The main focus throughout the article From Pencils to Pixels revolves around Baron’s ideas about the stages of literacy technologies and how they apply to every new product. The article began by discussing the important ways the invention of the computer changed literacy practices and how he personally has become reliant on technology; this is something I think all of us can relate to in some way or another. Baron then summarizes the stages of literacy technology. First, it trialed by a small group of people and will then expand to the general public when it relates to the older, more popular forms of communication. It is not until the technology spreads that it really will become its own. For new technology to become successful, it must be accessible, useful, and trustworthy.
Baron relates this to writing as a technology in and of itself. At first, writing was resisted because it was untrustworthy, but eventually the positive outlooks on writing were seen, and the general public caught on. This cognitive revolution and the invention of the printing press triggered a second cognitive revolution.
With all of this in mind, have you had an experience (let’s say in the past 10 years) where you have tried a new piece of technology and it improved your knowledge/literacy history? Or did this technological advancement do more hindering on your learning? If it’s hindering, do you think its because of the product itself or was it another factor? Do you think this hindrance will increase in the future with the creation of new apps and social media sites (a.k.a. new distractions)?
2 thoughts on “Technology – Helping Hand or Hindrance?”
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One of the biggest changes in technology in relation to literacy that I’ve noticed in the past couple of years is the “talk to text” feature on iPhones. Instead of actually having to spell things out you can just speak what you want to say into your phone and then it converts it to writing. It is a million times easier to just say the words instead of spelling them. On the other hand it takes the privacy out of texting because people can hear what you are saying and also it is much less accurate. It is very easy for the phone to misunderstand something that you say. I think that if it was more accurate people would use it more but right now it isn’t that hugely popular.
I see points in both sides (hinderance and helping hand) when it comes to technology. For example having a space for outside classroom conversation in this blog forum is a great tool or “helping hand” for the classroom. However I have seen technology hurt the classroom as well. Right now I work in a high school math classroom throughout the week; without exaggeration technology has hindered most of their learning. It is not just the fact that the teacher spends so much time setting up the smart board, timers, and videos but it is also the calculators! Now I am not trying to sound like a old woman shouting about the laziness aspect of calculators, but I have witnessed far too many occasions where students opt out of simple mental addition or multiplication because of the constant proximity of the calculator. At first I thought it was just the students being overly-resourceful but I have no found that the students can not actually do such mental math. I have heard the excuse that phones with calculators are readily available but I think that it is an important human skill to be able to conduct mental math. Especially seeing as these same high school students are apart of the standardized test generation, even though you may be able to use a calculator on some sections of those tests being able to check your work with mental math will put you ahead. In short, stand along a blurred line with technology.