Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Crossing the Digital Divide
As an educator, I am concerned about what many now see as a digital divide between the digital-haves and the digital have-nots. Sociological factors like level of education, income, the region of the US and globally, along with other factors like culture and gender, are identified as contributing to this phenomenon.
Yet, it is possible to see the influence of emerging technologies in much that we do, but it is even more disconcerting when one considers William Gibson’s statement, “The future arrived; it just wasn't equally distributed.” For me, the future has arrived, but I am among the digital-haves. With that I awareness, it is possible then to begin the process of crossing the digital divide.
As an educator, I am a strong believer in opportunity and the need to enable people to achieve their dreams. It becomes imperative then to seek ways to expose people to existing and emerging technologies. But, exposure is not enough; it is also necessary to take some of the magic and mystery out of emerging technologies. Yes, there are some really cool things out there, but it is not essential that people know why something works in order for them to work effectively with something new. Teaching people how to grow and adapt to emerging technologies will help them cross the digital divide for themselves. Encouraging people to continue their educations and try new things will also increase the likelihood that the digital gap will diminish over time.
Reference:
http://www.i-policy.org/2010/11/socio-economic-factors-continue-to-impact-digital-divide-in-the-us-new-report.html
Yet, it is possible to see the influence of emerging technologies in much that we do, but it is even more disconcerting when one considers William Gibson’s statement, “The future arrived; it just wasn't equally distributed.” For me, the future has arrived, but I am among the digital-haves. With that I awareness, it is possible then to begin the process of crossing the digital divide.
As an educator, I am a strong believer in opportunity and the need to enable people to achieve their dreams. It becomes imperative then to seek ways to expose people to existing and emerging technologies. But, exposure is not enough; it is also necessary to take some of the magic and mystery out of emerging technologies. Yes, there are some really cool things out there, but it is not essential that people know why something works in order for them to work effectively with something new. Teaching people how to grow and adapt to emerging technologies will help them cross the digital divide for themselves. Encouraging people to continue their educations and try new things will also increase the likelihood that the digital gap will diminish over time.
Reference:
http://www.i-policy.org/2010/11/socio-economic-factors-continue-to-impact-digital-divide-in-the-us-new-report.html
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Tech’s Long Tail
• When you decided to obtain a DVD for your science fiction assignment in Module 4, where did you go to find a movie based on a Philip K. Dick book? Did you rent or purchase a DVD, or did you view it digitally on your computer using Netflix or a similar vendor of video on demand?
• Is the current competition between DVDs and video on demand an example of increasing returns or Red Queens? Justify your response with sound reasoning and specific examples.
• Where do you think DVDs and video on demand are on the four criteria of McLuhan’s tetrad?
Of the six possible choices for the Philip K. Dick assignment (Blade Runner, Minority Report, Total Recall, Next, Paycheck, or A Scanner Darkly), I own two on VHS, including Total Recall which was my selection, two on DVD because they came out after I began my DVD collection, and two that I don’t have (Paycheck and A Scanner Darkly). I have never heard of Paycheck, and I was a little bit freaked out by the first Scanner movie, so I am have not concerned myself with adding any of them to my collection of over 800 movies.
It has been over a decade since I rented a movie or had cable television; I managed a VHS rental store for a little over a year while I was working my way through community college (I won’t mention how long that was), which made for a lot of study time and even more free movies. I have yet to venture into BluRay, even after its recent victory over HD, because I can still purchase DVDs for my collection at a fraction of the cost to purchase the newer BluRay disks. When the day comes that I can no longer purchase new releases on DVD or my cathode ray tube television gives up the ghost, whichever comes first, I will migrate to the latest and greatest movie format and mount a new piece of tech on my wall with all the bells and whistles that make up a modern home theater.
Many of the DVDs I purchase also come with digital copies, but I have yet to load one on my computer to watch a movie, perhaps I will prior to my next enforced traveling adventure so that I do not have to carry on my own entertainment in anything other than the laptop that goes everywhere with me.
Chris Anderson, in his TED presentation, discussed the four phases that most technologies go through: critical price, critical mass, replacing another technology, and free. My purchasing habits in building my movie collection reflect these characteristics pretty closely. It was not until VHS and DVD players and their video formats could be purchased cheaply, where they had reached critical mass, did I enter the marketplace. And, it is not until the new technology has fully replaced the old nearly free technology that I venture into the new media. I hung out in the nearly free realm for as long as I could.
While I know many people who are Netflix fanatics, I still like owning my own stuff rather than renting or pulling it out of the cloud, since you never know when the server will go down or blow up. On rare occasions when I am feeling nostalgic for an old movie or television series, which I don’t already own, I log on to Hulu and watch the available free stuff. While many people flock to Netflix or other video websites, I watch movies from the comfort of my living room without any annoying streaming delays. For me, this new way of watching movies has little appeal. While DVDs may be on McLuhan’s obsolete tetrad for the rest of the world, for me they are anything but obsolete. And while, video on demand may be an emerging technology and provide increasing returns over its disk-based competition, it has very little appeal to me.
