apophenia: some thoughts on technophilia

Jeremy Price's personal annotations on this page

Forestfortrees bookmarked on 2009-08-21 technology education communication web2.0 determinism utopianism critique

All too often, our conversations center on the need to get technology into the hands of learners, as though the gaps that we're seeing can be explained away by issues of access. Push comes to shove, most of us know that there are problems with this model, but in a world filled with dichotomous rhetoric, it's easy to get into the habit of being the proselytizer in the face of fear-mongering.
How people embrace technology has less to do with the technology itself than with the social setting in which they are embedded.
Rejecting technological determinism should be a mantra in our professional conversations.
There are also no such things as "digital natives." Just because many of today's youth are growing up in a society dripping with technology does not mean that they inherently know how to use it. They don't.
There's an ever-increasing participation gap emerging between the haves and the have-nots. What distinguishes the groups is not just a question of access, although that is an issue; it's also a question of community and education and opportunities for exploration. Youth learn through active participation, but phrases like "digital natives" obscure the considerable learning that occurs to enable some youth to be technologically fluent while others fail to engage.
Along the same lines, keep in mind that the technology that you adore may hold no interest for your students. They don't use del.icio.us or Second Life or Ning or Twitter as a part of their everyday practices. And the ways that they use Facebook and MySpace and YouTube are quite different than the ways in which you do.
Yet, when we introduce technology in an educational setting, we often mistakenly assume that students will embrace the technology in the same way that we do. This never works out and can cause unexpected strife.
Using technology that ruptures social norms in the classroom can be socially and educationally harmful.
As we talk about the wonderfulness of technology, please keep in mind the complexities involved. Technology is a wonderful tool but it is not a panacea. It cannot solve all societal ills just by its mere existence. To have relevance and power, it must be leveraged by people to meet needs. This requires all of us to push past what we hope might happen and focus on introducing technology in a context that makes sense.

This link has been bookmarked by 15 people . It was first bookmarked on 20 Aug 2009, by James Schirmer.

15 Oct 09

Lisa Admire-Sauer
technology apophenia learning education web2.0
31 Aug 09

Volney Faustini
technology education web2.0
24 Aug 09

Laura Deisley
nice reminder from danah boyd

technology education web2.0 learning 21stc
22 Aug 09

Spiro Bolos
technology education learning
21 Aug 09

Fran Hughes
- Dumping laptops into a classroom does no good if a teacher doesn't know how to leverage the technology for educational purposes.
- Dumping laptops into a classroom does no good if a teacher doesn't know how to leverage the technology for educational purposes.
- 3 more annotations...
- - Dumping laptops into a classroom does no good if a teacher doesn't know how to leverage the technology for educational purposes.
  - Dumping laptops into a classroom does no good if a teacher doesn't know how to leverage the technology for educational purposes.
  - Dumping laptops into a classroom does no good if a teacher doesn't know how to leverage the technology for educational purposes.
Rem Palpitt
Rejecting technological determinism should be a mantra in our professional conversations. It's really easy to get in the habit of seeing a new shiny piece of technology and just assume that we can dump it into an educational setting and !voila! miracles will happen. Yet, we also know that the field of dreams is merely that, a dream. Dumping laptops into a classroom does no good if a teacher doesn't know how to leverage the technology for educational purposes. Building virtual worlds serves no educational purpose without curricula that connects a lesson plan with the affordances of the technology. Without educators, technology in the classroom is useless.

