1 What are the oldest tools people still use even in the information age we live today?
2 What tools do you use in the classroom, in your kitchen? What operations are performed with them?
3 Make up a list of tools people can use for different kinds of communication.
4 Read the text.
Prehistory of Technology
Technology is nothing more than the use of tools. When you use a screwdriver, a hammer, or an axe, you are using technology just as much as when you use an automobile, a television set, or a computer.
We often think of technology as a human invention. Stone tools found by archeologists show that our ape-like ancestors were already putting technology to use. Using tools may have helped them to transform into human beings.
Most of the tools invented have helped our bodies rather than our minds. They help us lift, move, cut and shape. Only quite recently we have developed tools to help our minds as well. The tools of communication, from pencil and paper to television, were designed to serve our minds. These devices transmit information or preserve it but they do not modify it. With time people’s interest went to the machines that classify and modify information. So we may say that the computers and calculators are mind tools. The widespread use of machines for information processing is a modern development.
Answer the questions:
1 What is the difference between body and mind tools?
2 What do we mean by classification and modification of information?
3 What machines process information and in what way?