Technology here befuddles me. Stores and signs and everything looks all very twenty first century, but in so many ways I am living in the early ages of all things electronic. For example, you remember the bank, hand copying pin numbers and bank account info. Another example, the other day I went with my roommate Grace to sign up for a biking trip with a cycling club. We got to the store, which we had to call to get directions to (I have feelings too strong to share online about the difficulties of finding places here), and she had to write her information and rip off a paper ticket, and then she had to re-copy the information to get tickets for each of our three friends that were also going on a trip. And you think about how this would work in the states- you go online, you type in your credit card number, you get an e-mail confirmation, you show up at the bike ride with name and/or confirmation number and chalas- it’s done. Now, you have also lost all human interaction and sense of accomplishment for finding the cycling store and blah blah I know what you lose, but it’s just so simple! And things are deceiving here.. because everyone has a computer, computers up and down and inside out, but I swear sometimes they are for decoration.
Al-al Bayt University is a perfect example of this. They are obsessed with computers. They wanted me to teach in a computer lab, they wanted me to have tests online, with automated grading, every other one of my students is studying Computer Information Systems to hopefully improve this whole system. That being said, everyone I have ever seen uses the peck type method. To get my own username and password, necessary for me to enter my students’ grades, I had to go to three different offices, where four different phone calls were made, and finally I was given an employee number and from a different office, password, written on a scrap of paper! I was kind of told how to enter students grades but it consisted of a lot of Arabic text on the computer screen so that will be interesting. I also wanted to photocopy my test, so I went during a short break in between classes, thinking that I could drop the test off at the copier, and come back after the next test. Silly me, why would a university have an efficient copy system? This is surely unnecessary. I was told because it was a test I could not leave the originals there, I had to wait until they were finished. The office assistant/computer techie examined the pages I had marked with the number of copies I needed. He began very slowly to load paper into an ancient Xerox machine, copy the one side, then reload the paper to do the other. When I realized how long it was going to take, I asked if I could come back with the others, because I had to teach a class. More frowning.. just five minutes. Thirty minutes later, I arrived to a near empty classroom, trying to accept that this is just the way things are sometimes. And fuming that inefficient technology made me look like a dud teacher.
Not electronic, but seatbelts are another example of how technology is inefficiently used. Basically, being in a car in Amman is probably the most hazardous thing you could possibly do for your health (especially because your driver is probably sending you enough second hand cigarettes to give you a set of nice black lungs). There are too many cars here for the roads to handle, and accidents are frequent and frequently deadly. Apparently, according to a teacher at my roommate’s school, a couple of years ago the government contracted a company to come up with solutions to the traffic problem in Amman. There recommendations were a. bulldoze the city and start over, or b. develop a raised sky road system that connected the entire city through a system of weird above ground bridge roads. Not surprisingly, neither of these were acted upon, and Amman continues to be a mess of horrible accidents. The thing that could be done easily though, would be to USE SEATBELTS. No one buckles up here, most cab drivers cut the seatbelts out of their cabs, and I frequently see ten kids piled in the back seat, climbing back and forth to the front, getting up on the dashboard, etc. You’d think that if car accidents were SO common here people would use the very simple technology that can save some ridiculous percentage of human lives! But no, like computers, seatbelts are most often for show.
Now, I am very nearly a cultural relativist, I do not preach right or wrong, and again, I understand that there are nearly an uncountable amount of reasons why things are the way they are. There is no better or worse in different, blah blah. But, hell, click it or ticket and learn how to send me an e-mail with my employee number so I can get on to your stupid server.
Some days are easier to be an ex-pat than others. these are thoughts I needed to vent. As usual, please remember that I love Jordan.
Al-al Bayt University is a perfect example of this. They are obsessed with computers. They wanted me to teach in a computer lab, they wanted me to have tests online, with automated grading, every other one of my students is studying Computer Information Systems to hopefully improve this whole system. That being said, everyone I have ever seen uses the peck type method. To get my own username and password, necessary for me to enter my students’ grades, I had to go to three different offices, where four different phone calls were made, and finally I was given an employee number and from a different office, password, written on a scrap of paper! I was kind of told how to enter students grades but it consisted of a lot of Arabic text on the computer screen so that will be interesting. I also wanted to photocopy my test, so I went during a short break in between classes, thinking that I could drop the test off at the copier, and come back after the next test. Silly me, why would a university have an efficient copy system? This is surely unnecessary. I was told because it was a test I could not leave the originals there, I had to wait until they were finished. The office assistant/computer techie examined the pages I had marked with the number of copies I needed. He began very slowly to load paper into an ancient Xerox machine, copy the one side, then reload the paper to do the other. When I realized how long it was going to take, I asked if I could come back with the others, because I had to teach a class. More frowning.. just five minutes. Thirty minutes later, I arrived to a near empty classroom, trying to accept that this is just the way things are sometimes. And fuming that inefficient technology made me look like a dud teacher.
Not electronic, but seatbelts are another example of how technology is inefficiently used. Basically, being in a car in Amman is probably the most hazardous thing you could possibly do for your health (especially because your driver is probably sending you enough second hand cigarettes to give you a set of nice black lungs). There are too many cars here for the roads to handle, and accidents are frequent and frequently deadly. Apparently, according to a teacher at my roommate’s school, a couple of years ago the government contracted a company to come up with solutions to the traffic problem in Amman. There recommendations were a. bulldoze the city and start over, or b. develop a raised sky road system that connected the entire city through a system of weird above ground bridge roads. Not surprisingly, neither of these were acted upon, and Amman continues to be a mess of horrible accidents. The thing that could be done easily though, would be to USE SEATBELTS. No one buckles up here, most cab drivers cut the seatbelts out of their cabs, and I frequently see ten kids piled in the back seat, climbing back and forth to the front, getting up on the dashboard, etc. You’d think that if car accidents were SO common here people would use the very simple technology that can save some ridiculous percentage of human lives! But no, like computers, seatbelts are most often for show.
Now, I am very nearly a cultural relativist, I do not preach right or wrong, and again, I understand that there are nearly an uncountable amount of reasons why things are the way they are. There is no better or worse in different, blah blah. But, hell, click it or ticket and learn how to send me an e-mail with my employee number so I can get on to your stupid server.
Some days are easier to be an ex-pat than others. these are thoughts I needed to vent. As usual, please remember that I love Jordan.
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