Taking a one-post break from the flip that course series to think out loud.
I don't know what exactly I was doing in 1964 when Marshall McLuhan published his Understanding Media (New York: Mentor, 1964). Probably listening to "She Loves You" on my little turquoise transistor radio that I could carry around wherever I went--y'know, going mobile before The Who made it fashionable.
McLuhan's celebrated "the medium is the message" strikes me as being more and more realized every day, at least in the sense that we can see better what he meant by "the form of a medium imbed[ding] itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived, creating subtle change over time" (thx to our good friend Wikipedia). I bristle when I hear anyone, but especially academics, say that technology is just a tool, because technology today is clearly influencing the message, whether you call that message communication or document or assignment or learning outcome, etc.
You know you have opinions about how messages conveyed through text messaging or blogging or wikiing (?) are perceived, maybe negative opinions. Nevertheless, here we are awash in technology-mediated messages/content/essays/exams. Is it changing your views on how to present material and design assignments? Shouldn't it be?
If we think we can ignore technology in education as an influential partner in scholarship and be the master of its influence, aren't we as naïve as the Communist Chinese who think they can use a little capitalism? If so, then some rethinking is in order.
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