What the future holds: “Now I know on many levels I’m not normal, but there are moments in the blogging process that just give me butterflies. Many of them occur serendipitously when I’m reading and two or three pieces of……

Your post made me reflect back to a unique moment that happened in one of our school computer labs. In August all of the elementary classrooms (K-5) were outfitted with projectors and Smartboards. All of our students are now immersed in this interactive touch sensitive environment daily. One morning I popped into one of the ES computer labs just as a kinder class was sitting down. I noticed five separate students intuitively go to touch the screen first rather than go for the mouse to start the login process. Spending much more time in front of the Smartboard than the monitor it seem logical to these young students that all computers should operate this way. For these students touch was certainly easier and felt much more natural. It was a really interesting moment that I think speaks to this post and the potential for this kind of technology to flourish across all mediums for multiple purposes.

I’m out in Portland, Oregon on Saturday working with architects and leaders from a variety of school districts who are craving new ways of thinking about the future of schooling and school design. Along with Karl Fisch’s 2020 Vision presentation, I’ll be showing the Ted Ham TED video as well, with the obvious caveat of “what impact will this have on the school design spaces and learning experiences we seek to inspire from this point forward?”

Thanks for posting such a delightful analysis of this video (with the must-listen-to quotation about no longer ‘conforming’ to the physical boundaries of our previous assumptions about technology).

Look forward to seeing you in Philly in 2 weeks.
Cheers,
Christian

Louise Rosenblatt’s theory of reader response is that the book is the reader to some extent–the experiences, tastes, and meaning that the reader brings to the text.

This will still apply but the reader will have so much more context to work from.
And of course the idea of being able to digitize all the connections an author made in composing something seems incredibly daunting at our technological vantage point now, and a little overwhelming for a reader.

It’s like having someone’s mind that you can connect with visually, with all its connections, pathways, traces of memory, etc. that led the author to their conclusions.

It reminds me of blogging or del.icio.us–by seeing what the authors we are reading are reading, we can begin to form a network of shared communications, even if only minimally.

As a librarian, these ideas do blow me away.

I also think there is loveliness in the printed book, a piece of paper you hold in your hands and touch, and bring only your own meeting of the mind with the author.

I’m one of those who believes that one thing won’t lead to the demise of the other, just as videos haven’t been the demise of the movie theater, etc.

I could be wrong. I have to say that online resources have changed the use of nonfiction at my library already. Publishers publish reference books that are tremendously more visual, and even then, students gravitate towards the internet, as do teachers. I do think the ability to connect ideas online is the reason why, so that desire for connection of related ideas is definitely a strong one.

The nonfiction that circulates the most now are narratives though our fiction still circulates as much as before, if not more.

I agree that the e-readers that try to mimic the look of a page seem to miss the point–I find that awkward–and misses the point of the connectivity part of the text online.

Thanks for all these links!