Technology as a gerund

I was thinking about the use of the term  technology  in its many capacities -- as a noun, as a verb, as an adjective.  If technology is the "most important conversation of our time" according to Dr. Hlynka, I suggest we learn to view the term in its different dimensions.  While reading an article for another course (or maybe in a Wikipedia item) I came across the term 'learning as a gerund'.  That was an aha moment  -- take a noun and transform it into a non-finite verb form by adding 'ing' to the end of the word.  Voila!   A gerund.  Another way of looking at it is to think of a gerund being a word that can stand for a noun or verb.  So I'll take it one step further and say that we can look at the term technology as a noun, a verb, or an adjective. And then, if it is extended to its limits, it can be an adverb as well.  But "technologizing" is a strange word, I don't want to actually use it in a conversation or an article, and the spell checker doesn't like it...

This is not intended to be a silly discourse on the use of a particular word in multiple ways.  We continued to talk last week about information technology, where the information IS the technology, and started thinking about communications technology in the same way.  The 1987 quote by Henchley picked up on the idea of the transformative power of modern technology.  Fourteen years later this change is still moving forward to some point that keeps disappearing on the far horizon. The ideas of information and communication are now combined in the acronym ICT (Information Communication Technology) and John Finch asked us to be critical, responsible, ethical and creative in what we choose and use.  It's a tall order when everything is changing so quickly.

And I would also argue that it isn't just MODERN technology that has changed how and what we do -- the printing press is a form of technology that drove much of the Reformation in Europe more than 400 years ago.  Giving people inexpensive writing devices did it as well.  Paper is lightweight and transportable.  Books changed how humans thought, learned, and developed.  Having access to books, or denying access to books, is hugely political and it gave power to people who had no real power, couldn't vote unless they were wealthy, and didn't have access to the learning or knowledge tools of the day.  Watching the Berlin Wall come down is a moment that is seared in my brain.  Part of the force behind that event is the knowledge that was enabled by communication technology.  The military government of Egypt shut down the Twitter site in the face of the current public protests this week.

All technology comes with a cost, a force that drives it forward, and a power that allows us to change how we think and learn.  So although the term can be used in so many different ways, there is also the potential in information communication technology that has the ability to drive more political change. 

The fragility of memory

The phrase "memory is fragile" leapt out at me today when the class was reviewing the UNESCO Memory of the World project.  This form of information gathering and storage could become one of the truest, most ethical, most connected and informative uses of technology:  To guard against a "collective amnesia"; to ensure that somewhere, in lieu of someone whose memory is indeed fragile, collective knowledge and memory is stored to ensure truth.

 Memory is another moving target ... sometimes we have flashes; sometimes not.  Relying only on our memory can be fragile, it can leave us without the knowledge we need to move forward.  It can be suspect.  Maybe a failing technological system can be suspect as well, and the ability to change what I have said or written in this blog means I can constantly revise what I remember(ed), or what I did, or what I said.  Where's the proof that it wasn't different?

I have a memory of one of the first films I remember seeing.  I didn't have a lot of exposure to commercial films or movies in my youth, as movies were deemed to be "bad" for us.  But this was something we saw in school, and the story and action are still in my memory, although I've forgotten the teacher who showed it, and what we were supposed to learn from it.  Memory is fragile, at times it fails, at times it creeps back in.  I hadn't thought about this film until I saw the name 'Norman McLaren' in our first class.  I now have a different understanding about how McLaren's pioneering works and spirit help to develop the NFB and Canada's reputation in certain kinds of film production.

Watch Neighbours...
Neighbours by Norman McLaren

One of the excellent possible uses of technology, in all its splendour, will be to use it to remind ourselves and our students that we are not the only voices saying something, or remembering something, and we can use different media/technologies to track information, to gather it, and to remind ourselves when human memories fail.  

What we see...

...is what we get?

