In a recent essay ( http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/newfaculty.htm ), I asked the following question: What is the most frustrating aspect of modern technology?
My Answer: The pace of change in scholarship that we should be teaching. In the past, scholarly publications came out at discrete points in time such as every three months. If we put learning materials on library reserve at the beginning of the semester, the materials probably were relevant for the entire semester. Now thousands upon thousands of scholarly publications are put on the web every day. There are search engines to help us and electronic media to signal what appears where, but each morning we awaken to a whirling blizzard of new happenings in our discipline. All academic documents should be subject to change at any time. What was posted yesterday to the web may be changed if and when you assign it for your students to read. Unless we accept being stamped “blissfully out of date,” we will perpetually live at a pace that ruins our fingernails, harms our families, impairs our diets with fast foods, reduces friendships to email messages, creates encounters as fleeting as passing
Related Questions
- In a recent essay ( http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/newfaculty.htm ), I asked the following question: What is the most frustrating aspect of modern technology?
- What government policies might make sense as technology continues to accelerate?
- What is the most frustrating aspect of modern technology?
