The Technology Question and Tools

An interesting question in The Technology Question was whether technology, writing or computers, is humanizing or dehumanizing, democratizing or totalizing. Technology in my view contributes to both ends of both of these continuums. Writing and computers are humanizing because they increase the connections between people. They spread messages and ideas farther. This means that people are more likely to find ideas that they can connect to, and feel a connection to people. They also allow groups of people to come together more easily for a common idea and cause. This in turn can increase democracy because more people have access to information and means of communicating ideas to the populace. Both technologies increase the voice of a person. These technologies are dehumanizing because they remove the person from the text or the message. The reader must provide a context and often provide much of the meaning to the text. It separates people from their communication. The technologies are totalitarian in that not everyone has access to these technologies or the knowledge of how to use them. This can emphasize the have and have nots creating a sub class in society that lose their voice and means of communicating their ideas and needs. The text also posits that through writing alienating us from the natural world it heightens our humanity. This is an interesting idea that writing makes us even more different and separate from nature and so we are more human because we are less like the rest of nature and farther from it. We become more unique and separate from the natural world.

The Technology Question also puts forth the assertion that writing makes possible literature, history, law, government, philosophy and bureaucracy. I do not agree with all of these assertions. Writing may change how we think about and go about practicing these things but it does not make them possible. Many of these things are viable and present without writing in a culture. I agree that writing can foster forgetfulness. It makes memory less important and one does not feel the need to find means to remember large amounts of information. Writing does foster contemplation, analysis and critique. It makes it possible to study an idea more in depth, to reread the idea and formulate a response. It also spreads the idea to a large audience that may respond to it. This holds writers to a higher accountability in what they write.

Another important ides is that culture and cognition, or culture and technology mutually create each other. They both influence the evolution of the other. How technology advances or changes depends on the needs and goals of the culture it is part of. The use of the technology will also depend on the culture it is being used in. Culture is also influenced by changes in technologies. It changes how people live and think about their daily lives. It changes how people think about and share ideas. It can affect the social structure of the culture because of who has access and knowledge of the new technologies. Technologies also influence the individual cognitively. Writing has a value system that comes with it but it is also a product of human motive and serves human purposes.

People prefer their technologies transparent. However, especially with new technologies this is not possible. When I ask my students to use the computer in different ways I wish that the technology was transparent but I am often confronted with how it is not. Students have problems using a sometimes unfamiliar technology. I get products I am not expecting because the student is influenced by the technology and it changes how they write and their writing style. Students’ feelings about computers and how comfortable they are with them effect how they use them. It also affects the choices they make when using the technology. All of this is evident in the webpage examples I linked last week. One student used the technology to link to other students pages. I did not ask her to do this but how she thought and interacted with the technology made her think that she should do this. I also need to think more about how asking my students to use the curriculum can also be affecting their thinking and how they think about the content they are working with.

The Bomer article made me think about what value system I bring to my classroom in connection to the tools I have my students use in my classroom. The biggest tool I have taught my students to use this year was the foldable. This is a three dimensional graphic organizer that incorporate both writing and illustration. An alternative affordance that I did not think of when communicating the use of this tool at first was as a study tool for a test. I learned of this when my students asked if they could have the ones I was assessing back before their test. I am curious what alternative meanings my students may have assigned to the tool of a foldable.

Students and I disagree most on the use of the tool of paper. I hold the value of use of paper for taking notes, interacting with content and communicating knowledge of content. My students hold the value of paper as a means of communicating silently with their peers. They also use it for artistic expression and means of play. My students interpret the tools and use them for according to their own motives and needs. They bring their own applications from their culture and contexts outside of the classroom. The use of the tool and the meaning of the tool is constructed in the classroom not just by me beliefs and understanding of how the tool should be used by but my classroom community as a whole. The meaning of the tool is social constructed by my classroom, our goals, needs and uses of it.