fourth and final source utilized a YouTube video from BBC. By completing this project, my eyes have been further opened on how much we rely on technology in our everyday lives – without technology, the schoolwork that I normally complete on my computer would just not be done. The sources that I used helped identify this need for technology.  

 

Reflecting on the three sources that I used, I would say my favorite was the BBC video on ChatGPT, an AI software taking the internet by storm. I felt that this source spoke most strongly to the course inquiry – our technology has advanced so much that now we can get aritificial intelligence to do a lot of things for us. I also felt that it spoke strongly to the fact that this type of advancement can be both good at bad – on one hand, ChatGPT can be used for convenience and make our lives easier, however on the other end some may see it as creepy or even ineffective. The AI can write entire essays, poems, or do complex math problems for you, and some teachers around the nation fear that students will use this technology to do their homework for them. It’s a great example of a technological advancement that has both good and bad implications for the future. 

 

I do not think I’ll use these sources for the next projects – as someone who wants to broaden their horizons with different types of media, I would much prefer to expose myself to many kinds of sources than keep using the same ones. I feel that if I do this, I will gain a better understanding of the world around us as well as keep on honing my ability to analyze different sources. 

 

To challenge myself, I did my best to use a different type of source at least once (the video instead of an article). I felt that videos were harder to analyze because they do not come in written format, so it takes more time to sift through the video and find exactly what you want to talk about. Nevertheless, I found analyzing the video to be way more fulfulling than doing a simple article, and I plan to use more video sources for future projects.