web analytics

Does the “knowledge explosion” affect Glow Users? #EDUScotICT

As I walked the dog this morning I took time to reflect on a book that I am reading at the moment.  The book which is called “Teaching as a subversive activity” by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner contains the following quote which is used to illustrate the concept of the “change revolution” – it is a long quote but worth reading completely.

Imagine a clock face with sixty minutes on it. Let the clock stand for the time men have had access to writing systems. Our clock would thus represent something like three thousand years, and each minute on our clock fifty years. On this scale, there were no significant media changes until about nine minutes ago. At that time, the printing press came into use in Western culture. About three minutes ago, the telegraph, photograph, and locomotive arrived. Two minutes ago: the telephone, rotary press, motion pictures, automobile, aeroplane and radio. One minute ago, the talking picture. Television has appeared in the last ten seconds, the computer in the last five, and communications satellites in the last second. The laser beam – perhaps the most potent medium of communication of all – appeared only a fraction of a second ago.
It would be possible to place almost any aspect of life on our clock face and get roughly the same measurements.
For example, in medicine, you would have almost no significant changes until about one minute ago. In fact, until one minute ago, as Jerome Frank has said, almost the whole history of medicine is the history of the placebo effect. About a minute ago, antibiotics arrived. About ten seconds ago, open-heart surgery. In fact, within the past ten seconds there probably have been more changes in medicine than is represented by all the rest of the time on our clock.
This is what some people call the knowledge explosion. It is happening in every field of knowledge susceptible to scientific inquiry.

This is illustrated graphically below

The main point!
People are all individual and will be at a different stage in their experience of the knowledge of and use of ICT.  I feel it is unrealistic to assume that all users have the capacity to move at the same rate of change as the knowledge explosion is progressing.  This is why CPD, in the context of the use of ICT in the classroom, is a fundamental requirement for (I believe) the majority of teachers in particular.  Any suggestion that we can simply drop technology on the education system and it will have an automatic and positive effect is a fantasy.  For this reason it is essential that we continue to help teachers and other professionals to adopt and make best use of technology for the sake of a better experience of learning for today’s ( and tomorrow’s ) pupils.

I certainly acknowledge that there are some people who have a propensity to understand and adopt new technology but I feel these do not necessarily represent the majority position.

It seems to be that the human body has been subject to natural evolution  which has taken place over many thousands and millions of years and this is the natural pace of change.  How can be we realistically expect the human mind to adapt in every case to the “knowledge explosion” – we need to recognize the value of staged and gradual introduction of technology.

Glow is a current focus for this movement in Scotland and as such has a core role to play – any careless destabilization of this platform will set back the progress of adoption of ICT in Scotland’s classrooms.

And Finally!!!!!

Think how much has changed even in the time since Postman and Weingartner wrote the above referenced book – some 40 years ago! – the internet was in its infancy, the web didn’t exist, all the incredible development in the past 40 years have probably added a thousand-fold to the sum of human knowledge since even then.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.