Someday, I expect BluRay too will also go away, replaced fully by digital media in a time when television, stereo, telephone, internet access, VOIP, and all other digital devices meld into one, but I imagine that I will enter that realm toward the free end of the digital format phase and store all my movies on my own personal storage device, as I once did with over 200 CDs, which currently resides on my laptop, desktop, and Blackberry. Have I mentioned the over 6,000 hardback, paperback, and trade editions that I am not sure how I will ever replace? I still don’t have an eReader…
Reference:
Anderson, C. (2004). Tech’s long tail [Video]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/
chris_anderson_of_wired_on_tech_s_long_tail.html
• Is the current competition between DVDs and video on demand an example of increasing returns or Red Queens? Justify your response with sound reasoning and specific examples.
• Where do you think DVDs and video on demand are on the four criteria of McLuhan’s tetrad?
Of the six possible choices for the Philip K. Dick assignment (Blade Runner, Minority Report, Total Recall, Next, Paycheck, or A Scanner Darkly), I own two on VHS, including Total Recall which was my selection, two on DVD because they came out after I began my DVD collection, and two that I don’t have (Paycheck and A Scanner Darkly). I have never heard of Paycheck, and I was a little bit freaked out by the first Scanner movie, so I am have not concerned myself with adding any of them to my collection of over 800 movies.
It has been over a decade since I rented a movie or had cable television; I managed a VHS rental store for a little over a year while I was working my way through community college (I won’t mention how long that was), which made for a lot of study time and even more free movies. I have yet to venture into BluRay, even after its recent victory over HD, because I can still purchase DVDs for my collection at a fraction of the cost to purchase the newer BluRay disks. When the day comes that I can no longer purchase new releases on DVD or my cathode ray tube television gives up the ghost, whichever comes first, I will migrate to the latest and greatest movie format and mount a new piece of tech on my wall with all the bells and whistles that make up a modern home theater.
Many of the DVDs I purchase also come with digital copies, but I have yet to load one on my computer to watch a movie, perhaps I will prior to my next enforced traveling adventure so that I do not have to carry on my own entertainment in anything other than the laptop that goes everywhere with me.
Chris Anderson, in his TED presentation, discussed the four phases that most technologies go through: critical price, critical mass, replacing another technology, and free. My purchasing habits in building my movie collection reflect these characteristics pretty closely. It was not until VHS and DVD players and their video formats could be purchased cheaply, where they had reached critical mass, did I enter the marketplace. And, it is not until the new technology has fully replaced the old nearly free technology that I venture into the new media. I hung out in the nearly free realm for as long as I could.
While I know many people who are Netflix fanatics, I still like owning my own stuff rather than renting or pulling it out of the cloud, since you never know when the server will go down or blow up. On rare occasions when I am feeling nostalgic for an old movie or television series, which I don’t already own, I log on to Hulu and watch the available free stuff. While many people flock to Netflix or other video websites, I watch movies from the comfort of my living room without any annoying streaming delays. For me, this new way of watching movies has little appeal. While DVDs may be on McLuhan’s obsolete tetrad for the rest of the world, for me they are anything but obsolete. And while, video on demand may be an emerging technology and provide increasing returns over its disk-based competition, it has very little appeal to me.
Someday, I expect BluRay too will also go away, replaced fully by digital media in a time when television, stereo, telephone, internet access, VOIP, and all other digital devices meld into one, but I imagine that I will enter that realm toward the free end of the digital format phase and store all my movies on my own personal storage device, as I once did with over 200 CDs, which currently resides on my laptop, desktop, and Blackberry. Have I mentioned the over 6,000 hardback, paperback, and trade editions that I am not sure how I will ever replace? I still don’t have an eReader…
Reference:
Anderson, C. (2004). Tech’s long tail [Video]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/
chris_anderson_of_wired_on_tech_s_long_tail.html
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Second Life as Disruptive Technology
• How is Second Life a disruptive technology?
• What technology or innovation did it displace?
• How many years do you think Second Life has left before another emerging technology or disruptive technology replaces it?
• What are the social benefits of Second Life, and what might be the social implications of virtual worlds in your industry?
Thornburg described disruptive technologies as wild card technologies that seemingly come out of nowhere to make obsolete an existing technology. Using the example of the transistor, Thornburg described how the vacuum tube became obsolete and was replaced by the transistor, stating that the last vestiges of the vacuum tube will be made obsolete by LED and LCD technologies as the cathode ray tube is replaced by flat screen televisions using these newer technologies.
Christensen depicted the nature of successful disruptive technologies like the transistor by showing that the products using transistors did not compete directly with those industries it would eventually obsolete. Instead, transistors created a new market and were cheaper and attractive to people who previously had no access to some technology. Christensen discussed how microcomputer manufactures had attempted to find ways to use transistors, but they were unable to use this new technology while still improving the quality of their products to meet the needs of their best customers. The transistor was in effect disruptive not because it seemingly came out of nowhere; instead, it was these new uses and markets that eventually overwhelmed the microcomputer market.
