Technology and Education

Q. Do you think it is our job as educationists to increase the capacity of the student to come to grips with this new experience of a new technology?

A. They are totally at grips with it and what we want to give them is some detachment.

--Marshall McLuhan, Education in an Electronic Age,

in The Best of Times/The Worst of Times:

Contemporary Issues in Canadian Education, 1970

 

(As posted by Benjamin Robertson over at Resident Alien)

Wake up and smell the iCoffee

Ending the article - Is Facebook Killing Our Souls?  Shane Hipps writes this...

Now it will be tempting to conclude after all this ranting that I am simply a Luddite, a technophobe bent on the dismantling of all digital technologies. This is not the case. Admittedly, I was hardly even-handed in my observations. However, to herald the virtues of our technology is mostly redundant, it would be like trying to argue the importance of breathing. It’s already here, and the value it adds is self-evident. This is why the technologies are so prevalent: we automatically know their benefits, otherwise we wouldn’t use them. My concern is that our culture seems only capable of seeing the benefit and utterly blind to the liabilities, the inevitable losses certain technologies bring. I have no interest in trying to end or stop such technological innovations; to do so is like trying to resist the wind or the tides. Instead, I want us to understand them with depth. Not with naïve embrace, or fearful rejection.
If we learn to wake up and understand, perhaps we will be able to use them rather than be used by them.

 Neil Postman wrote about the one eyed prophet that could only see one side of the invention.   This summary is how I feel every time I point out how the latest greatest anything might not be such a device of salvation to whatever.

But it still needs to be said.

Why the revolution will not be tweeted.

Continuing a theme here.

Malcolm Gladwell is skeptically that social media is going to change the world.  The types of inspiration and motivation that social media generate are essentially shallow in results.

Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice.

If you want to change the world, you better make some real friends, not Facebook friends.  It's the real friends that you will have some influence over in the long run

(HT to Ben Arment)

So many things to read.

Malcolm Gladwell is becoming one of my favorite authors.   If you haven't read Tipping Point... or his other work, you need to check it out.

Just saw that Adam at The Second Electric has posted a few interview quotes from Gladwell in a Q&A piece at The New Yorker.

I really do think he has some awesome thoughts on things.

On the Internet’s transience:

The essential fact of the internet is that nothing is permanent. AOL was once the king of online—remember? I doubt that anything that is done electronically will facilitate social activism all that much—at least not unless you’ve put a real world structure in place first.

I do love his skeptical nature about technology (good luck finding him writing anything much online)  He just doesn't buy into the hype, yet has an excellent awareness of what is going on.   He's not some cranky old Luddite - he's young and aware that maybe we're being feed a big hard sell on technology.  (my words not even close to his)

On technology’s impotence:

This is what drives me crazy about the digerati. They refuse to accept the fact that there is a class of social problems for which there is no technological solution. Look. Technology is going to solve the energy problem. I’m convinced of it. Technology is going to give me a computer in ten years time that will fly me to the moon. Technology is going to build a car that goes 100 miles to the gallon. But technology does not and cannot change the underlying dynamics of “human” problems: it doesn’t make it easier to love or motivate or dream or convince.

I wish I could spell it out like that.... Isn't that the opposite of ever Apple commercial you've ever seen? (Actually most technology selling commercials)   I think somewhere in there is the baked in truth of what is going wrong with a lot of the big show church stuff...   You can't motivate change with technology... even when you try really hard.

On using Twitter to motivate social activism:

The issue isn’t informing people. It’s organizing people. Twitter is great at the first. But not so great at the second—and Dr. King and his counterparts needed organizations, not communications tools. Remember in the 1960’s you could reliably reach upwards of 95 percent of the black community in urban areas in the South through the church. And there you had their undivided attention for an hour! Who needs Twitter when you have sermons and regular prayer meetings?

I think the thing I notice most in that statement is the difference of information and organization.   I need to think more of ways that different media do this (or don't) 

What the bible says

I've been doing some thinking lately about how different groups (of Christians) can be so close on what they believe and yet be so far apart and argue so much.   There are lots of answers to that question, but part of it comes from how we read the bible and think about inerrancy

Roger Olson starts off a post with similar (but much more eloquent) thoughts.  It focuses on where the bible sits in most people thoughts about how we view God:

I believe in the Bible as God’s Word BECAUSE I believe I encounter Jesus there and am taught by him there.  For me it is the Book of Jesus.  That means it is extremely important, necessary, valuable, indispensable, but not alongside of or even in the same category (being-wise) as Jesus himself.  It is the unique written witness to Jesus and THEREFORE the book of the church.
I suspect this upsets some evangelicals because, even perhaps unconsciously, they believe in Jesus only because and insofar as the Bible contains him.  In other words, functionally, the Bible is above Jesus.

It a good post and a great feed that I have just resently started reading, even thought I have a couple theology textbooks with him as author.

Who's tracking you?

 Kevin Kelly has this article on The Technium: As Much Privacy As You Can Afford

What we call privacy -- the non-disclosure or transmission of information -- is ultimately a matter of economics. To remain hidden in a connected world will cost money. You can always disconnect, but while connected you will be transparent. Under this regime transparency is cheap and ubiquitous, while opacity expensive.
Apparently there is a service that will provide the current location of any cell phone for $95. You give Best411 the phone number you seek and $95 and then they will tell you where that cell phone is located is between 9am and 5pm CST.
How is this possible? Obviously the cell phone company knows because it has to track your cell in order to deliver calls. But how does Best411 know? They claim:

We are a state-licensed private investigative agency and, as such, have access to many data bases that the general public is not permitted to access.