Much of the media we have been talking about, looking at, thinking about, is visual.  As Jess S. said in her blog, the students in her class seemed to quieten down only when a "video" was playing in front of them.  The power point errors last week were certainly humorous, and what we saw highlighted the point that it's easy to make "crap" and put it in front of people.  The thought provoking part of this course is that I will learn to assess the different sources of information, the presentation of the information, and a way to make it into more than an attention-grabbing device.

The kids in the series Growing_Up_Online were enabled in their use of technology and its wonders by adults (teachers, parents, school principals) who provided the expensive equipment, who didn't put limits on its use, and who seemed to think it was "normal" to be that focused on a world that isn't real.  Of course we need to use online media -- our lives have been transformed by the appearance and development of the great variety of online resources.  We have access to so much more information than ever before.  But what use is it to know about something if it isn't put into context?  And that's where the adult engagement can come into play -- teachers can certainly use the medium of technology to deliver new AND exciting teaching, and consequently learning, to their students.  The attitude of the teacher will transmit to the students.  Most of the instructors in the navy training film dismissed the medium immediately, and thought it could do its work (magic) without their involvement.

It's the engagement of the teacher in the process that is important.  Delivering the message without engaging in its meaning is a waste of time.  And guiding our students to move it past a simple bit of "fun" is what will be the work.  Once we are engaged in the idea, the content is so much more meaningful and deliberate.  Motivating our children, our students, any learners in a learning experience, is what is going to provide the engagement.  Using technology has its rewards, and certainly grabs the attention of almost any learner, but allowing it to get ahead of us, by not monitoring it or understanding its power, means it could be useless in terms of delivering learning.    And we have to do more than manage it -- according to the definition developed by the AECT (Association for Educational Communications and Technology) in 1994, evaluation is important.  In 2008, the use of the word "ethical" was added to assist educators with developing a framework for the use of technology in educational experiences.

What you see ... is it what you get?  Or do we have to take it a step further?  Is it more?

conTEXTual

I think we need to be more adept in how we understand the various media/mediums we are hoping to use in the classroom.  Spelling is just as important as ever to me, because it conveys a meaning, but does my 13 year old student, who is texting whenever possible, even care about it?  Is "texting" even a word? 

It will be intriguing to think about the phrase "the medium is the message".  Isn't the context of what we are saying and doing important?  Does the medium influence what and how we say something?  Courtney Love has to go to court on defamation charges because of her use of "Twitter"/tweets to post disparaging comments.  "You are what you email" is the headline of a Montreal Gazette article posted on December 26, 2010.

Is the context affected by the medium?

Vortices

I love technology.  I think it is one of the major advancements of the 21st century.  It can motivate us, it can recharge us, it can provide ways of communicating that my grandparents only dreamed about.  If they even thought about it all.  They were probably figuring out how to keep their well flowing, or how to feed their family, or how to survive the flooding of the Assiniboine River during their first year in Canada, in 1925.

I think they felt like they had fallen into a vortex. They left Russia after the Revolution. They gave up their lives of privilege and wealth (the Revolution had taken it away from them anyway) and came to Manitoba in the middle of the winter.  January to be exact.  They spent their remaining money (hidden in a well from the bandits in Russia) on seed, and the Assiniboine immediately flooded and all was swept away.   They waited months, even a year, for some way to communicate with loved ones who remained behind.They chose freedom over tyranny.  

For some people, technology and its constant of change is a tyranny.  It requires us to understand the add-ons, the virus protection, firewalls, wireless versus wired, new software, so many words and meanings that they have created a huge whirlpool in the psyche of many.   What is the best choice?  Who can help with questions?  Does technology have anything to do with real lives, with families, with teaching, with artistic endeavours?  How can we understand this ongoing change?  It always seems to speed up.

The analogy of a whirlpool, the speed, the danger, the energy, is a symbol that resonates with me.  What I need to do is understand the energy, and harness it to a useful purpose.