With Thornburg’s concept of the wild card and Christensen’s depiction of newness of a technology overwhelming an existing market, it becomes clear that Second Life is indeed a disruptive technology. Second Life is a creative interactive social virtual world. And, while I do not think that it has yet to truly replace an existing technology, it certainly provides intriguing opportunities for the use of technology.
In Rosedale’s discussion of Second Life at TED, he made the point that programmers and internet gamers are not particularly enamored of Second Life because of the relatively weak quality of its graphics as compared to online games. Virtual world games like World of Warcraft, EverQuest, and EVE Online have economies, avatars, and similar social characteristics, but unlike these games, Second Life is not a game and adds the ability to generate personalized environments and incorporating unique applications within this virtual world space.
Rosedale described the flatness of the internet, hypertext link to hypertext link; Second Life has influenced a more interactive internet experience with interactive video and multimedia. In the world of educational technology, I have seen educators use Second Life to create virtual crime scenes for students, interactive museums depicting events of historical significance like the Holocaust, and synchronous seminars for students and educators around the world. While online courses might not be housed within a Second Life world, they are more likely to simulate an immersive virtual world experience because of Second Life’s example and success.
And again, while I do not think that Second Life has replaced an existing technology, I also do not believe that it will be wholly adopted by many educators, it will certainly influence the way that curriculum is designed in online curriculums and companies develop and market their products on the internet. Instead of presenting material in a flat hypertext to hypertext fashion, companies are modifying the presentation of their products and services simulating a more virtual and immersive model for examining their products.
References:
Christensen, C. (2002). The innovation economy: How technology is transforming existing industries and creating new ones [Video]. Retrieved May 1, 2011 from http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/108.
Rosedale, P. (2008). Second Life [Video]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/the_inspiration_of_second_life.html.
Thornburg, D. (n.d.). Disruptive technologies. Retrieved May 1, 2011 from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=4930730&Survey=1&47=5513753&ClientNodeID=984645&coursenav=1&bhcp=1
• What technology or innovation did it displace?
• How many years do you think Second Life has left before another emerging technology or disruptive technology replaces it?
• What are the social benefits of Second Life, and what might be the social implications of virtual worlds in your industry?
Thornburg described disruptive technologies as wild card technologies that seemingly come out of nowhere to make obsolete an existing technology. Using the example of the transistor, Thornburg described how the vacuum tube became obsolete and was replaced by the transistor, stating that the last vestiges of the vacuum tube will be made obsolete by LED and LCD technologies as the cathode ray tube is replaced by flat screen televisions using these newer technologies.
Christensen depicted the nature of successful disruptive technologies like the transistor by showing that the products using transistors did not compete directly with those industries it would eventually obsolete. Instead, transistors created a new market and were cheaper and attractive to people who previously had no access to some technology. Christensen discussed how microcomputer manufactures had attempted to find ways to use transistors, but they were unable to use this new technology while still improving the quality of their products to meet the needs of their best customers. The transistor was in effect disruptive not because it seemingly came out of nowhere; instead, it was these new uses and markets that eventually overwhelmed the microcomputer market.
With Thornburg’s concept of the wild card and Christensen’s depiction of newness of a technology overwhelming an existing market, it becomes clear that Second Life is indeed a disruptive technology. Second Life is a creative interactive social virtual world. And, while I do not think that it has yet to truly replace an existing technology, it certainly provides intriguing opportunities for the use of technology.
In Rosedale’s discussion of Second Life at TED, he made the point that programmers and internet gamers are not particularly enamored of Second Life because of the relatively weak quality of its graphics as compared to online games. Virtual world games like World of Warcraft, EverQuest, and EVE Online have economies, avatars, and similar social characteristics, but unlike these games, Second Life is not a game and adds the ability to generate personalized environments and incorporating unique applications within this virtual world space.
Rosedale described the flatness of the internet, hypertext link to hypertext link; Second Life has influenced a more interactive internet experience with interactive video and multimedia. In the world of educational technology, I have seen educators use Second Life to create virtual crime scenes for students, interactive museums depicting events of historical significance like the Holocaust, and synchronous seminars for students and educators around the world. While online courses might not be housed within a Second Life world, they are more likely to simulate an immersive virtual world experience because of Second Life’s example and success.
And again, while I do not think that Second Life has replaced an existing technology, I also do not believe that it will be wholly adopted by many educators, it will certainly influence the way that curriculum is designed in online curriculums and companies develop and market their products on the internet. Instead of presenting material in a flat hypertext to hypertext fashion, companies are modifying the presentation of their products and services simulating a more virtual and immersive model for examining their products.
References:
Christensen, C. (2002). The innovation economy: How technology is transforming existing industries and creating new ones [Video]. Retrieved May 1, 2011 from http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/108.
Rosedale, P. (2008). Second Life [Video]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/the_inspiration_of_second_life.html.
Thornburg, D. (n.d.). Disruptive technologies. Retrieved May 1, 2011 from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=4930730&Survey=1&47=5513753&ClientNodeID=984645&coursenav=1&bhcp=1
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)