The world is flat. No, the world is round. No, actually the world is only one thing, changing. And, depending on your outlook, this fact clearly divides you into one of two categories: You are either enthusiastic about change and embrace it like you’re hugging your child after their first day of school, or you are worried about change so you avoid thinking about it like a bump under your left armpit. Don’t tell me you’re on both sides; deep down you know where you stand. So which side of the fence are you on?
Me, I’m a hugger. I possess abnormally long skinny arms, but I can hug with a strength that may surprise you. This ability to embrace is a particular asset in my classroom… with technology. Even as a naïve student teacher in Mrs. Labelle’s grade three class, I embraced technology in my lessons because I believed that technology could act as a unique window to learning (Roberts, 2005). And though the most advanced technology in her class was an old tank of an overhead transparency projector; I stood over that hot, metal box for part of every lesson I nervously taught that fall.
This September past (seven years later), I made the decision to not sign-out an overhead for the school year. I realized that I wasn’t using one in my lessons and the bulky machine took up a lot of space. So, did I get a fancy new multimedia projector installed? No, I wish. I rolled in the single multimedia projector cart I share with my entire department, every time I wanted to access Youtube, a PowerPoint or a website of interest. I continue to embrace technology, despite its sometimes difficult terms. This is because of what futurist David Houle suggests, that we live in a new “shift age” where the speed of change in information and technology is constant (2009). I see this when browser bookmarks made for my courses one semester have become broken links by the next. I’ve learned to accept this, as the way we access information has undeniably changed.
Consider Wikipedia; launched earlier this decade, the English version of this free, online encyclopedia has 12,965,780 registered users (nearly a third the population of Canada). Now consider the fact that there is no one author, no one authority. When Stephen Colbert, tongue in cheek, said of Wikipedia, "What we're doing is bringing democracy to knowledge" (2006), his words were satirical but also accurate. After hundreds of years of patronizing, theoretically democratic societies, wikis are finally where the people truly rule a domain in practice. Certainly, the people who contribute to Wikipedia are not experts, but only statements that can be verified by other published sources are allowed to remain on the website in the long-term. Lies, jokes, and propaganda are posted on Wikipedia everyday and also removed, because it is the responsibility of the users to challenge and remove content that cannot be verified.
Some people think Wikipedia is worse than toilet paper because it lacks an author in the traditional sense, but I have to wonder. Which text is more accurate: a traditionally published text from twenty years ago, or an online text that has been edited thousands of times? The intelligent response is that neither text is necessarily more accurate. Again it is the responsibility of the reader to assess a source for credibility, accuracy, reasonableness, and support of all claims (Harris, 2007). Aren’t those the very skills being honed by the users of wikis?
‘Wikiality’, another phrase coined by Colbert as, a reality where, if the majority agrees with a notion, it becomes the truth (2006), is not something that makes me jump ship from being an embracer of change, to becoming a worrier. An understanding of reality based on popular opinion is how the world has always operated, just not quite so quickly and democratically. Remember, the world is flat. No, the world is round.
References
Colbert, S. (Artist). (2006). The Word: wikiality. [Web]. Retrieved from http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/72347/july-31-2006/the-word---wikiality
Harris, R. (2007, June, 15). Evaluating internet research sources. Retrieved from http://www.virtualsalt.com/evalu8it.htm
Houle, D. (2009, November 18). Speed of change. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkPEOXyO42A&feature=related
Roberts, G.R. (2005). Educating the net generation (Technology Expectations of the Net Generation), Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/educatingthenetgen/ doi: 0-9672853-2-1
Very interesting post Britt. I like the fact that you are taking a stand and embracing change. In this ever moving ever changing digital age, I think it is nice to know that there are some educators that are not only willing to adjust with the times. As a fellow educator you and I both know that many educators resist all of these technology changes because it takes them out of their comfort zone. I for one am one of those that does straddle the fence. I enjoy the many benefits that an LCD projector adds to me teaching a lesson but I don't necessarily feel as though Youtube.com can help me teach a lesson better than what I have in my lesson plans. I guess there is no right or wrong answer here but it is certainly a conversation piece among educators that I work with.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your introduction about which side of the fence you are on with all the technology changes and your introduction intrigued me as to where you were going next. I am currently looking to use a multimedia projector device for my fist time for our EDU 590 assignment and I too am embracing this change. I hope my students will welcome this creativity. I thought your comparison of Wikipedia to an outdated text was a great analogy to highlight that both can have inaccuracies. I am drawing a conclusion that the answer to questions depends on which source you ask. (I.e. Is the world round?)
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