Listen       American Accent       Australian Accent       British Accent      Related Items

IntroductionMobile devices are very important in the lives of many Canadians. Wireless devices such as smartphones and tablets enable users to connect to the virtual world anywhere and at any time. Mobile applications (mobile apps) provide tools for communication, entertainment, learning, and time management as well as many other functions. Social networking websites allow users to communicate by text, video, and images through online profiles. Generations who have never lived in a world without online communications are digital natives and rely heavily on mobile devices in their everyday lives.This increasing use of mobile devices has raised concerns about their impact on personal relationships. Mobile devices and social networking sites are used to contact friends and family members through texting and social networks as well as to post photographs, share videos, and blog about topics of interest. This constant use of mobile devices may impact face-to-face communication and threaten personal relationships. Accessing a smartphone or computer may disrupt traditional social situations and draw interest away from other endeavors. All of these concerns have caused media observers to emphasize the need for digital literacy so that mobile device users can understand technology's social impact and be able to question and evaluate what they see and hear in their online world.Understanding the DiscussionDigital literacy: The capacity to analyse, question, and critically understand digital media texts in order to evaluate the validity of the information they provide.Digital natives: Individuals born in or brought up during the age of digital technology who use computers, cell phones, and social networking to communicate on a daily basis.Mobile applications: Software designed to run on portable wireless devices such as smartphones and tablets; also called apps.Mobile devices: Portable communication tools such as smartphones and tablets that connect to the Internet wirelessly.Social networking: Websites where members connect with others and post information in the form of profiles, which can include photos, videos, blogs, and comments.Smartphone: A cell phone that has the ability to run software programs like a personal computer.HistoryTwo technologies have driven the popularity of mobile devices: cell phones and computers. The first cell phone was made by engineer Martin Cooper in 1973, but it was not until 1984 that technology company Motorola started producing cell phones for the general public. The very first commercial cell phone weighed about two pounds. When British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989 and opened it to public use in 1993, computers immediately started to change social communication. Also in 1993, Bellsouth and IBM created the Simon communicator phone, which combined both computer and phone functions.By the end of March 1999, Canada had become the first nation in the world to connect all of its schools and libraries to the Internet. However, in 1999, only 36 per cent of Canadians had a personal Internet connection, according to Valerie Steeves's 2014 MediaSmarts research study Young Canadians in a Wired World, Phase III: Trends and Recommendations. This would soon change as computers became more prevalent.One of the first widely adopted software applications was e-mail. At first, e-mail was an easy substitute for phone calls and letters. Instead of coordinating schedules for a live phone call or waiting for postal delivery, e-mail was a way to communicate efficiently whether the person was available or not. E-mail could be checked and responded to anytime. Similarly, instant messages and phone text message became popular because they allowed rapid communication without having to synchronize in real time.The social potential of Internet technology was recognized by Canadians early on. According to Steeves, by 2000, Canadian students with Internet access reported enjoying e-mail and chat rooms, and by 2005, instant messaging and games were also increasingly popular. However, the growth of social networking websites caused a major increase in online activity. The site MySpace appeared in 2003 and quickly became popular among young people; it was followed by Facebook in 2004. Initially only for college students, Facebook expanded to allow access to any user over age thirteen in 2006 and quickly became one of the world's most popular websites.Meanwhile, hardware technology continued to improve and devices became cheaper, giving more people more frequent access. Wireless technology in smartphones and tablets enabled users to access the Internet anywhere and at any time. Research in Motion (later Blackberry), a Canadian company based in Waterloo, Ontario, had developed mobile pagers and e-mail devices in the late 1990s, and in 2003, it launched the first cell phone to integrate e-mail, texting, and a web browser. Technology company Apple launched its first iPhone in 2007, making touch screen technology an industry standard. According to tech writer Brian Chen, by the end of 2010, Apple had sold 73.5 million iPhones. In 2008 Apple launched the App Store, giving iPhone users access to hundreds of mobile apps, and competitors followed suit.Mobile devices allowed users to pay bills, download music and videos, take pictures, and communicate with family and friends. Ownership of these devices grew steadily. According to Statistics Canada, 79 per cent of Canadian households had access to the Internet in 2010, and 35 per cent of used mobile devices to access the Internet. Young people especially saw these communication tools as a critical aspect of their social life as social networking websites grew in popularity throughout the world. This prevalence of technology led many children to grow up as digital natives, accustomed to using the Internet and mobile devices from a young age, while even older generations found increasingly difficult to function in society without some level of digital literacy. Researchers became interested in how the ubiquity of mobile devices was shaping social interaction on multiple levels. For instance, some evidence suggests that digital natives have come to view online relationships as crucial and to find text-based communication preferable to face-to-face interaction.The Effect of Mobile Devices on Personal Relationships TodayAccording to Statistics Canada, in 2012, 83 per cent of Canadian households had access to the Internet and 59 per cent of used mobile devices to do so -- a significant increase even from 2010. Worldwide, mobile phone use skyrocketed to over six billion subscribers in 2013. The Life Online section of Steeves's 2014 MediaSmarts report found that by grade eleven, 85 per cent of teenagers had their own cell phones. As a result, these mobile devices have become the primary way for students to access the Internet.Steeves's study also explains that young people use mobile devices primarily for entertainment and communication through social networking. In 2013, the top four favorite websites of Canadian students were YouTube, Facebook, Google, and Twitter. Three-quarters of students maintained a profile on a social media site or kept a blog. In 2014, Facebook estimated that nineteen million Canadians use Facebook regularly, with fourteen million doing so every day. Fifteen million of them accessed the site with a mobile device. It is evident that the constant connection made possible by mobile devices has become a major part of the daily lives of many Canadians.The effects of such heavy use of mobile devices continue to raise concerns about privacy and personal relationships. In a March 2015 Globe and Mail editorial, essayist William Kowalski warned cell phone users that, "It's possible to find out nearly everything about you through a search of your phone. In the wrong hands, that kind of power is something to fear." The ethics of digital privacy has become an important area of debate, especially considering the wide variety of photographs, videos, and other personal information shared online, and the potential for privacy breaches or police searches. Some see the connectedness offered by near-constant Internet use as a positive development; others worry about its social effects. While opinions on the issue vary greatly, most agree on the need to promote digital literacy to empower people so that they can respond effectively to the technology that surrounds them each and every day.BibliographyBooksDeVito, Joseph A., Rena Shimoni, and Dawne Clark. Messages: Building Interpersonal Communication Skills. 5th Canadian ed. Don Mills: Pearson Canada, 2015. Print.Hanson, Janice. 24/7: How Cell Phones and the Internet Change the Way We Live, Work and Play. Westport: Praeger, 2007. Print.Steeves, Valerie. Young Canadians in a Wired World, Phase III: Life Online. Ottawa: MediaSmarts, 2014. PDF file.Steeves, Valerie. Young Canadians in a Wired World, Phase III: Trends and Recommendations. Ottawa: MediaSmarts, 2014. PDF file.Zuckerberg, Randi. Dot Complicated: Untangling Our Wired Lives. New York: Harper, 2013. Print.PeriodicalsFeschuk, Scott. “Damn You, Sum of Human Knowledge.” Maclean’s 128.12 (2015): 61. Print.Websites and Digital FilesKingston, Anne, and Alex Ballingall. "Public Display of Disaffection." Maclean's. Rogers, 15 Sept. 2011. Web. 9 Mar. 2015.McDowell, Adam. “Why the Phone Call Deserves a Second Chance.” National Post. Postmedia Network, 16 June 2015. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.Statistics Canada. "Canadian Internet Use Survey, 2012." Statistics Canada. Government of Canada, 26 Nov. 2013. Web. 12 Mar. 2015.Copyright of Canadian Points of View: The Effect of Mobile Devices on Personal Relationships is the property of Great Neck Publishing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.

