Don’t get me wrong, I love technology. Right now I sit on my couch with my laptop connected wirelessly to the Internet as I watch football on my flat-screen TV with digital cable. Life is good. However, this technological bliss didn’t come without its struggles; the cable and internet are only set-up after 3 missed appointments by Comcast, my wireless internet only works after 2 hours on the phone with a guy named Sam who sounded like Apu from the Simpsons, and the eternal struggle to figure out how to use my new Macbook after using a pc for ten years. Technology is great, but it’s also frustrating.
I think though, that technology is made unnecessarily complex. This becomes clear in the simple example of my mentor teacher’s struggles to utilize technology in the classroom. What he wants is to set up something like ctools for his English classes. He’s tried out Google groups, Ann Arbor Public school’s moodle, and his own website through AAPS. I showed him how to set up his own wikispace and blog. Simply put, he’s floating in the sea of technology, able to keep his head above the water, but unable to swim with skill among the waves.
Beginning this semester, I feel the same way. I have a new Laptop, and a new camera, but the simple fact is that I barely know how to use them. To be honest, I’m still trying to figure out ctools, how to find my financial information on Michigan’s website, and how to make it so that I just have one email account. Classmates have said I’m good with technology; I can put together a wiki quickly, edit decent movie, and put pictures on my blog. But there is so much more that I know I could do. This week I’m gong to attempt to learn how to take pictures and put together a clip show. The sad fact is that this is going to take me a long time to figure out, and I’ll probably do it with less skill than if I were given specific instruction. It will be but another wave I learn how to ride for a bit before it breaks in the ocean of technology.
I know that my masters isn’t in technology, or even technology education, so there’s no real reason to have a more focused approach to technology. But given the sheer dependence of the program on different tools of technology, given the fact that they’ve given us such great technology, I wish we’d have the opportunity to really learn the ins and outs of what we have. Or maybe we could even simplify, try one thing at a time. Get used to the Macbook, then learn how to use the camera, then combine the two.
In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Phaedrus speaks of the importance of quality in a world obsessed with quantity. I think that the SMAC program might benefit if it were to take a moment to step back from the struggle for technological quantity, and focus on the cultivation of students who demonstrate technological quality.
1 comment:
Jon,
I feel like I can relate to several comments on your recent blog entry. First of all, I as well had to waste an entire day for Comcast to set up my wireless/cable, given their convenient appointment of between 11am-8pm. It was painfully irritating. Secondly, I feel somewhat overwhelmed with the technology given to us this year. I have been a strict PC user and now my world is turned upside down with the Macbook. It took me almost 45 minutes to learn how to extend the duration of a clip on iMovie to make our slideshow. Basic point: it's a blessing and a curse to have such great technology at our fingertips, given to us for free, but also an inconvenience to learn an entirely different operating system and list of programs as well. I hope with the more we use the technology this year, the easier it will be to learn it. Now I understand how some teachers feel when new computers or whiteboards are given to them with no prior use of technology in the classroom.
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