Technology has great potential for the individual. Problems occur when attempts are made to force the individual to be part of the mass. At that moment, individual power is surrendered. This isn’t where technology is going – all manner of reports are telling us that. The era of standard operating environments and institutional dependence are challenged by individual agency using smartphones, 3G networks and tablets.
The technology student’s are given and how they are allowed to use it is an aggregate of what someone believes is good for the mass. We are no where near thinking about personalised technology planning. This is the legacy of Skinner, who still dominates so much of the classroom experience. Eventually we comply, because we are tricked into believing we face a win/lose scenarios constantly, and the various conditioning that is required for civic-function. But this is increasingly short-lived. People are figuring out that they can get a better job by being better connected, and that a better grade does not have as much value as a better network. These are the tomorrow people. What is more, these people are telling other people how to do it – and some of those people are students and teachers.
Change won’t be delivered in a truck. Nor will it be in the English written language. We have to interpret it, to decide as individuals where out tipping point is. I reject the borad idea that connected teachers are better than non-connected or that online is better than off-line on the basis it reinforces moral-panic, though it puts some people in positions of authority and wealth by attempting to diminish others. Secondly, it assumes that learning in the classroom is best facilitated though augmentation of English language tools rather than anything else (also diminished). I am obviously interested in what games are and how they can be used – but this puts me in a minority – and find it irritating that 90% of what people are told is ‘better’ isn’t a different language or medium, merely an adaptation of the very things that support their view – and validates their work. They are one individual using mass-effect to influence others, despite the uniqueness of every child and classroom. This isn’t to say all classrooms and kids would benefit from game-based-learning, but we could say that of any technology. But that isn’t how conferences, books and consulting cartels function.
To be healthy, I do not need everyone around me to be sick. There are enhancements that benefit us regardless of whether or not others have more or less. Intelligence is not reduced by having intelligent peers, but amplified. This will never be on an equal basis. No matter what context, kids benefit from being more intelligent. That is, they benefit from being more creative, more analytical, and more articulate, more imaginative, better social-peer interactions.
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