Fri 11AM sections- Xplug and forgetting

This week, before the lecture by Kelly Dobson, Anna (and the readings) discussed the notion of remembering and forgetting: a question that has been brought up again and again in relation to new media. Interestingly enough, I also read an article for my French class discussing the same subject. Thus, it is clear that the phenomenon is widespread- there is no need to remember information anymore. Anna’s example of a USB drive, a flash drive simply the size of our thumb, being able to hold such vast information is important to the discussion of forgetting. If you put all of your important files on your flash drive, you don’t need to remember where they are stored on your computer or what you did with the hard copy. Furthermore, the Internet clearly helps us remember things and forget everything from small bits of trivial information to the biggest ideas in history (everything is basically on Wikipedia).
I want to discuss the XPlug and how it exemplified the idea of forgetting. Looking through the XPlay, I saw many things I have seen before in a wide variety of courses. This was a simple program that I could look through and draw information on film, history, art, poetry, war, and others. I had already learned many of the things covered by the program in school, but the program made me think about if I actually needed to remember them. I could simple stick that program on a flash drive and have the information in front of me almost momentarily. This made me think about modern learning as a whole. I won’t be in section tomorrow, but I think it would be interesting to discuss how new media changes or should change the way we learn. With information so available and accessible, is it necessary to learn vast amounts of facts? Or, is it simply enough to learn the best way to access information when you need it?