That doesn't really explain the deal, or the legality, or the process. My immediate question is: Why does it cost so much? Why $95? Technologically this is a trivial query. It's real cost is about zero. I wonder who or what is setting the price?
Second question: If I were willing to pay $100 could I prevent Best411 from tracking me? How much would it cost to have my location "unlisted"?
I am really asking the larger question of how expensive will it become to be unlocateble in the location-aware mobile future?

 Makes you think who controls you data etc. and who has access to it when they want it.

Malcolm Gladwell on social media

Over Christmas I read Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point.  (I read it quickly while I was at my in-laws out west and didn't really make any notes, so I actually might get it out of the library again this weekend)  It is about how ideas spread and how people are influenced.

This past week as I was reading dead tree version of the Globe and Mail, I came across this Q&A article in which he answers some questions about the latest social media.  There were a few quotes I thought were interesting

"People aren't spreading ideas on Twitter, they're spreading observations."

I also like his thoughts on all the people that are ready to crown Twitter and Facebook social media champs.

"[The Internet] likes nothing more than to build someone up only to topple them.  Who has an AOL account these days? Not that long ago, AOL was the single most powerful player on the Internet.  Who has a MySpace account these days?  MySpace sold fro billions of dollars not that long ago.  I'm very reluctant to crown Facebook king of the future"

He also has some great thoughts on how social media can not build the same strength to organizations the way face to face contact can.... which I think I'll save for another post

Remembering Dan Fisher

I got news today that one of the best teachers I ever had has passed away.  We knew him as Dan Fisher, he was Daniel Fish in the non broadcasting world.  (try saying Dan Fish with the news, and the 'with' can come out funny, that why he changed it for radio)  The Waterloo Record has his memorial write up.  As much as death happens, you're never quite ready for it.  I sort of regret not talking to him more the last time I saw him at a get together of a bunch of my class mates a few years ago.   He will be missed by a lot of people

I had Dan Fisher as an instructor at Conestoga College.  He was the teacher of the radio lab, training of all the on air elements of a radio station.  He was a good teacher, both an encourager, but also not one to soften his evaluation.  In a way I'm glad I didn't have to work for him in radio, because I still remember some of my classmates who got so upset about the review he gave of their on-air abilities.  Some would say he had favourites, I think he had an ear for talent or at least potential, and knowing what the broadcast world was going to be like, pushed us and didn't coddle.  I think he thought that if someone was going to quit because they were harshly evaluated it was better to see them quit in their first year of school, before the tried to get jobs in the industry.  I wonder what it would have been like to have him as a PD or GM.... when money and rating were on the line.

If I was ever any good at announcing, I think I own some of it to him.   He encouraged me and helped me to be good at what I do (did).  He was a fun guy and actually cared about his students.   I'm sure there will be a lot of Conestoga BRT students that will miss him like I do.   He was a good man.

Being Easter weekend, I have to pause in thinking about how good he was, and wonder did he know Jesus?  He was involved in church, but I don't know what his deep faith thoughts were.   It make me sad to not know.   I hope that Dan Fish loved Jesus and someday I will see him again.   To hear his laugh and see his smile would make me happy.   I pray that I do again.

Faking their fans

Wrestling is so fake that they can even fake crazy fans and make it seem believable.

I don't know why but this made me laugh.



I know it's fake.... but oh if it was real that kid was going to get pounded
(if your new here, you will likely never ever see another WWF clip again.)

Crazy parents

The world is just too scared.   People are scared of shadows and have convinced themselves that the world isn't safe for anyone.

Today I ready this article by Lenore Skenazy over at ParentDish.com the basic story is this

The mother was at the library with her 5-year-old, the library where they go every week, in Rochester, New York....  They had only a few minutes before they had to leave to pick up Daughter #2 (age 3), giving the mom just enough time to run upstairs from the children's room to the adult room to check out her book..... [the mother retelling here story] "So I asked my daughter, 'Do you want to come with me or wait here for a few minutes?' 'Wait.' So I told the librarian, 'I'll be right back.' And the librarian said, 'Well ... okay. But I must warn you: the same dangers that are out on the street are here in the library.'"

I read the story and thought, wow people can be really reactionary.   I was mostly thinking about the crazy response from the librarian... "the same danger that are out on the street are here in the library"    Really?  So the same things that happen in the street happen daily in the library?!?
Now first I don't think the street is as dangerous as the nervous hoards would like you to think.  I'm not crazy I know stuff goes down.... In big cities like New York there are even shootings on the street, but not daily, not often or else you would never see people on the streets of New York.
But when was the last time there was a shooting in a library?   
How about a mugging?
Knife fight?
And this is not the dark alley version of a library, this is one that the family visits weekly.


So anyway.... I stopped my thought with the idea of the crazy librarian.....  


But then I started reading the comments......  so many of them all crazy parents aggreeing whole heartedly with the librarian.   "Never leave a 5 year old alone....not even for 5 seconds"    bla bla bla..... "What kind of a bad parent is she.


I couldn't believe my eyes.   She was going to run upstairs and check out a book.    The reaction was like she was leaving her infant in a den of lions.    People chill.   Nothing is going to happen.


Maybe I'm wrong...tell me so.   I'm not venturing back into the comment forum there, but would love to discuss it with anyone here.

Update:

 Lenore has posted some thoughts on the response on her blog... Free Range Kids.
It's amazing how readership comments differ.....wow