"The Collapse of the Physical World" - Developing a Lexical Resource to Understand Ed Tech

"The Collapse of the Physical World" - Developing a Lexical Resource to Understand Ed Tech 

Book Scanner - digitizing the physical world.

The collapse of the physical world. When I read this phrase in Boyd's It's Complicated  it struck me. This simple turn of phrase explained so much of what is going on with technology these days. Being an instructor to first year university students and an Educational technologist, it explained so much of what is going on. To give just one example of probably thousands, I'd like to point to the high-speed, page-flipping book scanner. This device literally collapses the physical world. You pop a book in and it flips the pages while scanning them. The scanned file zaps into your memory storage. 

Brianstorming more applications of phrase in the world of Education Technology, I can quickly think of quite a few other instances. 

"A student's shoulders are hunched over, head hung limp, only the thumb moves. His physical world has all but collapsed into the touch screen." 

"The lecture hall is empty, save for the professor, her notes, and presentation projection. The student audience has collapsed into a broadcast camera on a wooden platform."

"Where once hundreds of bulking shelves stood, they have now been collapsed into personal devices and a password."

To re-iterate, arming ourselves with cleaver new thoughtful phrases can certainly help us understand and communicate what we see happening in the world around us. The following are a number of other turns of phrase that have helped me shed new light on what it means to be teaching, developing, and managing in a world of education technology. 

Hyper-individualism: I came across this term in the CBCs Here and Now. It basically refers to our obsession with ourselves, particularly, our online selves. Obsessions with selfies, profile pages, blogs (lol), and differing ourselves from the three billion others online has led us to hype up who we are. How can ed tech use or account for hyper-individualism? 

Variable rewards: In a Psychology Today piece from last month, PhD. Psychologist Dillard-Wright describes variable rewards as a psychological conditioning system. Basically, an app or program will taunt the user with "digital treats". These could come in the form of Facebook likes, Duolingi Medals, or online dating inquiries. By distributing the rewards at random times and sometimes as a "rush" or rally, these rewards create anticipation and excitement  every time the phone is checked. This is amplified by having devices vibrate, ping, or flash with every possible reward. We know this creates screen addiction and unhealthy habits of checking devices. Debate question - Is it ethical to use variable rewards in educational software? Many already employ it. 

Infinite scrolling: In a BBC article from last summer, the infinite scroll is set up let users scroll their screens non-stop. The inventor of this function, Aza Ruskin, states that "If you don't give your brain time to catch up with your impulses, you just keep scrolling". This results in users spending much more time on their devices and leads to addiction. Although many companies are aware of the addiction, they continue to employ it. More screen attention = more revenue. So, again, if our instructional designers for curricula employ software with this feature, is it ethical to let students use it? Is our course content creating screen addiction?

Machine learning tools: According to Martin McKay, Chief Technology Officer at Texthelp, a reputable ed tech software firm, one of the big trends just hitting the ed tech world these days is machine learning tools. This are programs that monitor students while they work online and are/will have the power to identify and respond to learning challenges, such as dyslexia, visual impairments, or second language learning. Basically, the machine is spotting the problem and automatically responding to it with solutions.

The learning experience: In a PBS show produced by Penn State's Digging Deeper, the term "learning experience" was used. After a quick Google nGram search, we can see that the use of this phrase has had a sharp increase since the late 90s. I believe this term is being used more and more to bring awareness to how technology can change how we learn. Take for example the use of VR and education. This is a major shift in how technology changes our whole sensory input.

Just a handful of terms to digest, but heavy ones at that. Try using them in a sentence and see what ideas you come up with. Does it open up a new discourse on how you think about technology and education? I hope so. See you next blog :-).