Digital Storytelling

The Dynabook is an interesting device that was what many would call the precursor to the laptop.  I enjoyed learning about it through the article that I read called “Personal Dynamic Media” by Alan Kay. I enjoyed this article because it touches on how a computing device would allow for and enrich the creative faculties of humans. The article focused on how the creators of the Dynabook gave their creation to a group of children to see how they interacted with the device and what they would manage to create.  The results were astounding with most of the children becoming very apt at programming the Dynabook to perform many tasks that we unavailable but desired by kids. One specific example of this is how a middle school aged girl decided to build an etch-a-sketch like tool for the Dynabook having not seen a similar tool created by the Dynabook designers.  This ingenuity was birthed out of the creative initiative of the user and not supplied in whole by a company or manufacturer.  I like how the article proved that the innovative power of technology is not in the technology itself but in the mind of the user.  The power of the device is fully utilized and realized when the user creates with it.  Great article.

The idea of a personal web space was something that I had thought of but had never really considered to the depth that it was presented by Gardner Campbell and Jim Groom. For me the web had always been a resource and a technical innovation that is helpful for the research and for learning.  However, I have never seen it as a means of presenting myself and my thoughts to others. In the talk that Campbell gave to our class on last Thursday, he emphasized that technology is not just stuff.  This struck me as very profound.  Being a “geek” and using technology on a very frequent basis, I had always been interested in technology for what it was: the bits, the bytes, hard drives, cases, Windows, Linux, etc. Everything had a value and a use that was defined by what the objects function was. It never really occurred to me that the “stuff” also had a use in what it was used to do.  This function of the technology did not take into account what the “stuff” does but rather what it creates by that  innate use.  This is where Campbell feels that universities, professors and by extension university technology departments miss how technology should be used in an academic setting.

Universities are often strange entities. They are comprised with many different people in leadership roles, with many different values and priorities. Despite this wide range of diversity, the administrative end of a university is to attract students to the school and rise in prestige among other universities around the country and the globe.  To this end, universities will often promote themselves through programs, class offerings, student living accommodations and technology availability.  We will focus on the latter of these promotable items. When a university tries to promote itself through technological advancements, it often involves a run-down of the computer labs on campus and/or the availability of technological services that are offered to the student.  These services are totted for their robustness and ease of use. However, rarely is the technology described in terms of what a student has done with the technology or to what degree students avail themselves of those services offered.  The universities fail to recognize the value of the work enabled or created by the technology and only care about if people view the presence of these technologies as a positive or negative.

This view by the university as a whole hampers the adoption of these technologies by professors and students because they are unfamiliar with what it does. They had no say in what technology was used and have to somehow make the technology supplied fit in with what is already present outside of the digital realm.  this leaves many professors unwilling to adopt new technologies into their programs because they don’t see how it is relevant.  All they see is a bunch of technological “stuff” thrown at them.  This also has the effect of leaving the students at a loss as to what technology is available for them to us.  As the professors try to ( or not try to ) introduce these technologies into their classes, the student is left with trying to cope with how a professor did ( or did not ) implement said technologies.  In the end all parties are left stranded and confused by those tools that were supposed to be used to their benefit.  The only party not affected directly by these decisions are the decision makers, the administrators of the university, who do not have to use the technology they prescribe.

Gardner Campbell feels that by allowing students to become the technology decision maker, by allowing students to control the lay out of their digital lives, the studnet will be more apt to use and create.  They will have an inclination to innovate because they were encouraged to from the start.  They would control both the means of creativity, the “stuff” of technology so that they can concentrate upon he more important end of technology, the creation.

In the beginning the web was with Tim Berners-Lee and the web was Tim Berners-Lee…:-P So I am officially in control of my own means of creativity.  I am excited about being able to use the knowledge that I have acquired in computer science and other computer tinkering to be able to construct my own digital identity. Along with my other class mates, I hope to take my freedom and run with it. More to come.