Technology, man!

I actually very much enjoyed reading The Victorian Internet and watching The Day the Universe Changed. Liking both of those things made me feel quite nerdy, but the way technology shapes our lives and our thought process has been an interest of mine for a while. In college, I was in a program called “Media, Self, and Society” in which we studied the relationship between technology and people through various lenses. Most of the people in that program were journalism and business majors (so the program made sense with their major), and then there I was as the lone education major. But it was so interesting!!! Anyway…

I watched The Day the Universe Changed with my boyfriend, who was pretty disgruntled that I was making him watch a boring old show instead of The Office, but by the end we were both paying attention and sheepishly admitting we were interested. We were both disappointed, though, that they jumped straight from the filing system to computers! I guess they only had limited time and covering everything would have taken a lot more than 45 minutes.

I’m pretty enthralled with the idea that the use of paper in society reshaped the way our memory works. Writing things down is crucial to my learning process (in class, I’m always writing down the conversations we have while we’re having them because even though I’ll never look at those notes again, writing it helps it stay in my mind better). Because I know writing is so important to my learning process, I design my lessons in a way that students get a chance to write down something concrete we’ve talked about (usually in an interactive notebook). During a recent post-observation conference, though, as I explained that to my AP, I realized that that’s not really fair of me to assume that my students need that opportunity to write like I do. I’d argue that we can’t even consider ourselves a print society anymore, we’re more a digital society, and because of that, my students’ learning processes might be different from mine. It might be more appropriate to tell them to create their own “study guide” in any form they want. As long as the ideas are represented, the format should be what makes the most sense to them.

Something from Victorian Internet that I keep thinking about are the examples they gave of people who couldn’t grasp what sending a telegraph really meant (the lady who didn’t think the message was from her son because it wasn’t his handwriting, etc). The way we learn to use technologies is dependent on their role in our lives. Texting has been fully integrated in society for many years now, but texting will always mean something different to our students than it does to their grandparents. There’s a huge difference in learning to use something because that’s the way it’s always been and learning to use something because it’s the new direction of communication. I think about this when I watch my students navigate their Chromebooks at the start of the year. It’s very obvious when a student has had exposure to some type of device before compared to the students who have never had that exposure. The Internet and computers are designed to be user friendly, and the ones who have computer access at home understand that. They read error messages as they come up and act accordingly. They browse the toolbar on Google Slides to see how they can solve the problem of not being to type on the slide. Students who don’t have computer exposure outside of school stop in their tracks when any type of message pops up on their screen, even if it’s a “Welcome to Google Classroom! Press any key to continue” type of message and panic that they might have done something wrong. I think this very much reflects Vygotsky’s Mind in Society theory that the physical tools are one of the first steps in putting together meaningful thought.

I’m excited that we’re getting more into the technology stuff now in class! Can’t wait to start implementing new tools that align with my learning goals.