Many bloggers reflected on what they had learned on the arrival of the new year. I’m doing it now because 1) I have some time as I sit in a Montreal hotel hoping that the freezing rain won’t cancel my flight home and 2) the second anniversary of this blog is on Sunday, the 19th, but I’d rather not turn on my computer this weekend, after two weeks away from home.
On reflection, I can confirm how powerful informal learning is becoming, in a ubiquitously connected & pervasively proximate, world. Many people are using their expanded networks to learn and collaborate. On the other side, there is still a large segment of the population trapped in hierarchial organisations where information, knowledge and decisions trickle through layers of filtration. I’ve also realised that the digital divide, or digital immigrants vs digital natives, is not generational, it is attitudinal. As a baby boomer, I thought that my generation was way behind younger generations. However, I have met many university-educated people, 20 years younger than me who don’t have a clue about the basic operations of computers and the Internet. Even school-age children don’t have basic information search capabilities, and many do not understand how to evaluate a source of information. We have a long way to go in becoming a society of autonomous knowledge workers.
On a positive note, I’m excited about being part of Education Bridges and I’ve seen some real progress in extending our research and education network at the Atlantic Wildlife Institute, where I volunteer as the Director of Education. These grassroots projects are stimulating, even though they don’t pay the bills.
I’m also finding that this year I have not had to go out and market my services. All of my projects to date have been referrals and I believe that this is partly due to my blog. I continue to promote blogging for free-agents, and those considering going out on their own, as the most effective marketing tool there is.
So I guess it’s one more year of interesting conversations for me …
Happy Anniversary!Harold:
Congratulations on your two year anniversary. It’s good that you took the time to share your reflections (I on the other hand let eeLearning’s 2 year anniversary slip by back in January without even a mention). I believe you are dead on the mark regarding the digital divide being much more attributable to attitude than to age. I was just making a similar point over on CogDogBlog that what we geeks and semi-geeks might find exciting and paradigm-shifting is likely viewed buy the vast majority of the population as more hocus pocus that has nothing to do with their real lives.
In reading your post, I’m wondering if the fact that it takes a radical new attitude – regardless of age – to understand, grasp, and begin to utilize these new tools if what we need to examine is how a more mainstream attitude might be able to grab hold and use these tools. By more mainstream I’m thinking about the reality that most people that use computers would rather not have to deal with them other than to type in some facts, opinion, etc. and have things print out or project the way they expect them to. I’m not suggesting some sort of ludite approach to technological diffusion. After all, there are a vast multitude of professors and corporate managers who today use powerpoint regularly, if not well, and don’t have a second thought about doing so. Whereas 15 years ago, only the highest ranking executives, who had administrative assistants do the dirty work, would use powerpoint to present their biggest presentations. Some how, an attitudinal shift occurred that allowed powerpoint to span what Geoffrey Moore terms the Chasm. Now 6th graders use PowerPoint to write essays. It’s as normal as using a 5-subject notebook was for us way back when.
Did the masses come to the innovation or did the innovators stop wondering at their invention long enough for it to have utility to the common user?