My history with technology and communications begins in the early 1990s with our family’s first car phone: the Motorola bag phone. But before that, I explored the evolution of communication technology through my dad’s personal museum, in the garage. He had a timeline display of communication media: Hollerith punch cards, laser disc; 8 inch, 5 1/4 inch, 3 ½ inch floppy; These continued to evolve to CD-ROM, DVD, and USB.
But communication technology evolved in my time to beepers and the infamous (and recently back by popular demand) Nokia 3310 & 2720 flip cell phones. Texting using multi-tap evolved into T9 (Text-on-9-keys aka predictive text), and onto the touchscreen technology we use now.
Fig. 1: Some important events in the development of information and communication technologies over the last century (Lucin, 2013)
We continually invent communication technology to share ones and zeros in a code to communicate with other humans. And how we loved being able to send digital messages! We jumped at the opportunity the internet invented to reinvent our communication to online chat forums like AOL AIM chat. I met my future husband about now in the timeline and have printouts of our AOL chats to embarrass him with.
But then there was a GAP in communication technology.
There was a lull in the evolution of communication technology before an explosion of platforms we have today. One, maybe two, platforms fractured into dozens and easy fifteen I use weekly. The incubation of specialized communication tools creates a fracturing effect on communication methods and styles but also produces a dizzying acceleration of communication to people across communities, states, and nations. I mentioned using diverse platforms weekly, so to make this real, I want to share the platforms I use regularly and I’ve love to hear how many you use or ones you use that aren’t listed here:
Discord, Trello, WhatsApp, Instagram, Snap Chat, Facebook Messenger, Google Hangouts, Slack, YouTube, Marco Polo, GroupMe, LinkedIn, Houseparty, Google Duo, 4 email accounts, LMS: Canvas, ECampus, **note I do not have tiktok.
But are we being more understood? Are we practicing more communication to be better at sharing our ideas in a scholastic way? Are we more informed and creating connections among the information packets we ingest ad nauseam?
Nope. Instead, we are being trained by the technology we release into the world to change our social behavior instead of shaping the technology platforms to our human psychological behavior patterns. Each communication platform has unique social rules and communication boundaries that set them apart and define the style and length of communication as well as connections and next steps throughout discussions. I use these communication portals in four main ways: video message recording, large social or work teams, project/event communication, ego Inflation/spying on friends/event marketing. The content of each message is curated for the platform and written three or four different ways according to the best marketing practices of each tool. This process of communication creates inefficient duplication with slight tweaks. By accommodating the user’s collective preferences in diverse communication platforms, these “tweaks” to a message creates more fractured communication and exponentially more opportunities for miscommunication.
So what does that mean for teaching and learning with technology? Get curious. Accounts are free and everyone messes up the protocols for communicating in these platforms, so we should be in all of them tinkering and having fun with how they create new communities from previously isolated groups allowing new connections and shared ideas. This means also pinning messages to the tops of boards and forums declaring shared agreement statements for inclusion and boundaries of groups’ identities.
My question is: do we take the next inevitable step of embedded communication tech and become ‘enhanced” aka cyborgs.
References
Lucin, P., & Mahmutefendic, H. (2013). A New World of Learning. A New World of Learning. Donald School J Ultrasound Obstet Gynecol, 7(3), 248–260. https://doi.org/10.5005/jp-journals-10009-1290
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