An interesting thing happened on the way to learning in the 21st Century...
George Siemens said "Technology is altering (rewiring) our brains. The tools we use define and shape our thinking." I can think of no more poignant a statement for today's social and political climate than this statement. Technology has become both our savior/liberator and our prison. We are tethered to our various social networks and information outlets during the majority of our waking hours. We search for answers to all questions through Google, obtain feedback instantaneously through FacebookLive, and we respond to the world's problems and in-the-moment opinions and commentary in blips through Twitter. How is this NOT rewiring our brains? I am reading an article for another class that had a quote by Henri Poincare ́, a physical scientist, I think really applies here. ‘Science is built up of facts, as a house is built of stones; but an accumulation of facts is no more science than a heap of stones is a house.’ Accumulation of technology, how much tech we own, is not the main factor; the main factor is how much we use on a daily basis, in our jobs and in our free time. This is the deciding factor on how much it affects our brains. For example, reading books encourages imagination and focus, it takes time to get the information from many different sources. On the other hand, the advent of technology and the access we have to mountains of information at our fingertips has encouraged the abilities of rapid and efficient scanning of information. The importance of processing, analyzing, and synthesizing that information? This is something that is lacking in our culture and in our schools. So, I agree with Siemans. Technology is literally changing the neurons for creating the pathways of thinking in our brains, changing how our brains receive and process the information. I was reading a research study on the effects of regular video game playing on the manual dexterity of laparoscopic surgeons - an average of more than 35% increase on surgery skill level as a direct result. It's impressive to think how much computer use or game console use can have an effect on our brains and bodies. But the effect does not stop there. Technology is affecting how, when, where, and why we are learning. According to many neuroscience researchers, the ever-growing exposure we have to technology for information gathering/input is quite literally rewiring our brains. We process information differently than we did when it was just books or magazines, just as the change from handwriting to typing changed the way our brains were wired to process and read and write information. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128236.400-susan-greenfield-living-online-is-changing-our-brains/ (Links to an external site.) Biologically, our bodies are linked to our brains, hence the order in which most humans learn to walk. It doesn't start with walking or even standing, it begins with the body up on all fours, rocking to and fro, before falling back on the belly. Walking happens only when the brain is ready for it. I think there is a big parallel here. But getting the brain ready and training the brain for for learning via technology is only half of the issue. The other half concerns the location of the knowledge and information. In today's world, we have Wikipedia, Google, Answers.com, AskIT, and millions of other sites we can go to for information. I have heard many times, 'Why do I have to know this? I can just Google it.' Knowing where to go for knowledge is good, it makes for good research. However, without the prior knowledge to connect new knowledge to, we are doing nothing but opening up files and looking at isolated facts. That is not learning nor is it conducive to locating and understanding correct information. We have to know how to process the information we find, connect it to other information, and come up with new ideas to contribute to the subject, or at least new ways of thinking about it. Innovation and new ideas have both exploded and suffered at the hands of technology, in my opinion. The future of learning will be finding ways to combine information overload with information processing/synthesis and fact confirmation.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Kait E CottengimA wandering leaf, teacher, lifelong book addict, ofttimes artist/writer, & eclectic spiritual explorer. ArchivesCategories |