Week 3- Are the six basic needs "mutual supplement"?

After reading the articles, I looked at the theme- “Solutions and Enablers to Deliver Basic Human Needs”. It reminds me the Maslow 's demand theory[1]. I found that health, food and water are belong to the lowest level of demand-Physiological needs. Housing (Shelter) and energy may belong to the second level-safety needs. Education is a self-actualization need. Technology/Information is more like a method/channel instead of a need. But in this digital age, it became a safety need for Millennials generation[2].

I used to think that we should fulfill the lower-level demand first, then we can turn into the higher-level needs. But sometime the fulfilling hierarchy is not one-direction, layer by layer upward. Instead, every time you satisfy a level of needs will more or less supplement other levels of needs. It is more like a multi-direction and cycled system.

The second point I learned from those articles is the importance of technology and energy in satisfying the education needs. I gain a strongly feeling of this assumption during my summer volunteer experience as an online Chinese teacher for kids in Ghana. In July, I volunteered as an online Chinese teacher to teach students in Ghana Chinese. My students are 5 grade kids from an international school in Ghana. It is only a 30-minutes weekly course, but nearly every week I had to wait about 15-30 minutes to secure the internet connection. Even though, our class always paused due to internet failures. Pedro told me that they do not have stable electricity suppliers. Now, after this week’s reading, I plan to recommend the Inye computer tablets[3] to my students. Without the energy and internet infrastructure support, they couldn’t us the fantastic Khan Academy platform as well. In other words, if the energy and technology needs met, children in Ghana would gain a huge benefit by having access to multiple education resources.

I remember, on the first class, they kept asking me questions till the end of the class. I saw the eager to learn from their eyes. As Khan says, “What happens in 50 years? [4]” If we could help the local kids to equip themselves with willing and skills to “Change the World”, they may start from their daily events and the community they are living, leading a change and eventually make a great difference to the country, the world.

Finally, I am so happy that I read many cases about “technology + Education”, such as the Raspberry Pi computers[5], and the Khan Academy. It is true, we are coming to the age when technology is finally poised to disrupt how people learn.

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[1] Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. (n.d.). Retrieved September 11, 2017, from http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=391607

[2] According to the reports and data from the Pew Research Millennial generation are those born after 1980 and the first generation to come of age in the new millennium. Millennials in Adulthood. (2014, March 06). Retrieved September 11, 2017, from http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/03/07/millennials-in-adulthood/

[3] Holland, M., Tucker, I., Mark, M., & Kelly, A. (2012, August 25). Africa innovations: 15 ideas helping to transform a continent. Retrieved September 11, 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/aug/26/africa-innovations-transform-continent

[4] Noer, M. (2015, May 15). One Man, One Computer, 10 Million Students: How Khan Academy Is Reinventing Education. Retrieved September 11, 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelnoer/2012/11/02/one-man-one-computer-10-million-students-how-khan-academy-is-reinventing-education/

[5] Hickey, S. (2014, March 09). The Raspberry Pi computer – how a bright British idea took flight. Retrieved September 11, 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/09/raspberry-pi-computer-eben-upton-cambridge