Many years ago, I read Gloria Steinem’s Moving Beyond Words, and my favourite essay from that collection was “What if Freud were Phyllis” (excerpt here). When I read that, I remember laughing at some of the reversals of gender roles and then realising the reality. It was a bit of a wake-up call about some unconscious beliefs I held and how deeply our acceptance of things is. Read more of What if Children were Adults?
28
Sep
Waiting for the future
It seems that it may come, but I won’t know til it gets here.
There’s a strangeness to not knowing, but knowing that it may come.
It’s not me, it’s them. I have lost control, and yet am in control.
They think they know what they’re doing, but I’m sure they’re don’t.
It will come.
And I’ll still be here.
10
Sep
The Lecture is Dead!
I’m coming up for 5 years in a business faculty and it’s not really where I wanted to be. The kinds of research I do, the things I like to teach, are not about business. Okay, they can be applied to business and are really important to help business people make sense of technologies, but really, I’m much more interested in how people learn. There’s a whole heap of stuff we need to unpack to help us help other learn.
There was an interesting discussion about teaching on the WikiEducator list with some people suggesting that you cannot teach people, therefore, we shouldn’t even use the word. That’s an oversimplification, obviously, but it struck me as weird for a while. Lecturing is problematic, primarily because it is a one size fits all process. It’s hard to react to individual needs in a lecture and it does seem to have lost its shine. As a technology, the lecture has devolved into a PowerPoint presentation of too much information in too little time. With a large lecture, particularly my classes of 300, it’s impossible (for me at least) to make that session really interactive.
And then there’s the problem of attendance at lectures. My class on Tuesday night had about 20-25% attendance (I’m not really sure because I kept losing count, and what does that say about working when the managers of the future can’t be bothered?). Even in that smaller group, getting students to question and to reflect in a brief time is difficult. Perhaps I’m doing it wrong? Admittedly, there are one or two students who will voice an opinion, but they seem to be few.
A few weeks ago, I challenged students with the bald statement that: The lecture is dead. This got some good interaction, particularly because I was lecturing at the time. The dissonance of being in a lecture and hearing that the lecture is dead seemed to make it easier for students to question. Perhaps that’s the clue to getting greater engagement? Make some bold statements and wait for students to challenge me on that statement? Maybe. I thought I was doing that, but perhaps my challenges are not quite challenging enough.
What is it with me wanting to end every post title with ‘by Alison Ruth’? Am I 5? (Your answer to that is irrelevant, I know I’m a growed up).
I’ve told my students that tonight
we will be investigating some of the challenges that technology poses to business. We will start with a story from the 17th century and end in 2019 with a view of things to come.
I’m going to use all the power of the Internet to bring a this to life.
I’ll be starting with the Button Maker’s Guild from the 17th Century, thanks to TechDirt. The obvious implication is that innovation threatens established business. This basically sets the scene for the rest of the lecture which is about the Internet and computer technology, in particular. The good thing about this lecture is no powerpoint! YouTube FTW!
History of the Internet – 8:10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hIQjrMHTv4
This is a good overview of the global development of the Internet. Contributions to how it works came from many places. This is perhaps one of the best overviews of the technology that doesn’t try to explain the bits and bolts, just the general trends.
The Internet in 1969 – 1:57
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0pPfyYtiBc
This video is classic for the way it conceptualised a networked world. The reality shown here is far from our small devices and multiple connections.
Early Internet discovery – 6:21
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klvWk8tN4s8
This video depicts a classic golden era of ‘Internet’ where “There’s not a lot of cursing or swearing… there’s not a lot of personal put-downs”. How things have changed.
1981 primitive Internet report on KRON – 2:17
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WCTn4FljUQ
The current problems the newspaper industry face is set in stark contrast to the view demonstrated here. Their attempts to engage with the public and ‘not make much money’ are in direct opposition to the current belief that every click should earn money.
DEC – Glimpse of the Future, 1994
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1l6aBgX5UY
This video shows how businesses approached the Internet as it started to become mainstream (or at least available to commerce) – same day service in a nano-second world!
The Evolution of Digital Communities – 7:13
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7O4uMRADB8
Ethan Zuckerman talks to broadcast media people about the shifts that the Internet has brought to community. It’s a fast-paced glimpse of how we got here.
Sixth Sense Projection Technology Demo – 4:40
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLEEiQZOYDs
The future of technology is portable. And clever. (Predicted to be available around 2019.)
I’m looking forward to having one of those!
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