technologies digital-natives e-learning éducation danah_boyd
Buffy Hamilton
education web2.0 socialnetworking teens educataion socialmedia
Jeremy Price
technology education communication web2.0 determinism utopianism critique
- All too often, our conversations center on the need to get technology into the hands of learners, as though the gaps that we're seeing can be explained away by issues of access. Push comes to shove, most of us know that there are problems with this model, but in a world filled with dichotomous rhetoric, it's easy to get into the habit of being the proselytizer in the face of fear-mongering.
- How people embrace technology has less to do with the technology itself than with the social setting in which they are embedded.
- 7 more annotations...
- - Rejecting technological determinism should be a mantra in our professional conversations.
  - There are also no such things as "digital natives." Just because many of today's youth are growing up in a society dripping with technology does not mean that they inherently know how to use it. They don't.
  - There's an ever-increasing participation gap emerging between the haves and the have-nots. What distinguishes the groups is not just a question of access, although that is an issue; it's also a question of community and education and opportunities for exploration. Youth learn through active participation, but phrases like "digital natives" obscure the considerable learning that occurs to enable some youth to be technologically fluent while others fail to engage.
  - Along the same lines, keep in mind that the technology that you adore may hold no interest for your students. They don't use del.icio.us or Second Life or Ning or Twitter as a part of their everyday practices. And the ways that they use Facebook and MySpace and YouTube are quite different than the ways in which you do.
  - Yet, when we introduce technology in an educational setting, we often mistakenly assume that students will embrace the technology in the same way that we do. This never works out and can cause unexpected strife.
  - Using technology that ruptures social norms in the classroom can be socially and educationally harmful.
  - As we talk about the wonderfulness of technology, please keep in mind the complexities involved. Technology is a wonderful tool but it is not a panacea. It cannot solve all societal ills just by its mere existence. To have relevance and power, it must be leveraged by people to meet needs. This requires all of us to push past what we hope might happen and focus on introducing technology in a context that makes sense.
Allison Byford
Article describing technology integration in classrooms and how it should look

education technology tools web2.0 web-literacy
20 Aug 09

katarina peovic
Annotated link http://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zephoria.org%2Fthoughts%2Farchives%2F2009%2F08%2F20%2Fsome_thoughts_o_1.html

technology technophobia boyd
- I want to push back against our utopian habits because I think that they're doing us a disservice.
- Technology does not determine practice
- 4 more annotations...
- - Rejecting technological determinism should be a mantra in our professional conversations.
  - There are also no such things as "digital natives." Just because many of today's youth are growing up in a society dripping with technology does not mean that they inherently know how to use it.
  - Understanding technology requires learning.
  - keep in mind that the technology that you adore may hold no interest for your students. They don't use del.icio.us or Second Life or Ning or Twitter as a part of their everyday practices
Christine Southard
Interesting thoughts on technophilia.

technology education
Will Richardson
There are also no such things as "digital natives." Just because many of today's youth are growing up in a society dripping with technology does not mean that they inherently know how to use it. They don't. Most of you have a better sense of how to get information from Google than the average youth. Most of you know how to navigate privacy settings of a social media tool better than the average teen. Understanding technology requires learning. Sure, there are countless youth engaged in informal learning every day when they go online. But what about all of the youth who lack access? Or who live in a community where learning how to use technology is not valued? Or who tries to engage alone? There's an ever-increasing participation gap emerging between the haves and the have-nots. What distinguishes the groups is not just a question of access, although that is an issue; it's also a question of community and education and opportunities for exploration. Youth learn through active participation, but phrases like "digital natives" obscure the considerable learning that occurs to enable some youth to be technologically fluent while others fail to engage.

mustread09 shifts learning network_literacy
- There are also no such things as "digital natives." Just because many of today's youth are growing up in a society dripping with technology does not mean that they inherently know how to use it. They don't. Most of you have a better sense of how to get information from Google than the average youth. Most of you know how to navigate privacy settings of a social media tool better than the average teen. Understanding technology requires learning. Sure, there are countless youth engaged in informal learning every day when they go online. But what about all of the youth who lack access? Or who live in a community where learning how to use technology is not valued? Or who tries to engage alone? There's an ever-increasing participation gap emerging between the haves and the have-nots. What distinguishes the groups is not just a question of access, although that is an issue; it's also a question of community and education and opportunities for exploration. Youth learn through active participation, but phrases like "digital natives" obscure the considerable learning that occurs to enable some youth to be technologically fluent while others fail to engage.
James Schirmer
technology apophenia media