1981 - Exploring New Technologies Collaboratively
My first experience with computing should have cured me of it for life. Programming via punch cards!
But my first real useful encounter was with some really powerful (at the time) TERAC computers (they called them micro-computers, just below mainframe in size and speed) at that time: 1981. They had 8.5" floppy disks (that REALLY flopped) for storage. You had to handle them with care and two hands at all times. But they were a VAST improvement over mainframe punch cards and made this new thing called "word processing" really much easier.
But the most important thing that I learned then, and have been learning ever since, was that young people were fearless and generous in their approach to new technologies; that I could learn from them and that they were willing to learn from me; that they were to be considered valued collaborators. The rest of my career has been spent working with young people around technological environments, learning with them about the affordances we noticed, and trying to encourage the stogy academic community to realize that we (students and teachers) were in this adventure together.
In the meantime, nothing is new and nothing is the same. Another quote that I use a lot is from Margaret Mead, a cultural anthropologist who said in the 1960s that people are still, occasionally, immigrants in space (some choose to move; others are forced to move) BUT we are ALL immigrants in time.
If that is true (and I tend to believe it) there are important implications that I'd be happy to explore with folks if you are interested.
Dickie Selfe
But my first real useful encounter was with some really powerful (at the time) TERAC computers (they called them micro-computers, just below mainframe in size and speed) at that time: 1981. They had 8.5" floppy disks (that REALLY flopped) for storage. You had to handle them with care and two hands at all times. But they were a VAST improvement over mainframe punch cards and made this new thing called "word processing" really much easier.
But the most important thing that I learned then, and have been learning ever since, was that young people were fearless and generous in their approach to new technologies; that I could learn from them and that they were willing to learn from me; that they were to be considered valued collaborators. The rest of my career has been spent working with young people around technological environments, learning with them about the affordances we noticed, and trying to encourage the stogy academic community to realize that we (students and teachers) were in this adventure together.
In the meantime, nothing is new and nothing is the same. Another quote that I use a lot is from Margaret Mead, a cultural anthropologist who said in the 1960s that people are still, occasionally, immigrants in space (some choose to move; others are forced to move) BUT we are ALL immigrants in time.
If that is true (and I tend to believe it) there are important implications that I'd be happy to explore with folks if you are interested.
Dickie Selfe
posted by Lewis | 7:42 AM
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