My experiences and thoughts of technology and barriers to accessing it
Tuesday, 14 Jul 2015, 14:21
Visible to anyone in the world
I find that technology is far from intrusive for my life. It acts as a
thread that weaves together the commitments and aspects of my day to
day life. I can be working whilst shopping in the physical world or
working whilst shopping in the virtual world. I can plan my next family
or friends catch up whilst completing my OU Study. I can check my bank
account whilst assessing a learners work.
I offer these examples to demonstrate that there is the potential to
blur the lines and have no definitive times for particular tasks. It
reduces my day to day stress but I can appreciate that for some there is
a need to allocate particular time to ensure focus. I simply don't know
how my life would work if tasks were not blurred. Is this ability of
preference to blur due to a particular make up in my character or a
skill developed over time. Is it nature or nuture? I don't know!
I am sitting here typing this at 9.30am and already I have used technology to:
• Check my communication with family -my grandparents are not too well
at the moment so I like to check in on them through text, email and
phone calls
• BBC News Online and Ipswich Star online - to get my daily news dose
• MSN Weather - to see if I need to put sun-cream on the boys before school
• Emailed my work commitments
• Been online to review and gasp at what I need to complete for OU this week!
• Put on online radio (a big shout out to helpmechill.com - you make my day so much better)
From a technology spectrum I would place myself significantly on the
optimist end - in fact I only last week created a new wordpress to
collate my blogs and it is called 'optimistic education' as that is
exactly how I feel about the connection of technology to education.
What are the barriers? There is still inconsistent connections - those
areas that are strong are getting stronger (e.g. 4G) but there are
pockets of very limited access. There is also some examples of 'ostrich
mentality' where those in education fear the technology or see it as
such as risk that this leads to apathy. If the industry can gain
knowledge and understanding about the intuitiveness of technology and
how you don't need to be a techie to access and use it, it could lead to
an improved relationship to its connection to the teaching and learning
process. At times I feel that the sector is bombarded with so many
examples that professionals drown in the content. Much better to start
small but think big. It's almost like we need a PR campaign to get the
positive shift model moving:
• Negative to Positive
• Apathy to Interest
• Ignorance to Knowledge
• Hostility to Sympathy
• Prejudice To Acceptance
My experiences and thoughts of technology and barriers to accessing it
I find that technology is far from intrusive for my life. It acts as a thread that weaves together the commitments and aspects of my day to day life. I can be working whilst shopping in the physical world or working whilst shopping in the virtual world. I can plan my next family or friends catch up whilst completing my OU Study. I can check my bank account whilst assessing a learners work.
I offer these examples to demonstrate that there is the potential to blur the lines and have no definitive times for particular tasks. It reduces my day to day stress but I can appreciate that for some there is a need to allocate particular time to ensure focus. I simply don't know how my life would work if tasks were not blurred. Is this ability of preference to blur due to a particular make up in my character or a skill developed over time. Is it nature or nuture? I don't know!
I am sitting here typing this at 9.30am and already I have used technology to:
• Check my communication with family -my grandparents are not too well at the moment so I like to check in on them through text, email and phone calls
• BBC News Online and Ipswich Star online - to get my daily news dose
• MSN Weather - to see if I need to put sun-cream on the boys before school
• Emailed my work commitments
• Been online to review and gasp at what I need to complete for OU this week!
• Put on online radio (a big shout out to helpmechill.com - you make my day so much better)
From a technology spectrum I would place myself significantly on the optimist end - in fact I only last week created a new wordpress to collate my blogs and it is called 'optimistic education' as that is exactly how I feel about the connection of technology to education.
What are the barriers? There is still inconsistent connections - those areas that are strong are getting stronger (e.g. 4G) but there are pockets of very limited access. There is also some examples of 'ostrich mentality' where those in education fear the technology or see it as such as risk that this leads to apathy. If the industry can gain knowledge and understanding about the intuitiveness of technology and how you don't need to be a techie to access and use it, it could lead to an improved relationship to its connection to the teaching and learning process. At times I feel that the sector is bombarded with so many examples that professionals drown in the content. Much better to start small but think big. It's almost like we need a PR campaign to get the positive shift model moving:
• Negative to Positive
• Apathy to Interest
• Ignorance to Knowledge
• Hostility to Sympathy
• Prejudice To Acceptance