'Over dependence' on technology

When the news is filled as it currently is with news of a data compromise at eBay, it is quite common to hear people say things like "this is what happens when we are over-dependent on technology."

They say the same things when the link to an online learning resource won't work, or people lose their connection to a webinar. Isn't it terrible? We're so dependent on technology, and everything grinds to a halt when it lets us down.

But let's just stop a moment before we all get hysterical about technology being to blame for all that goes wrong in the world. Our lives are filled with technology that we don't even refer to by that name any more. Your cooker is technology. Your pen is technology. Your car is technology. Your old manual typewriter (supposing you have one) is technology. They've just been around so long that you don't think of them as such any more.

When your cooker stops working, you don't curse your over-dependence on gas/electricity to provide food for your family. When your car breaks down, you don't make a blanket statement about how we should have stuck with horses.

Did you once use overhead projectors? Did the bulb sometimes go when you were right in the middle of a class/workshop/presentation? Should we have reverted back to the days before OHPs were invented? Nah, you just came up with an alternative and moved on. Because you're resourceful like that.

The thing that has happened at eBay is serious. It could be more serious than they're letting on. But the dust will probably settle and people will go back to business as usual.

Mistakes and challenges have always been a part of life and always will be. The technologies that we curse when things go wrong were developed in the first place to address some other problem. Before we had online learning, distance learning had to involve large quantities of printed materials being sent hither and yon, which was costly on so many levels. Before we had distance learning, people had to travel somewhere to participate in a learning event, which was ditto, and disruptive to boot.

So the next time you lose connection to your online learning event (which might happen to me within the next half an hour as I try to log in to a webinar with a splendiferous thunderstorm doing its thang overhead), take a breath and try again. The world hasn't come to an end, and it's probably no more of an inconvenience than when the assignment you submitted by mail didn't reach its destination by deadline date, or your car broke down on the way to a residential course.

And, just to keep your sense of humour intact, the next time the water is cut off to your home while they work on the pipes somewhere in your neighbourhood, say out loud to yourself, "This is what happens when we become too dependent on running water!" Because taps (faucets) are technology too.

Top 50 education innovator award

I don't know if you noticed my shiny new badge on the top left of this blog. I have no idea who nominated me for it, but I presume it must be someone who reads this blog regularly, so no doubt you will read this post. Whoever you are, thank you. I'm flattered.

See here to learn about the other 49 recipients.

Gutted! No learning innovations conference for Karyn

Rats and double rats! I have learned today that my request to attend the Brandon Hall Innovations in Learning conference in Santa Clara in September has been turned down. Phooey.

Bless the man, my husband thinks I should go anyway, and is determined to do everything in his power to find a way to fund it. I am pretty close to absolutely certain we can't afford it, but his willingness brings a lump to my throat.

The cost of the conference at the early bird rate works out to around £450, which isn't really a great deal of money - less than the cost of many local conferences, in fact. The problem comes in when you start adding things like airfares - the cheapest I have found has been £377 return; hotels - the cheapest being around £32/day and less than a mile from the conference venue; and meals - £?? Plus taxis and shuttles to and from airports and hotels and stuff. Since the really cheap airfare only applies if I stay in the US for a week (a week within spitting distance of San Fransisco, my second favourite city in the world - what a trial!), I would have to pay for a week of hotels and meals. Let's call it £300. I have no idea how much the taxis and shuttles would be, but let's make up a figure based on complete ignorance of £50. Where are we now? £1177. Or roughly $2320. That's a lot of money for an individual person to stump up.

What I do think, though, is that the good folks at Brandon Hall have missed a trick. I'm totally with their view that it helps to get together in person from time to time and online conferences aren't the answer to everything. The thing is though, that online conferences aren't the only alternative. With the technology that is available to them, surely they could have run parallel conferences in major centres around the world (London, Tokyo, Sydney, Cape Town...) via simulcast? That way presenters, vendors and delegates from outside of the USA would be able to participate from a more local venue. I'm fairly sure that for a bunch of wild-eyed learning zealots such as we are the time difference would have been a minor matter. What surprises me most about the fact that this approach has not been adopted is the fact that the conference page displays this little box.