Technology need not be some abstract construct. It need not be some terrifying futuristic robotic dystopia. Technology and the tools it enables: Internet, digital media, social networks can be and should be reflections. Not mere reflections of what we do, but who we are. The sooner we begin to understand that technology is a bridge that links minds-to-minds, thoughts-to-thoughts dreams-to-dreams the sooner we can stop being so afraid of it and begin to harness the power it affords us to be collectively human.
For so long humanity has demanded voices for us all, and not withstanding the digital divide, we now (at least those of us living in the first world) all have that voice. Perhaps the understanding that we can now connect our fears and insecurities as well as our passions and talents to others is what is so frightening for people. Perhaps the realization that students can now voice their disinterest in what we do, is why so many people are fearful of jumping into the digital age.
I feel like a broken record, a blogger who simply writes the same posts over and over. I don’t know what more to say than what I feel to be true. I get this sense of excitement every time I open the ole WordPress editor, or Youtube upload page, or send a photo out to Instagram. Every time I participate in this upload culture, I feel lighter and more free than I did before I shared a piece of my brain, my soul with some vague fluctuating audience that may or may not be there.
There was no point to this post other than to say- it is not the quest for perfection in some finite permanent cypespace that should guide how we act online but rather the ephemeral, fleeting, sharing of random tidbits of who we are into the impermanent flux of of the Internet. If even one person connects to, relates to and/or understanding the essence of what I have said here, something magical has happened. Something organically and authentically human. The technology has become moot and the only thing left is you and me.
Sounds like the basis for a TEDx talk. You need a bigger stage to share this message.
I think being part of the ‘upload culture’ — creation, in a digital form — is not the same as making use of technology. As far as newer generations are concerned, technology is completely natural: everyone uses Facebook, for example. But blogging is different: it requires you to create and to share, which has never been the role of more than a small proportion of the people in the world.
Maybe older generations have a resistance to technology, particularly in educational or literary spheres, where there is a greater loyalty to tradition and inherited practices. But again members of those generations can be ‘creators’, can stage plays, can write opinions for local papers, through the traditional means of expression.
I feel you sometimes make a bit of a straw man out of the fear of change and technology. Technology (and here I mean in the first sense the internet) is, above all, an expedient, a marvellous new tool that can make everything creative cheaper and easier and faster and far more international. But you still have to be a ‘creator’ to want to tap into this world of possibility.
Maybe, at least when it comes to classrooms, we should return to the basics: teach students to be creators, thinkers, imaginers, before we give them the tools to reach out. Because blogs are out there, social networks are out there, youtube is out there — anyone with daily access to a computer has awareness of these. But by and large our fast-paced world is swallowing up the sort of investments of time that letter-writing, in a bygone age, or hours of daily piano practice, demanded. It is ironic to me that the internet, the greatest tool for individualism ever created, has paradoxically made us all far more similar.
Thanks “Guest” you make some great points. I know I sometimes tend to simplify the issues. I just sat down to ramble off some thoughts, so I appreciate you grounding me a bit. I agree that perhaps before we jump to sharing we need spend sometime with the learning of creation. But it is a bit of a chicken and egg situation, because for some just getting stuff out there can be very motivational.
I know growing up you always had to wait to be noticed, or signed or approved of to be prove you had a voice. Get published, get signed. It felt that if you weren’t a professional you couldn’t write books, or play music or make art, but blogs and other tools give us all a platform. Sometimes students may need a platform to jump from.
I will sleep on your thoughts. Thanks for shifting my thinking.
I can appreciate the value in “greater loyalty to tradition and inherited practices. ” but maybe it is these very loyalties that we are afraid to give up. I am talking in circles, because I agree that we need to focus how to create creators before sharing.
I guess as an English (Language Arts) teacher I have this Dead Poet Society naiveté that we are all capable of being creative. The beauty of the Internet and digital tools, for me, is that it allows us all access to tools and audience.
The content may not be of the best quality, but the Internet has given the amateur a connection to an audience. I see power in this. We are now all privy to the process of creation, not only to the final products in museums and libraries. Maybe a few years down the line we can combine the “investments of time” with the loose access to each other for a true revolution of how we connect to each other and the re-shaping of society. How is that for hyperbole!
__________________________
Time comes into it.
Say it. Say it.
The universe is made of stories,
not of atoms.
— muriel rukeyser
Interesting comments on both sides. After Saturday’s workshop I could not wait to get home and blog about it (I have about 5 other blog posts in my head waiting their turn). As I was blogging, I was amazed at how much time I was taking to process my thoughts and how I had to revisit the ideas to get them down. I am a long letter writer and now a longish e-mail writer. I think that we definitely need to help students take time to frame their ideas and publish them carefully, however, I have to admit that I am thinking about things more deeply at times now because I want to blog about them.
Can’t tell you how happy comments like this make me, “I am thinking about things more deeply at times now because I want to blog about them.”
The hope is that we can get most people in our community to think this way. We want students and teachers to think more and blogging as you have said is one path in that direction.
Hi Jabiz, I love your advocacy for self expression. I admit to being both exhilarated and fearful of exposing myself publicly. I think the exhilaration wins though. I am loving getting in touch with colleagues in NZ who are also sharing new apps and cool ways to do stuff, makes the world feel smaller. Thanks for your passion and commitment to opening up the digital world, I am grateful for the opportunity to kepp learning and playing, so much more fun than report writing.