Some thoughts on the Cambridge Forum
O’Donnell’s discussion of technology enabling us to broaden communities is one that has resonated with me but has also caused me to pause. Technology throughout history has enabled the broadening of our communities and will continue to do so. Whether it has been print with the development of the printing press or the world wide web of today O’Donnell assures us that this has always been the case. I agree that text technology, especially that of today, does allow us to broaden our communities but it is important to note that the broadcast does not mention that technology has strengthened or deepened these communities. This is an important distinction to make, especially in the world we live in today. It still remains extremely important to make those face to face connections to deepen and strengthen our communities. We must also be aware that while many of us use social media tools like Twitter to broaden our connections we generally only connect with those that have similar opinions or attitudes as we do. While this enables one to reach a broader community it does not necessarily mean we have reached a diversified community. While I do agree that technology enables us to broaden communities we need to be careful by being satisfied with broadening communities but we also need to ensure we strengthen communities and I’m not sure our current technology allows us to do this.
We also need to be very purposeful about the technology we use or don’t use. While many see a new technology and rush to embrace and adopt the new technology, the question of what we lose was raised. This is where it becomes imperative that we are deliberate about which technology we adopt as O’Donnell and Engell both discuss we may lose something. I appreciate the fact that I can read online, or access any amount of information and books online but I would hate for this to replace the feel of actually reading a book. I also feel that doing research online, while valuable, does not replace the feel and aura of going to a library to do research. We are already beginning to see the demise of handwriting as typing is quickly becoming more common in schools and yet studies show that the act of putting pen to paper has tremendous benefit as well. We need to be very conscious of the choices we make moving forward and we will need to make decisions about what we wish to keep, what we value and what we are willing to let go of as we move forward with technology.
The idea of some of the changes we are seeing due to technology merely being part of change is also an interesting one to digest. Many, in education, are either euphoric about the changes technology can bring about or their are those who think technology will ruin everything that is good in education. I certainly appreciated both Engell and O’Donnell letting us know that we are not standing on the precipice of either a new era or the destruction of education. What we are seeing is merely the changes that occur with the advancement of technology. These changes have and will always occur as technology changes and we are merely going through the same processes that we have gone through before.
Regardless of when this was recorded I think it can apply to education today. We need to move forward, cautiously, deliberately, purposefully and with eyes wide open to what we leave behind and how to ensure we continue to work on deepening connections as we embrace technology.
Sources:
Engell J. & O’Donnell J. (1999). From Papyrus to Cyberspace. [Audio File]. Cambridge Forums.
Chris
I appreciate your distinction between technology that can broaden communities and technology that can strengthen or deepen communities. Technology, text or cyber, allows communities access to a vast variety of resources and information that allows for a broad grasp on many different things. It allows a wide variety of people to connect through text or online that share similar interests or concerns in order to strengthen the knowledge surrounding a common topic. To use a social media example, if I may, students are now able to connect with a wide variety of their peers from around the world (or just from around their school) to broaden their social circles and allow instant access to conversations and information.
What is not being emphasized is the need for communities to strengthen and deepen connections between information or members of a community. Unless a topic is approached with veracity by a group of people, conversations and information tend to be at the surface. Yes, there are articles and journals available in text and online that go into topics at a very deep level, but the conversations that result from these topics are limited to a/synchronous modalities without the impact of a hard and true debate. As you said, the online or text capabilities of technology will never outweigh the feeling of flipping the pages of a book.
Chris,
I’m glad you raised the point that we need to be purposeful about our use of technology. As you mentioned in your post, it seems like there is a massive rush to get the latest and greatest thing. I see that happening yet again with the release of the Apple Watch. People once again were willing to wait hours upon hours to get their hands on Apple’s latest and greatest item. What does this say about our society? Are we willing to throw away what we have for the latest piece of technology?
I see this happening quite a bit in the classroom. Students, especially those in high school, come to class with the latest smartphone in their pockets. I remember when the iPhone 6/6 plus was released. Students, who previously had the iPhone 5, came into class a few days after it was released with a brand new iPhone 6. It seems that some people absolutely need the latest technology available. It’s sad that the iPhone 5, which was released 2 years or so prior was now “obsolete”.
The fact that technology does not necessarily strengthen communities was another excellent point raised in your post. We are in an age where we can talk to someone across the world in a matter of seconds but it doesn’t mean we are a stronger community because of it. This translates to the classroom as well. Many students have access to technology but it doesn’t seem to strengthen their connection to those they communicate with. I hope, as you mentioned, that we continue to work on deepening connections as we move forward with technology.
Sean
The augmentation of the process of writing with the help of technology (Englelbart, 1963) undoubtedly changes habits that have been around for many years and may not be welcome by our culture or our individual feelings for some time. Your comment “I appreciate the fact that I can read online, or access any amount of information and books online but I would hate for this to replace the feel of actually reading a book.” Is a feeling that is shared by many of us as we observe the changes in the ways knowledge is accessible and compare modern options to the methods that we are accustomed to retrieve information. The nostalgia of feeling and touching a “real” book is a phenomenon that is not shared across all generations. Likewise, the “aura of going to the library to do research” is a personal feeling that some experience which does not necessarily reflect the quality research. Personally, I enjoy research on the computer and as I do not enjoy the smell of old books in the library, but I still do part of my research at the library because not all publications are available online. This may change in the future, but the decision about the books that enter the electronic sphere are unfortunately tightly controlled by the elite and perhaps even more so than the decisions about the information that remains in the physical library for the declining number of individuals who take the time to go there. Convenience and the perceived control and assisted linkage of ideas enabled by hypertext (Bolter, 2001) influences many to embrace digital books and digital research if they do not lament the sensations that accompany the traditional ways of research. Our methods of exploring knowledge evolve and future generations will likely reminisce about scrolling the simple iPad when they are presented (for example) with a virtual computer that they cannot touch.
Bolter, J.D. (2001). Writing Space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print. Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 32-46, 77-98.
Englebart, Douglas. (1963). “A conceptual framework for the augmentation of man’s intellect.” In Hawerton, P.W. and Weeks, D.C. (Eds), Vistas in information handling, Volume I: The augmentation of man’s intellect by machine. Washington, DC: Spartan Books. Available (as “Augmentation of human intellect: A conceptual framework”):
http://web.archive.org/web/20080331110322/http://www.bootstrap.org/augdocs/friedewald030402/augmentinghumanintellect/ahi62index.html