In 1973, the first gene transfer to create a recombinant organism occurred when a bacterium received a viral gene. Gene transfer experiments expanded to include non-related species. A gene from a flounder was inserted into a tomato to make it withstand cold, and a gene from a chicken was added to a potato to make it more resistant to disease.

Research on the genetic modification of plants focused on making them more nutritious, more resistant to pests and viruses, and more drought tolerant than their natural counterparts. Some transgenic plants were modified to be resistant to herbicides. The Monsanto Company, a leading corporation in the biotechnology industry, produced an herbicide, Roundup, and then created a genetically modified form of canola that was resistant to Roundup. The development allowed farmers to spray the herbicide without damaging the canola crop.

By the mid-1980s, the fruits of genetic modification were being field tested. By the early 1990s, large areas were being sown with seeds of genetically modified soy, corn, canola, and cotton to increase the crop yield.

In the early stages of research into genetic modification, the new science was hailed for the potentially beneficial results it would have on the food supply: greater biodiversity, better crop yields, increased nutritional value and longer shelf lives for fruits and vegetables.

However, when genetically modified crops were grown commercially and began to appear on grocery shelves, there were questions about food safety and the impact of GM foods on the environment.

Biotechnology: The use of biological processes in industrial production. The manipulation of genes to produce commercial products is a form of biotechnology.

Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA): A double-stranded molecule that carries the genetic information of living organisms. Each DNA strand consists of a chain of polymers which are comprised of subunits, called nucleotides.

Gene: The basic sequence of nucleotides that carries a trait from one generation to the next. Genes have fixed positions on chromosomes.

Genetic Engineering: The modification of the genetic make-up of an organism, either through the addition of genes from another organism or from the silencing of the organism’s own genes.

