Learning through documentaries

 After a week of what felt like too much reading and getting stressed about the course, I decided I would take some time to watch some documentaries that may help my learning. The documentaries I watched were 'The Social Dilemma', 'My Octopus teacher' and 'Chris Packham's Animal Einstein's'.  I understand these are a very...interesting range of programmes but I can safely say I learnt so much, a lot of which contributes to areas of this course.

The Social Dilemma

I found The Social Dilemma incredibly interesting and shocking. I immediately felt like I wanted to get rid of my phone but that feeling was short lived as I am undoubtedly a salve to my phone and social media. I know this is something that HAS to change because our phones are controlling us and I need to take back that control. 

It was crazy to see people who had essentially created all these platforms, criticising them so heavily. As one of the interviewees said, it's like we're 'under a spell'. Ethics seem to have been disregarded in the production of algorithms and now we're becoming more and more insecure with thoughts that we never intended to have. It was also mentioned that we don't know the vulnerability of our own minds which I completely agree with. I've always felt certain that I was a strong individual and would find being called vulnerable an insult but after watching the programme, I can reflect on the time where social media has been damaging and I didn't realise how vulnerable I was when viewing these topics, pictures an posts.

Social media has always been so helpful in my life but can be very all consuming. I'm definitely being more mindful when scrolling and have done some much needed of 'unfollowing' of certain people/pages. 

My Octopus teacher & Chris Packham's Animal Einstein's

Both of these documentaries were about animals so it seems very odd that they could contribute to this course in any way, shape or form but I was amazed. In My Octopus teacher it was amazing to see the ability of these animals. It was not only showing the way in which the octopus was learning and adapting to its environment, but also the way in which the man was learning and using reflection on action to improve his encounters with the octopus. He had to keep reflecting on each encounter, noting what he had learnt/seen and use it to help him with his discoveries. It was truly amazing and I felt inadequate after seeing the intelligence of an Octopus(that was a weird sentence - never did I think I'd be comparing myself to a sea creature). 

Chris Packham's Animal Einstein's showed a variety of animals and all the ways that they learnt. All these animals had Multiple Intelligences (Howard Gardner) which they used to help themselves thrive and live. One thing that really amazed me was a monkey's photographic memory. A monkey was shown the numbers 1-9 on a computer screen in square boxes and all mixed up. The monkey was shown the numbers for half a second and in that half a second they could remember the exact order of the boxes and successfully tap them 1-9 - no mistake. They then showed it so you could try it at home and I could only register where the number 1 was. It just goes to show that animals, humans, we're all very intelligent in our own ways which is something to be celebrated. 

Chris Packham also spoke about how social learning is vital in the animal world and that without active experimentation it could be the difference between them being killed or not. It's incredible how alike we are to animals and even they use similar or the same learning methods and strategies that we do to learn and thrive. 

I felt like I learnt lots through watching and listening and is something I'll try to do more of in this course through TED talks, Youtube videos and programmes.