There are more things in heaven and earth

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

How ironic to use a quote from Hamlet a play that is 400 years old as a springboard to think about technology! Even more amazing is the link to a high school Thinkquest entry that used technology to explore and teach about the play!

As I take these days off from school to clean and prepare for the winter, I am using small chunks of time to explore some of the amazing changes since last I was looking for ways to use technology in my library. Signing up for RSS feeds of some of the blogs I like has been liberating. Using a wiki is fabulous, but seeing some of the games and other applications has made me cautious!

My first-blush innocence is gone and I have some deep concerns for some of the things I have seen this time around. Remember when I began this journey the Internet was primarily the purview of higher education institutions and was text dense! At that time the NSF oversaw the dazzling array of technological wonders which offered so much access to information. At that time the following things promised almost utopian change.

• The Gutenberg project would soon digitize all the world's great public domain literature --available and keyword searchable anywhere on earth!
• Email and listservs put us all in touch with the best minds in our profession. LM_NET was small enough to make it possible for Peter Milbury to answer personal email when I was working on a grant. Collaboration was the highest good!
• Initiatives allowed students from all the four corners of the world to communicate with one another making geography and history come to life!
• Students work would be authentic as they collaborated and published their own findings to be shared and thought about with many other students!
• Technology was going to make it possible for authentic learning to take place driven by the students curiosity and guided by an educator consultant (teacher/librarian)

That vision has not materialized. What concerns me this time round.....

• While the previous Internet was text dense this new landscape is filled with text messaging and images which do not increase the ability to think deeply or communicate more clearly and precisely. The net is moving away from READING based to graphic and auditory based information. We may be moving back toward something akin to preliterate society!
• People are targeted with subtle advertising based on their search histories.
• Rather than a diversity we seem to be moving inexorably toward a singularity.
• Real relationships seem to suffer in the flood of wired - virtual ones.
• Virtual environments may be replacing reality -- amusement replacing deep meaningful thought which traditionally led youth to challenge the status quo.

A recently published study suggests that adults are choosing to read less. It is just one in a growing chrous of warnings about the decline of reading in our cutlure. Publishers and book sellers echo the concern. Much of this is due to the impact of technology. Lest you dismiss this as just a natural progression of change please explore the impact of reading on the mind of humankind. A quick read of the Gutenberg Elegies helps us see how hypertext alters the making of meaning (of course reading is about the contstruction of meaning both by the author and by the reader). Marshall McLuhen , Havelock, Ong and others who have considered the impact of literacy on culture need to be attended and explored. What would a postliterate society be like?

I've just ordered Niel Postman's books from our public library. So I will be getting some of the musings from the dark side. My impression of Postman from the media is one of a crumudgeon so why am I reading him now?

I still believe in the value of technology and its marvelous opportunities. I know that it is a whelming flood that we face. We need to be vigilant and careful not to be subsumed by a culture of consumerism and control. We need those who are the interpreters and supporters of technology to be wise and fully understand the impact of their actions on our world.