There is a great line in a Walt Disney World attraction, Carousel of Progress, which rotates guests through a stage show with animatronics through various decades of the twentieth century demonstrating the ingenuity and innovation of progress. A scene set in the "fabulous forties" showcases their new television set.
The protagonist, Father, proclaims the following: "You know, I predict the day when millions of people will learn Latin and Greek sitting in front of their TV sets."
Immediately following, grandma changes the channel to a boxing match and yells at the TV to knock him out.
Some things never change.
Throughout this week, I have been looking into everything Google has to offer me on "'specific thing' + Web2.0." In my rabbit hole, I've come across a number of articles that feel outrageously antiquated as they talk about MySpace, Friendster, and Vine or don't discuss how Google and Facebook own all of the data we willingly (or unknowingly) provide them with. Even our textbook written less than 10 years ago feels like it isn't extremely current. In Web 2.0, things move fast.
This keeps brining my mind to a place where it wants to compare and contrast 2006 to 2020. The first big difference was that I didn't feel like a wild west bandit trying to rob Publix to buy a loaf of bread. Pandemic aside, in 2006 I had a Sidekick III covered in Syvosky crystals because that's what teen media had told me was cool. I couldn't go on the internet because the charge per minute was too expensive and my dad "would like totally kill me." My hands never moved faster than when the internet button had accidentally been pushed and I was afraid that just that 5 seconds would bankrupt my family. The following year my father would wait in line outside for hours and buy his first smartphone, something I would inherit later as he upgraded for a newer model.
The iPhone changed everything. We had access to unlimited information. In our pockets.
People probably thought that we would learn Latin and Greek while riding the train into work just through the little screen we held in our pockets.
Some things never change.
As the first week of the summer semester comes to a close, I think what I am most interested in learning is not only how to utilize Web 2.0 to my advantage to engage learners, but how to really create meaningful communities of practice. Social media and our screens often get a bad rap for distracting us from the now, from the moment, from our friends. Some say that the iPhone even killed the bar debate.
It's a great big beautiful tomorrow ... ;-)
ReplyDeleteKendyl, this has been my favorite blog post so far. It resonated with me for SO many reasons. One, I love the Carousel of Progress at Disney, I think it has been my favorite since I was a child (odd choice for a kid, I know). Two, I also love HIMYM and I think this clip was perfect for everything we have been discussing the last two weeks. And finally, you really hit home for me on a lot of thoughts that I have had this week about how quickly technology is changing and how outdated some things feel already. When I read the articles this week discussing digital natives, one article mentioned that kids these days are all about MTV and I had to stop and scroll to the top of the article to see when it was published! 2001, of course. This article was discussing ME in high school, not my CURRENT high school kids- I doubt they have EVER turned on MTV. If it isn't on Tik Tok, they aren't interested. Not to mention, they don't even have cable TV anymore- it is all about streaming. Your personal experiences are very similar to my own. My first phone in high school was for emergencies, to tell my parents if I was running late from school or work. We didn't even have texting as part of our cell phone plan, and we were charged 10 cents for every text (sent or received). This caused my parents to quickly drop me from their cell phone plan when I went off to college in 2006, my friends would not stop texting me because that was becoming the new norm for communication, and seriously who doesn't have texting on their plan?! I thought I was sooooo cool when I bought the Razor in 2006, the real cutting edge of technology. Fast forward to 2008/2009 and I had upgraded to my first "smart phone" but even then, the charges were ridiculous to access the internet, so that was out of the question. It is really hard to wrap my head around the fact that was only ten years ago...
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind words! The reading this week took me by surprise as well! I had always considered Gen Z to be the Digital Natives as they were the ones to grow up in a social media world with smartphones and tablets.
DeleteI think it will be interesting to see changes in the future. For so long, things changed in small increments but all of a sudden there have been such exponential leaps and bounds in technology, I have to wonder how long mega-giants that feel like a constant (ie, Facebook) will be in fashion?
I have the same experiences in my own living room! My friends now joke about my terrible texting reply times because I actively try to keep my phone away from me when I am with my daughter. It has broken me of these habits of mindless scrolling when around others to the point that when I am with my friends that pull out their phones, I now feel offended almost haha
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