There is plenty of speculation that technology is making us less intelligent. Certainly, in the classroom, I am seeing evidence that it is hindering the development of social skills, especially in boys. As per usual, it seems like Einstein knew exactly where we were headed:
Note: image of unknown origin, not covered under this site’s Creative Commons license.
I created this visualisation for my students as an example of how their work on the High Tech Stuff unit might come out. Feel free to use it under the Creative Commons license.
I just put the finishing touches on a new ICT unit looking into the past, present and future of ICT, and how technology made us the species we are today. My aim is to get students away from the idea that high-tech is the only tech. Technology is everywhere in our lives, and we only live the way we do because of it. In short, without technology we would most likely be just another species of primate.
All the files need to run the unit are listed below. Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions or just want to have a chat.
The way I run this unit allows students to use any number of tools to present their final answer to the four guiding questions. Whilst many students opt for a simple word processor or presentation application, others are more adventurous. In the past students have used tools as diverse as Tiki-Toki, EdCanvas, Storify and Prezi. The work below is a very strong piece of work submitted by one of my students, Adrien. What makes this work stand out is the excellent understanding Adrien shows for the big picture concepts covered in class, and his feeling for the effect of technology upon us. My feedback for improvements was for Adrien to include his sources and a Creative Commons license, and also to proof-read for minor errors.
Creidts: Thanks to marfis75 on Flickr for the thumbnail.
When I was younger I operated to what I held as a strict, innate moral code. I believed I was, by my very nature, a good person. As time has passed I have behaved in different ways, learned new things and been exposed to many more people. This has caused me to realise the fallacy of my earlier beliefs. It seems to me now, that humans are, without passing judgement on any individual, simply base animals. What appears to set us aside from other animals is our development of complex culture, language and society. Obviously this is due to biological differences, but as DNA has shown this represents a relatively small difference. The way I see it now is that our biological differences have, over time, tiny step by tiny step, allowed us to build up a facade of non-animal behaviour. This behaviour is passed from generation to generation, and as such allows us to maintain a continuous history of relatively steady behaviour. Over time we have come to see this behaviour as being innate: something that makes us different (superior) to other species. Cases of humans “raised by animals” show us clearly that a single generation, removed from our societal constructs, reverts with alarming speed to “primitive” state.
If this belief is accurate, then, the most important question we can ask is what are the mechanisms through which society is reproduced from one generation to the next? I would propose that the traditional answers of family and school are at the centre of this issue. Over the last 100 years I would also imagine, certainly in Western Europe and North America, that mass media has largely displaced the Church as a means for social reproduction.
As both a parent and a teacher-to-be, this line of reasoning has really made me pull up and think for a minute. How can I play my part in this continuum of human behaviour? Which aspects do I wish to propagate and which do I wish to subdue? The answers to these questions might have to wait for another time…