Recombinant: Containing genetically engineered DNA.

Transgenic: An animal or plant that contains genes from a different species.

Prior to the 1990s, farmers improved crop and livestock quality through traditional practices, such as cross-breeding and hybridization. In 1953, when James Watson and Francis Crick deciphered the structure of the DNA molecule and its role in the transmission of hereditary information, cross-breeding moved from the farmers’ fields to the laboratory.

Fifty years after this breakthrough, researchers decoded the genetic sequence of rice (2002) and completed the Human Genome Project, which involved creating a map of the human genetic code. Knowledge of the function of each gene made the manipulation and transference of human genes theoretically possible.

Early breakthroughs in the field of genetically modified food production include Monsanto’s introduction of a species of corn with a built-in insecticide. In the 1990s, Ingo Potrykus created a new breed of rice, known as “golden rice.” Golden rice is fortified with vitamin A and beta carotene, and was designed to combat hunger in developing nations.

The first genetically modified food arrived on the shelves of US grocery stores in early 1994. Genetic modification had been used to create a tomato, known as the Flavr-Savr, with a longer shelf life. The Flavr-Savr hit Canadian markets in 1995.

In 1996, genetically modified crops were planted on two million hectares globally. By 1998, genetically modified crops covered twenty-eight million hectares. By 2006, 102 million hectares were being utilized for genetically modified crops, which were being grown by over ten million farmers.

In Canada, genetically modified food is subject to regulation and inspection by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), under the auspices of Health Canada. Since 1993, more than eighty genetically modified foods have been approved. Since Health Canada makes no distinction between approved genetically modified food and conventional food, its requirements for labelling are the same. Labelling a food as “genetically modified” is strictly optional.

Concerns about genetically modified food centre on questions of long-term health risks of GM foods that have not been subject to years of rigorous laboratory testing. The concerns about GM foods being researched include the inherent stability of the transferred genes when ingested, increased resistance to antibodies among GM foods, and the threat of a wider base for hidden allergens in the food supply.

Environmentalists, scientists and farmers have expressed concerns about the environmental impact of planting GM crops. The potential devastation of various pollinating insect populations as a result of the use of insecticide-resistant crops, the creation of “superweeds” through cross-pollination between common weeds and GM crops; and the contamination of organic crops are among some of the concerns cited.

In Canada, 10.4 million hectares of farmland support GM crops, primarily canola, maize and soybean. A world leader in the production of GM crops, Canada is fifth after the United States, Brazil, Argentina, and India. Over 97 percent of the entire 2012 Canadian canola crop was genetically modified; Alberta alone produces an estimated three million tons of transgenic canola. Since most of these crops become components of processed foods, it is difficult to avoid ingesting them. The vast majority of processed food in Canada has some degree of genetic modification.

Being able to identify a genetically modified product on the shelves of Canadian supermarkets is becoming increasingly difficult. While some European countries require foods to be labelled “GMO” if they are comprised of more than 0.9 percent of the food item, Health Canada has no such requirement. Advocates of labelling, such as Greenpeace, see labelling as the only way to help consumers know what they are eating. In 2001, Bill C-287, an Act to Amend the Food and Drugs Act, called for the labelling of genetically modified food. However, when the bill came before the House of Commons, Parliament defeated it. Advocacy groups continue to support labelling. In 2013, Nature’s Path Organic—a Richmond, British Columbia organic foods company—involved itself in a ballot battle over GM food labelling in Washington state, donating $250,000 to groups supporting the labelling bill. Nature’s Path officials said they hoped that the passing of such a bill would cause a ripple-effect that might encourage GM food labelling in Canada. The measure failed to pass, with 54.8 percent of voters opposed to labelling GM foods.

As the biotechnology industry has developed, its business practices have drawn attention. Corporations have issued patents on seeds created in their laboratories, leaving farmers unable to harvest the seeds for the next growing season. The case of Percy Schmeiser drew international attention to the issue of patenting.

In 2004, the Supreme Court of Canada delivered a precedent-setting verdict on the case of Monsanto vs. Percy Schmeiser, a farmer from Bruno, Saskatchewan. Monsanto sued Schmeiser for stealing its seeds and planting them on his farm. These two acts constitute an infringement on Monsanto’s patent on its Roundup-Ready canola. While Schmeiser protested that the seeds had blown onto his property, the Supreme Court’s decision in favour of Monsanto included recognition of Monsanto’s ownership of the patent. Organizations including the Council of Canadians, the David Suzuki Foundation, Greenpeace, and other groups continue to lobby against the privatization and the patenting of living organisms.

