Mark Federman - UCAPP

There is no shortage of things to ponder in this presentation. Until I heard Federman place the current emphasis of interconnectedness in technological advancement into the context of great changes in the history of civilization, I hadn't completely considered the magnitude of the potential change we face. The idea of connectivity and the way in which a connected populace changes the current heirarchy of how information is disseminated will, in and of itself, change the way people are educated - whether schools choose to take part in the transformation or not.

As Jennie knows, for me this is the part of 23 things that I find most difficult. I'm certain that it has to do with my being aculturated in a pre-internet world, but I still have tremendous reservations about being connected 24/7. I'm just not sure that I am interested in being the recipient of every thought a person wants to tweet or post. There is something about it that strikes me as both arrogant and lonely. What makes a person believe that such a wide audience wants to hear what he or she has to say? And how sad that the mode we now have to communicate with other humans is to type it into a computer. I still value private thought, and face-to-face conversation (no amount of emoticoms can replace the nonverbal communication that takes place in a person to person conversation). What has happened that has created such an insatiable appetite for connection with others that we are satisfied when the people who are "connecting" may never see or touch one another?

I sound old, huh? It's pretty clear which side of the generation gap I land on. I do think there is much to be gained by pervasive proximity and pervasive connectivity (and much to be gained by down time without a buildup of email, rss feeds, tweets, and posts waiting to be noticed upon your return to a hyper connected world). I guess my hope as an educator is this: That we can help shape thinking so that our increasing connectivity inspires humans to become even more creative, inventive and knowledgeable (most of what I'm seeing sent out for the masses via tools like UTube and Facebook is, in my opinion, garbage). In transforming mass media to media of the masses, maybe we can, in the process, raise the bar on public discourse. Maybe that is what our new role as educators of kids raised on the other side of the digital divide will be.