Showing posts with label digital technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label digital technology. Show all posts

Thursday, July 15, 2010

You can teach an old dog new tricks...


Although I completely get that our children are growing up in a digital age that is vastly different and more advanced than any other widely accessible technology we have previously seen in society, I am growing weary of the whole "digital citizens/digital immigrants" continuum. Let me tell you why.

We recently bought new net-books for our children. My son is particularly interested in computers, and we are actively encouraging his interest. He is a very smart kid, but the traditional school environment isn't really working for him, so we're working on connecting him with different forms of digital interaction so as he grows perhaps he will migrate toward his aptitude for tech integrated learning. He's super excited about the new blog we're building together, the gaming he's getting involved in and different forms of social media software like Skype, Twitter etc.

This evening, one of the coolest things happened. I've been communicating with my grandfather for years now via Skype. Originally from Saskatchewan, he now lives in Ottawa. My grandfather is an electrician by trade, and worked for years with Saskatchewan Power Corporation, so he has some really strong mechanical understanding and worked with analog computers in his role as an operator with Sask. Power, but it wasn't until I sent him an old HP computer we had replaced about 9 years ago that he began tinkering with digital technology. That's also when we started communicating via Skype. When the kids were babies we used to hold them up in front of the web camera so my grandfather could see them and talk to them. They have grown up with this, and they love to visit with their grampa in this manner. Tonight was the first time my son spoke with his great grandfather on his brand new net-book, and he was thrilled... it was touching for his mom and I to see him get so excited about what he was doing. The happiness on his face as he spoke to his Grampa Woods using this tool that he has always known, but never manipulated personally was obvious.

So here's why I'm weary about the digital native/digital immigrant continuum. This evening I witnessed the joy of two people... a ninety-two year old man, and a seven year old boy... as they manipulated a tech tool to digitally connect with each other. My grandfather was born in 1918. Certainly that must place him in the digital immigrant cohort. Think about it... he has lived to see the evolution of the motor age, the age of flight and the video age. He told me once that when televisions became widely available and he got his first in the 1950's, he wondered if there would ever be a day when he would be able to talk with people on the telephone and see their face on some sort of TV-like screen. Well today he did just that, and on his computer screen were the happy faces of a couple of digital citizens- his great grandchildren.

How cool is that?

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Open Source Hardware?


flickr CC image via dimnikolov

So we have a litany of open source software in cyberspace, when will the connected youth of today enjoy open source hardware as part of their education?

The open source concept is brilliant. Open systems in general appear to be winning the day in so many social contexts, and open source software has changed the education system drastically for those who choose to access it. A standing position in my teaching circle is if you're paying for software at all, you're paying too much. I'm wondering why open source software has caught on so widely, but open source hardware hasn't. To me the two are natural partners.

As Moore's Law goes, anything in the software world would be considered yesterday's tool practically as soon as it is introduced... before new software gets wide-spread recognition, developers are taking advantage of exponentially-expanding digital capacity and already working on something better, faster and more enticing to the consumer. Exponential growth in digital capacity fuels the software marketplace for sure, but it also fuels the hardware sector. As digital capacity increases at a faster and faster pace, today's hardware is quickly replaced by something better, faster and more enticing to the consumer also.

So where do the laptops, cell phones, e-readers, etc. go after a year or so when consumers have replaced them with the latest improved tool? Other than being recycled for parts, or in a drawer or closet to be forgotten, I'm not sure I know. What if the same huge software companies that work so hard to create better tech tools and applications understood that perhaps the largest potential market research sector they could be exposed to is short on hardware needed to use the software in question. Kids in schools are often wanting for relatively up-to-date hardware tools, and six months old would be more than current to them compared to the five and six year old computers they commonly are limited to as a result of budget constraints. If huge-scale software firms got into the recycling business, they could put their software in the hands of students who had something to use it on. Isn't that a win-win situation?

Let's take Google for example; if Google were to create a recycling protocol for those wishing to donate their old laptop, cell phone or whatever to them for reconditioning and installation of whatever Google software could be loaded onto them, and then donated these devices to schools under a partnership agreement that the schools would use their software exclusively with the expectation that feedback would be provided to improve it, I would be jumping over other teachers to sign up for that program... schools get their hardware and the software applications it enables, and Google would get real-time feedback from perhaps the largest cohort of connected technology users on the planet so they can continue to improve their products more efficiently and pragmatically.

What do you think?
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