What if?

During the second week of the course,we viewed a video entitled "What If", http://www.lps.k12.co.us/schools/arapahoe/fisch/whatif/whatif.wmv   which dealt with the technological changes that have effected education from to 1703 the contemporary era (2005).  Each successive innovation was met with concern that the new technology was unnecessary or that it would have a negative impact on students and ultimately be detrimental to society as a whole. 

Technology has indeed changed our world.  In education, which is affected by technological changes elsewhere, the rapidity of the change seems to reach us in ever accelerating rate. However, most of the feared negative effects of educational technology, (for want of a better term), have not played out. For example, the fear that the lost of the skill of writing with a straight pen and nib due to the use of the fountain pen, “would spoil students who would lose this skill and not be prepared for the real world of business” was not realized, because the real world of business also adapted the new technology.  In another example, the skills needed to prepare bark for use as a medium on which to write calculations eventually evolved into the need to know how to use a graphing calculator. 

As technology changed in the classroom, it reflected the evolution of technology in the larger culture outside of the classroom.  In fact, they both influenced each other.  On one hand, some schools realized that these tools were used in the outside world and then adopted them. On the other hand, some students brought technology they had been exposed to in the classroom into the workplace.I believe the two (technology adopted in the classroom and technology adopted in the business place), have synergistic effects on each other.

It is difficult to tell what would've happened if the naysayers had been listened to. More than likely what was suppressed or not adopted at one location, would be put into use elsewhere. The locale that did make use of the new technology would have certain advantages not realized by locations trying to catch up.  But knowing what we know about the fate of these previous technologies does not mean that we should embrace all new innovations blindly without analyzing some of the possible negative effects that can be the result of implementing them.