Technology THEN and NOW

In reading the Report on Digital Media and Learning, it was one of the first sentences in the reading that really struck me. “…it is hard to believe that less than a decade ago these technologies barely existed.” It seems like the internet and everything that has come with it has been around forever. But reading this sentence made me think back to a time when I did not rely so heavily on the internet. I can remember in 5^th grade being given the option to either type or handwrite my essay. I’m not sure if this is a result of me being in 5^th grade so the teacher wasn’t as strict or if it was the fact that it was 1998. I can remember getting my first AOL account and being excited every time the “You’ve Got Mail” jingle came up because I knew that someone had sent me an email. I hadn’t been jaded by the constant influx of junk mail. To think of how far the internet has come since then is fascinating and terrifying at the same time. We are always trying to make things better and surpass what our predecessors have done. I wonder where we will be in regards to technology in another 20 years and whether this will have greatly affected the social dynamic of our personal interactions.

One passage that really struck me was:

“New media allow for a degree of freedom and autonomy for you that is less apparent in a classroom setting. Youth respect one another’s authority online, and they are often more motivated to learn from peers than from adults. Their efforts are also largely self-directed, and the outcome emerges through exploration, on contrast to classroom learning that is oriented toward set, predefined goals.”

It is really important for students, adolescents especially, to have a place where they feel like they are equals with the others in this place. More often than not, this doesn’t happen in the classroom. If the internet and technology can be brought into classrooms than maybe students will feel more confident sharing their ideas and contributing to the classroom dynamic.

There are not many places where children get to feel superior to the adults in their lives, but this is one of them. I wonder is this trend going to continue, or will it all even out in the end? As I grow older will I fall behind the technology curve, only to be surpassed by the next generation? Is this technology’s version of the circle of life?