[272nd] Are Internet Lectures Efficient?/ Few to buy home this year/ Korea stays behind in organ donation

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Topic_20100327.docx

Are Internet Lectures Efficient?

The Korea Times 03-24-2010

Internet lectures have brought convenience and a lot of advantages to students. Living in the information age, almost all Korean students now use the internet as a means of learning.

By providing various web-based correspondence courses, the internet lecture business has rapidly grown up and taken the place of regular schools and local hagwons. Now, students, especially high schoolers, prefer to stay at home and study online by simply clicking the mouse because they want to spend their time more efficiently.

By studying in this manner, they feel it is a more effective way to prepare for their looming task of passing the university entrance exams. As the portable multimedia players have become popular, internet courses for these ends have become even more easily accessible.

So, what is it that makes these internet lectures so attractive? The first reason has to be their convenience. Quite in contrast to conventional lectures, internet courses can be taken at home, school and libraries ― virtually anywhere a signal can be captured or a cable connected.

Time flexibility is another good reason for the popularity of these lectures since we don't have to attend the internet courses at the same time every day. Not to be forgotten is the fact that being an e-student saves money by taking the commute to a hagwon out of the financial picture. Another advantage being an e-student offers is that we can choose both the teachers and appropriate level.

Based on all these advantages, internet lectures seem like an ideal means of education. But have you ever thought about any of their possible demerits? If not, consider this: Internet-lecture addiction is an illness that is rife among high school kids now.

Internet-lecture addiction means that some students feel that they can't study or learn unless they take their courses as an e-student through one of these internet course providers. In other words, even the thought of independent study becomes unthinkable to them. If you use internet courses just because you don't want to bother yourself too much with solving problems or if you spend your whole day watching online lectures instead of giving yourself some time to absorb what you have learned, you might as well consider yourself addicted to internet lectures. Apart from the personal effects, this addiction can bring about a certain social problem that we should consider seriously: the crisis of perceived efficacy of regular school classes.

Fewer and fewer students are taking conventional school classes seriously due to the advent of the internet lectures. It depends on the school, of course, but generally it is true that the moral authority of most school classes has been degraded. Students think that watching online lectures is so much more productive and effective that they sometimes ignore their school classes. They even watch internet lectures more seriously through their media players during school classes and do not pay attention to the teacher teaching in the classroom. While attending a regular school class, some even say that at times they would like to fast forward the teacher's lessons like they do with the internet lecture.

What a shame! Of course, it is not only the online lectures that have brought this tragedy, but students themselves have also disregarded their school classes in one way or another. At any rate, however, it is certain that online lectures have encouraged this phenomenon to both accelerate and pervade our society.

Then, are internet courses always good when compared to conventional school classes? With internet courses, it can be much easier to tailor and monitor the individual progress while the regular school classes are more likely to be taught based on the whole group's progress.

However, school classes also have their own merits. First of all, our brains react better to a 'real' voice than to electronic sounds. Also, our eyes get more easily exhausted when we watch a computer monitor than a chalkboard. This exhaustion may eventually lead our brains to become unable to concentrate. Scientists have also shown that the brain activated for conventional classes and that for online lectures work in completely different ways. That means, without a strong will and high level of direct concentration, it is easy for us to be misled or distracted during a lecture.

While we are in class, we are often scolded by our teachers when we become distracted. Then, who plays such a role while we watch an internet lecture? No one, and personal contact and care cannot be replicated electronically. A word of praise from a teacher will motivate a student much more than a fireworks display on a monitor for a few seconds.

This is not to say that we all should stop taking internet lectures. Also, it is not the students who should be blamed for the status crises that our schools currently face. Rather, it is our whole society that should be responsible for that; forcing students to study only the core subjects necessary for the college entrance exam such as Korean, math and English, and to compete with each other day and night for better scores on their exams. No wonder students turn their backs on the older generations and society. To get the authority of our schools back on the right track, the government should find ways to elevate the quality of the public education system. Hopefully, our schools will become the bedrock of our educational system again rather than the shifting sands of politics.

Hong Kil-ju is a senior at the Affiliated High School to the Korea National University of Education.

<Questions>

1. Have you ever used internet lectures? What kind of lecture was most helpful?

2. What do you think the merits and demerits of internet lecture are?

3. Do you think the spread of internet lectures has any relation with the crises of public education?

Few to buy home this year

March 25, 2010 Joongang daily

KCCI study finds that just 1 percent of respondents plan to purchase a house

For the majority of Koreans, owning a home ranks up there on life’s to-do list with getting married and landing a prestigious job, as it’s often considered a measure of wealth and status.

But a survey released by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry yesterday found that just 1 percent of respondents plan to actually purchase a home this year. The chamber asked 1,000 adult residents in Seoul and six other metropolitan cities this month for their opinions on the overall housing industry and their housing preferences.

Only 10 individuals expressed an intent to purchase a house this year, though nearly 400 - or 40 percent - said that they are interested in buying a house but cannot afford to at this time. Roughly 35 percent said they are not interested at all, while 25 percent said they plan to eventually purchase a house at a later date.

“Over the past three years, the annual average volume of home purchases totaled a little over 7 percent of the total number of households,” said Lee Hyun-seok, executive director of the KCCI. “The survey shows that most people now are shying away from buying a house in Korea.”

Lee also noted that many residents are currently delaying their plans to buy homes due to overall challenges in the real estate industry and high costs, which raises concerns that the number of unsold apartments could continue to rise amid weak demand. That, in turn, could lead to more problems for construction companies and financial firms involved in such projects.