Attempting to simplify genetically modified seed control, the US Department of Agriculture and international seed companies introduced “terminator seeds,” which were engineered to limit the use of genetically modified plants. Terminator seeds act by sterilizing second generation seeds or by restricting their function to the addition of a chemical agent that is exclusively available from the producing company. The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity insisted on upholding a moratorium on terminator seeds in 2000, and again in 2006.

The biotechnology industry is a rapidly growing industry in North and South America, but most of the rest of the globe is taking more time to evaluate the novel crops and foods, and the many economic, political, and ethical questions that accompany their production and distribution. While advocacy groups and informed consumers remain active in the GM foods debate, surveys have found that the average consumer is either uninformed about GM foods or apathetic to the issue. A 2012 study conducted by the British Columbia Growers’ Association found that 76 percent of Canadians feel the government has provided insufficient information on GM foods. An additional 9 percent had never heard of GM foods.

 

You will use information from your research as well as your background knowledge and experience to discuss the topic of telework. Search online for credible sources which you will use to provide support for your ideas. You should bring your notes and the researched articles that you have printed to the exam.  You cannot bring or refer to any electronic devices such as computers, laptops or cellphones. 

You will have 25-30 minutes for your discussion and you should spend a significant amount of the time discussing questions pros and cons of the issue. 

  

You will be evaluated on your ability to:

·        demonstrate that you have researched and understand all sides of the issue (supported by research);
 
 

·        provide your personal opinion of the topic (supported by research);
 
 

·        play a variety of group discussion roles and participate effectively in a group setting; and
 
 

·        demonstrate that you can use a variety of language functions related to group discussion.

 

Toronto Star (Canada). 10/28/2015.

Article

With an average Toronto commute time of 66 minutes each way, you can bet your brake lights many would work from home in a heartbeat. Telecommuting is much easier these days, thanks in part to technological tools such as high-speed Internet, inexpensive mobile devices and secure cloud services that remotely host your files. Skyping into meetings is becoming commonplace for many small- to medium-sized businesses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

6FPTS2015102835453212

The pros and cons of telecommuting.

Listen       American Accent       Australian Accent       British Accent      Working from home creates work-life balance, but you lose on-site brainstormingWith an average Toronto commute time of 66 minutes each way, you can bet your brake lights many would work from home in a heartbeat.Telecommuting is much easier these days, thanks in part to technological tools such as high-speed Internet, inexpensive mobile devices and secure cloud services that remotely host your files. Skyping into meetings is becoming commonplace for many small- to medium-sized businesses.But organizations (and employees) need to weigh the pros and cons before deciding to work from home. Here are some factors to consider:ProsFor the worker: Staying at home paves the way for a better work-life balance. Many take their kids to and from school, spend less on professional attire and lunches (and eat healthier) and aren't distracted with colleagues asking for something or being dragged into meetings where you're not needed).A Stanford University report and a joint study by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Northwestern University both found that those who work from home are less stressed and more productive than those who work a 9-to-5 job out of the home.For the business: You can hire the best person for the job - even if they live across the country or around the world.Candidates who want to work from home may accept a lower salary than those who must commute to work.As a cost-saving consideration, you don't have to pay for office space-related expenses for an at-home worker. And if the above-mentioned study is correct, those who work from home are happier and more productive, which is good for morale and efficiency.For the environment and other cubicle dwellers: Not only can telecommuting save time and money but it has an eco-advantage, too. Fewer cars on the road reduces gas emissions that contribute to pollution and global warming. The more companies allow fortelecommuting, the lighter the roads might be for those who must drive - or take public transit or taxis - to get to the office. In other words, everyone wins.ConsFor the worker: In a 2002 survey conducted by University of Southern California, telecommuters said interpersonal relationships were missed while working at home. This includes having coffee or lunches with colleagues, water cooler gossip, collaborating on team projects and perhaps after-work drinks. While it may sound appealing to work from home, many have trouble staying motivated without a supervisor or boss looking over their shoulder. Juggling kids and remaining focused could also be a challenge.For the business: From a creativity standpoint, there might be a loss of on-site brainstorming, plus allowing some employees to work from home (and not others) could lead to lower office morale. Without physical proximity with your employees, there's an increased security and privacy risk. Not only could it be easier for a disgruntled at-home worker to wreak havoc, perhaps by stealing data, but even accidental breaches can happen (such as giving your teen the wrong USB stick) or a breach in the network connection between the office and the home. Telecommuting might also complicate insurance policies and workers' compensation.Given the advantages and challenges, a business must first assess whether telecommuting is feasible for employees - obviously, some positions aren't conducive - and companies should ensure the person is self-motivated.Finally, remember that it doesn't have to be "all or none," as some businesses restrict at-home working to a day or two a week.Copyright of Toronto Star (Canada) is the property of Toronto Star. The copyright in an individual article may be maintained by the author in certain cases. Content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. Source: Toronto Star (Canada), 10/28/2015
Item: 6FPTS2015102835453212