I enjoyed Neil Postman's perspective in his article titled "Five things we need to know about technological change" (1998). He wrote about five ideas to consider when thinking about technological advances. One particular perspective that he wrote about was to think about who advances and who is left behind when an advance in technology is made. Postman used the example of the blacksmith "singing the praises of the automobile but who also believes that his business will be enhanced by it" (1998, p.2) and Postman states further that this was not the case, the blacksmiths business was not enhanced by the automobile, but rather the opposite is true. This made me think of the automated check-outs that have been installed at many stores. I often think about what advantage these machines create for people. On one hand, I see the benefits to the company, they are advancing in the sense that they may save money in hiring less people to do a job that a machine can do. On the other hand, I do not view this as a positive advance for people in general. When I am in a store that has eight automated check-outs being used at the same time and are manned by one employee, my first thought is that seven employees are either down a shift in their schedule or, possibly out of a potential job. As one group of people advance with this new technology (the business), an opposite group (the employees) are disadvantaged. Neil Postman gives some good points to consider when thinking about the new technological advances that are being introduced and the effect that it has an all people.
My Journey in Distance and Online Learning My experience with distance learning goes back to my high school years in the early to mid '90's. I decided to take a few of my grade 10, 11, and 12 courses via correspondence instead of in-person in the classroom. The choice of assignments to complete and the flexibility in time of completion is what drew me to taking courses via correspondence. The classes were not online, rather the material was sent via Canada Post. In university for both my undergrad degrees, I did not take any classes online, all were face-to-face in the classroom. About 4 years ago I started using Seesaw in my classroom. My purpose for using it was so that students could create a digital portfolio. I am not a fan of the pizza box portfolio and found binders to be a bit cumbersome during the student-led conference so I wanted something that required very little storage space and more engaging for students to add their work to. I cannot remember
Hey Kristina,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your post. I too wonder about the benefits of these kiosks, and have expressed so publicly a number of times. I think that we generally have to be more sensitive to the types of automation coming our way and to question the motives for these "innovations" at a much more critical level.
To challenge you for your next post, think about using both relevant images and links. There are a number of items that you could have hyperlinked to in this response (the article, articles on checkouts, etc.), and these would have enhanced your post.
Great analogy. Same thing being seen at some fast food places which were / are important jobs for a lot of young people. Thanks for making me think.
ReplyDelete