A quite inspiring video on the uses of technology for teaching - focused on students, but considering that they are the next generation of workers...it's also incredibly relevant for workforce learning and development.
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Saturday, 8 December 2007
Saturday, 27 October 2007
Communities will out
A couple of things this week have reminded me just how quickly technology is adopted and begins to shape our lives. One of Russell Brand's Ponderland rants, this one on science and technology, reminded me of the days before mobile phones, when we had to arrange to meet our friends at pre arranged times and places - if they weren't there, we just had to go home! This was only about 10 years ago! According to the CIA World Factbook (cited in Wikipedia), several countries, including the UK, now have more mobile phones than people! The use of mobile phones has grown, not because they are clever, and have many functions, but because we are social animals who like to connect with others.
The internet was adopted in a similar fashion - it was only in the 90's that it really took hold, and companies and porn pushers took hold of it...but it wasn't always porn and poker...in the early days, there was a sense of freedom, connectivity, sharing and community, that was then missing from our lives. Web 2.0 has developed to enable us to return to this community centric internet of old. This fantastic video illustrates the point (thanks to Laurel Papworth for this).
Interestingly, the guy being interviewed refers to people "feeling rooted through another person" in communicating via the internet. A great quote from an article on The Internet Society site, a brief history of the internet says
The notion of community is at the core of how we use technology, and has always been the case. Many technological developments have enabled us to communicate (phone), to visit one another (cars, roads, bridges), they've all been about people getting together in some shape or form. Communities adopt technology for their own ends, they "find a way" to use what's available. What I'm really interested in is the word of mouth promotion of "tools" that lead us to make use of what is available to communicate, share and come together.
Communities will out...the technology with which this happens will change and develop, and communities which will do the changing. We need to think of communities like we do gardens - plants will grow if we do nothing, if we want particular types of plants to grow, we must nurture them. The same goes for communities - they will occur whatever we do, whatever technology is available, but if we want a particular type of community, then we must develop the skills to help them grow and flourish. Different technologies are like different types of soil, fertiliser, different degrees of heat, light, and different amounts of water. Different plants like different things, different communities like different things. We've developed skills in plant cultivation over many many years, it's time to learn how to grow our communities. Wenger, McDermott and Synder understand this - their book "Cultivating Communities of Practice" is a great start...but there's much more digging to be done.
The internet was adopted in a similar fashion - it was only in the 90's that it really took hold, and companies and porn pushers took hold of it...but it wasn't always porn and poker...in the early days, there was a sense of freedom, connectivity, sharing and community, that was then missing from our lives. Web 2.0 has developed to enable us to return to this community centric internet of old. This fantastic video illustrates the point (thanks to Laurel Papworth for this).
Interestingly, the guy being interviewed refers to people "feeling rooted through another person" in communicating via the internet. A great quote from an article on The Internet Society site, a brief history of the internet says
The Internet is as much a collection of communities as a collection of technologies, and its success is largely attributable to both satisfying basic community needs as well as utilizing the community in an effective way to push the infrastructure forward.
The notion of community is at the core of how we use technology, and has always been the case. Many technological developments have enabled us to communicate (phone), to visit one another (cars, roads, bridges), they've all been about people getting together in some shape or form. Communities adopt technology for their own ends, they "find a way" to use what's available. What I'm really interested in is the word of mouth promotion of "tools" that lead us to make use of what is available to communicate, share and come together.
Communities will out...the technology with which this happens will change and develop, and communities which will do the changing. We need to think of communities like we do gardens - plants will grow if we do nothing, if we want particular types of plants to grow, we must nurture them. The same goes for communities - they will occur whatever we do, whatever technology is available, but if we want a particular type of community, then we must develop the skills to help them grow and flourish. Different technologies are like different types of soil, fertiliser, different degrees of heat, light, and different amounts of water. Different plants like different things, different communities like different things. We've developed skills in plant cultivation over many many years, it's time to learn how to grow our communities. Wenger, McDermott and Synder understand this - their book "Cultivating Communities of Practice" is a great start...but there's much more digging to be done.
Saturday, 29 September 2007
Seeing the bigger picture – the problem with focusing on technology
We understand everything from a position of prior knowledge, and make assumptions based on that knowledge. These two videos illustrate this point beautifully – one is the old Guardian advert from the 80’s, promoting the paper’s unbiased views, the other, a video cartoon using familiar images (!) as a starting point, and creating something completely different from them. In both cases, it’s the bigger picture that is important, not your initial assumptions.
We tend to jump to conclusions based on our existing knowledge and prior experiences, to focus on just one part of what we are seeing and experiencing to such an extent that we sometimes fail to see the bigger picture – this I feel is the case with social networking and our dependance on technology. I feel we are spending too much time thinking and talking about web 2.0, enterprise 2.0, library 2.0 etc etc, and not enough time understanding the human element of the changes that are occuring in work and business, and indeed, in our social lives at this time. We are concentrating on what we know, focusing in on just one part of the picture. I’m guilty of this as much as the next person, but it’s starting to concern me.
Yes, the internet helps us to connect and share and communicate and collaborate – but are we doing this to the deteriment of having quality, real life interactions? The bigger picture has technology as ELEMENT of what’s happening. It’s an enabler, not an end in itself. Email has reduced the number of telephone calls we make, texting is the communication tool of choice for millions of people – what about conversation? I spend more time on Facebook than I do meeting up with the people I’m communicating with!
The bigger picture – surely it’s about humanity and not technology? Maybe we should all get out more….
We tend to jump to conclusions based on our existing knowledge and prior experiences, to focus on just one part of what we are seeing and experiencing to such an extent that we sometimes fail to see the bigger picture – this I feel is the case with social networking and our dependance on technology. I feel we are spending too much time thinking and talking about web 2.0, enterprise 2.0, library 2.0 etc etc, and not enough time understanding the human element of the changes that are occuring in work and business, and indeed, in our social lives at this time. We are concentrating on what we know, focusing in on just one part of the picture. I’m guilty of this as much as the next person, but it’s starting to concern me.
Yes, the internet helps us to connect and share and communicate and collaborate – but are we doing this to the deteriment of having quality, real life interactions? The bigger picture has technology as ELEMENT of what’s happening. It’s an enabler, not an end in itself. Email has reduced the number of telephone calls we make, texting is the communication tool of choice for millions of people – what about conversation? I spend more time on Facebook than I do meeting up with the people I’m communicating with!
The bigger picture – surely it’s about humanity and not technology? Maybe we should all get out more….
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)