Blog Audience & 7 Things Techies Should Know about Teaching."

Why do ideas come as you are trying to fall asleep?  The imperative drives one to find paper and pencil and record enough of the idea to be readable in the morning.  Here are my ruminations:

The audience for my blog, which I failed to previously specify, is, in one sense, anyone...it is posted on the Internet, after all. That is one way a blog is different from a book. Potentially the world (at least those with an Internet connection) can look over one's shoulder. In truth, most of us "nodes" on the Internet Superhighway have but a few onlookers. It is the hubs, the Grand Terminal Stations, that get the big traffic, like Google. The architecture of the Internet (see Theory of Complexity) is such that our little blogs are just whisps of grain blowing through the air, probably more private than a conversation in a restaurant. A book is more like a guided missle than a bit of grain. It has a focus and specific audience and the power of a book, like a karate blow comes from that focus and purpose.

Apparently when I'm drowsy I mix metaphors.

I was reading "7 Things You Should Know About the Evolution of the Textbook" by Educause (2012) and I was struck by how often tools that only work with one e-reader were mentioned. I'm tempted to write "7 Things Techies Should Know about Teaching." Hmmm [swirly design special effect with camera shot zooming in as psychedelic music plays to signal entering a dream state.]

1. A teacher has to include all, not exclude some who don't have x tool. A big challenge is how to ensure that students have and can afford whatever is needed for the learning to happen.
2. Even if a school has money to buy something for a class now, it likely won't shortly. Such programs don't last. Never buy expensive technology with a short shelf life unless you enjoy seeing programs limp to an end or just want a brag project for a year. Evaluate the lifespan of any project against expected benefit and allocate work energy accordingly. I do believe in play as valuable in developing understanding and some of these projects are that sort of play. Just don't fool yourself and take too much money from projects that will have a more substantive impact. Have a budget for play and live within it.
3. Never plan a project that is totally dependent on one thing working because the thing won't work... plus two or three other unanticipated things won't work. Teaching is living on a dancing landscape in which you go from surprise to surprise. The best coping technique, in addition to humor, is finding solid bits to anchor to year in and year out and let change blow around you, watching for more bits that have staying power or offer nourishment. And Learners break things. It's what they do and I love that about learning.
4. Stability rocks. (Rocks in the "really cool" sense, not in the "boat rocking" sense). Learning is hard. Structure and predictability help learners get there. Motivation in the form of novelty gives the learning a little gas but too much gas and you get conflagration.
5. Teaching is about balance, not about finding one tool that will fix everything, but measuring out an optimal amount of structure, of novelty, of encouragement that matches the needs of this particular student.
6. Teaching is about connecting with the student, not building a wall with a technology tool (and that includes books as a tool. Assigning a reading can be hiding from that connection. While I was contemplating the definition of a book, I realized that when you read a book, you have joined a group of people who have also read that book. You have joined a community. And yet I think as teachers we sometimes forget that connecting students to that community of readers is part of the pleasure and the goal of learning. Does the teaching task connect the student to a community or create a disconnect?
7. Teaching is about the learner's needs, and a bit about the teacher (or you get burned out and curmudgeonly). Ask yourself if this technology is for you, or for them.

[swirly design special effect with camera shot zooming out as psychedelic music fades.]

 Where was I? huh? Oh yes, reading "7 Things You Should Know About the Evolution of the Textbook" by Educause. The article used a term smart or interactive books. I prefer the term "responsive or responding books".

Why not smart?
Touching a place and having a map open up or a spot for writing a note isn't being smart. Being smart is what people do, like socking away 10% for retirement for 30 years or letting the grandparents watch the kids. You wouldn't call Mimosa Pudica (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq3UuHlPLQU) smart for closing to a touch. It does what the genes say just as tech does what the smart human says. If there is no human, it sits there waiting for a stimulus until electricity ceases to arrive. No human and it doesn't exist nor does it have a purpose for existing. There is over 100 years of research on the nature of human intelligence. Real intelligence does not look like what these devices do. It looks like what the user of the device does. Using smart to refer to these behaviors downgrades "smartness" and human skill.

Why not interactive?
I'm bucking the tide but to me, speaking as a human, an interaction is with another human or something higher on the biological scale than a plant. When I interact I expect the other being to respond to me as me. Not because it is just following a line of code that when x happens I do y. I expect the other being to be somewhat unpredictable (part of the pleasure as well as risk of an interaction). I suppose we can ask a device what it thinks interactive means...oh wait. No we can't, not and get an answer that is really *meaningful* to the device beyond that plant level, beyond what the human has told it to attend to. Yes, I have considered the artificial intelligence therapy bots in my reflections. Bet they don't include me in their reflections. And that's the point. Using interactive to refer to these devices downgrades "interaction" and human relationships.

Why responsive?
Because it is what they do. You behave... their coding results in x response. It is a more precise terminology. I happen to like what Mimosa Pudica does when I brush my hand against it and I enjoy the responsive features of my e-reader and e-texts...but I don't confuse them with a thinking, feeling (and I use those terms deliberatively) human being. Humans are a different category of action from technology calling for a qualitatively different reaction from me. And if I don't alter my reaction for people, then we say something isn't right with Sally. I also like this term better because it reminds us that technology is that most wonderful of human creations, a tool. It is brought into existence to be responsive to the creators, to provide an extension to human capacities. Using "responsive" to refer to the devices is more precise and assigns the correct sort of recognition to the amazing tools we humans have created.

Future tasks
Define terms: How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
Consider Roger's Theory of Innovation: Mountaineers, Pioneers, Settlers and People who Stay Back East-- which are my audiences? how does that affect what they'd do with ebooks?
Consider Types of Books vs Learning Models, such as Dee Fink's and Bloom's revised.