Our daily lives revolve around technology; we wake up from our phone alarms, check our Facebooks, twitters, and emails, we look up the weather on our phone applications. It is safe to say we most likely would have a hard time coping if all of our technology failed to work - I know I personally become slightly unhinged without my iPhone, even if for only an hour. We communicate and share our lives through the world of the internet, I can only think of a few things in my life that require no technology at all. I would no longer be able to communicate with friends and family as easily as I do now, I would no longer be able to watch my favorite tv shows online and as hard as it is to believe I would no longer be able to learn as effectively as I do now. Books, newspapers, dictionaries, and even textbooks are now all online. We have replaced these texts with newsfeeds, kindles, websites, and (most surprising to me) online textbooks.
You see, in my mind schools and universities in general are based on classical learning - we read classical texts and write essays comparing them, we learn of history in order to understand the future, we study those of the past and learn of their discoveries. Ironically my assignment is to blog about the written word becoming obsolete, thus making my written word obsolete.
Is it though? Does moving to the future necessarily mean we are forgetting the past? And if it does, is it a bad thing?
Our world is clearly moving more and more toward technology, we allow ourselves to trust in this and welcome it into our lives. Technology allows us to take on a new persona outside of ourselves while still allowing us to still have
our own life in the real world. We become different people when we’re online, no longer insecure of our thoughts or actions because of the anonymity the virtual world gives us. Some, like myself, who might be too shy or embarrassed to speak up in classroom can look toward a digital classroom atmosphere for the courage and confidence to ask questions, give answers, and interact more with our curriculum. The same material might just be more engaging if it’s in a digital format thats easier for students to interact with. The histories we are learning are still the same histories, they will never change or be forgotten, they are just presented to us in a different light.
The histories that we are taught tell us of changes and innovations; the invention of the printing press, the lightbulb, the automobile, the computer, the cell phone. These all changed our world in many ways, both good and bad - so how can one criticize the innovation of the online textbook or classroom. To me, innovations are what keep us on our toes and make our world a better place. How boring would it be to stay the same for hundreds and hundreds of years? I personally would never want to live in a world where I’m stuck in the monotony of a day to day that is never subject to change. Change and how we react to it is what makes every individual who they are and whether that change may be a new pet, a new school, a new house, or a new way of learning who are we to say it’s wrong?
What do you think about the idea of online textbooks and classrooms?
