May 22, 2013

What struck me about McLuhan was that he was not caught up in to media even though he was always in it.  His primary focus and goal appears to be to get his message and ultimately, the laws of media out there for people to access and use to figure out the world around them.   The creation of tetrads as a way for people to have a way to look critically at technology shows that he was a teacher at heart.  Most people do not associate the mainstream media as teaching tool, but I think that McLuhan must of seen the irony in using modern media as a teaching tool on this subject.  At times he was difficult to understand which is not the hallmark of a good teacher but at the same time his messages were profound and important and not to be overlooked.  I think the motive behind his work was to teach people how to save themselves from the maelstrom of technology.

We talked about some of the negative impact of technology in schools and how students use it, and the lack of judgement that seems ever more apparent in the Web 2.0 era.  I don't think we should be surprised, unfortunately.  I cannot think of another powerful force such as technology that has been unrolled so quickly and with so very little background knowledge for teachers and parents to grasp onto.  It is an incredibly hard job to stay at the forefront of technology when it changes so quickly.  There are no other core subjects that I could equate to technology use when we are talking about the social implications for students.  I think in many educational settings technology is viewed purely through the lens of a gadget or tool and not as a social force as well.  The education faculties and provincial curricula need to shift their focus away from only integrating technology into other subjects areas, but also need to start to explore technology as a area to be studied in social studies and the humanities.