Although few people actually plan on buying real estate this year, the perception that owning a house is a lofty goal still prevails. Nearly 82 percent of those surveyed said owning a home is vital, with 88.4 percent of that group saying it provides stability.

The respondents who weren’t as eager about owning a home cited several reasons behind their position. About 42 percent said it’s more important to pursue other things that bring happiness, while 33.1 percent said renting or leasing isn’t an inconvenience. About a quarter of this group said they don’t necessarily view it as a good investment.

The survey also showed that Koreans prefer living in a 30-pyeong (1,067-square-foot) house with three rooms and two bathrooms, while 10.2 percent prefer a 40-pyeong home.

The chamber said that with the changes in the population and the social structure, the preference for large homes is relatively low among families.

<Questions>

1. Do you want to 'buy' house? Or do you prefer any other way ?

2. What type of house do you want to live in? What is the most important factor when you choose the house?

3. What kind of changes can take place in our housing life style? Let's imagine.

Korea stays behind in organ donation

Joongang daily March 22, 2010

 Each day is both a blessing and a curse for Oh Myung-hak.

Oh, a 57-year-old husband and the father of two daughters, is waiting for a new kidney due to chronic renal insufficiency. Oh endures six to seven hours of hemodialysis treatment three times a week for his bad kidneys. Due to diabetes and kidney malfunction, his sight has worsened since 2002, and he is now legally blind.

Oh received a kidney transplant in 1986 from a kidney donated by his father. But since the early 2000s, it started failing him. He has been on the waiting list for a new transplant at Seoul National University Hospital’s Transplant Center since 2004.

The average amount of time a patient spends on a waiting list for a new kidney is around three-and-a-half years, according to the National Medical Center’s latest data.

“It’s hard to carry out a normal life. The only thing I can really do is to wait until someone, unfortunately, is brain-dead,” Oh said.

He added that his wife also suffers from diabetes which makes it hard for them financially.

Despite reports which say that organ donations in Korea are growing, the level of donations per population here is far below the average of most developed countries.

There has been a big jump in the number of people who have signed up to donate organs in recent years, especially last year due to the influence of Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan, who died in February 2008. In 1990, the cardinal promised to donate his organs and followed through upon death.

As of the end of last year, the total number of people who signed up to donate organs reached 206,884, compared to 93,024 in 2008, 55,449 in 2004 and 8,516 in 2001, according to data from the Korean Network for Organ Sharing, or Konos.

Looking at the big picture, however, organ supply is hardly meeting demand. The number of people offering to donate organs in Korea last year was less than 1 percent of the population. An average 817 people die in Korea every year waiting for an organ transplant, according to NMC. Organ donations among brain-dead patients in Korea is 5.3 per million people, while in Spain, the United States and France, the rate is 35.1, 25.5 and 22.2, respectively.

“There has been many media reports boasting that Korea’s organ donation culture has improved greatly, but compared to other developed countries, the scale of Korea’s organ donations is insignificant - only one-eleventh of countries like Spain,” said Park Sung-kwang, a head doctor at the Chonbuk National University Hospital’s organ transplant center. Park said that the key reason for Korea’s low organ donor number is that people looking to become donors need to go through too much red tape.

“In the U.S., they ask you if you want to be registered as an organ donor when you get your driver’s license,” Park said. “It’s very simple. You just sign a form when you receive your license. But in Korea, donors have to actually go to a donation center or a large hospital to register to become donors themselves. They have to be much more proactive.”

Another reason cited by experts is the “time-consuming” process in Korea in judging whether or not a patient is brain-dead.

“On average, it takes about two days in Korean hospitals to finalize a verdict on whether someone is brain-dead or not,” said Kang Hyun-jin, head organ procurement coordinator at the Korea Organ Donation Agency, or KODA.

In Korea, a person needs to undergo multiple brain tests, followed by a final meeting with head doctors of the respective hospital and religious leaders participating in determining whether a patient is brain-dead.

“In countries like Spain and the U.S., this process simply doesn’t exist. With the delayed verdict, many times a patient’s family members change their minds on donating the organs. Also, many patients die during this eval‎uation period, making it impossible for them to donate certain organs,” Kang added. She said that KODA is working on simplifying the process. So far, agreement has been reached on decreasing the number of people in the decision-making process and excluding religious input, she said.

Cultural differences also play a part in the lagging organ donor numbers, experts say. “In countries with high donor ratios, there is no apparent aversion to sticking a knife in a person after death,” said Kang.

Professor Park agrees. “Korea’s overwhelming Confucian take on death, in which deconstructing the body is not seen in a positive light, makes it difficult for many Koreans to apply to be organ donors,” said Park. “Many parents of brain-dead patients say that they want their child to be buried in peace, as a whole person.”

Meanwhile, transplant-hopefuls like Lim Deok-yun, 42, are trying hard to stay active while waiting. Lim has needed a kidney transparent since 2006. Due to diabetes and a failing kidney, he is legally blind. Despite physical obstacles, Lim, a former child actor, finished a 2007 short film and won the director’s grand prize last year at the Persons with Disabilities Film Festival. “Every time the phone rings and it is a call from the hospital, my heart skips a beat. But I have had so many false alarms that I have basically emptied my heart of hope,” he said.

<Questions>

1. Do you know any impressive story about someone who could survive by organ donation?

2. What do you think the main reason why Korea stays behind in organ donation is?

3. Do you have any plan or intention to donate your organ?

[지훈 [St. Paul Phoenix]]

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[박범(Frank)]

긍게.

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