Technology, Education, Utilty, and Isaac Asimov

From Zen Pencils: Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot

(Slightly Relevant Preface: I LOVE Zen Pencils. I LOVE ZEN PENCILS. For those unaware, ZP takes inspirational quotes and turns them into inspirational cartoon posters. It's as if ZP cartoonist Gavin Aung Than read my bookmarked tabs on Chrome and my delicately transcribed journal epigraphs and created cartoons featuring literally EVERY favorite quote I have in my arsenal: Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot, Terrence McKenna's Nature Loves Courage, Rilke's Live the Questions, Frida Kahlo's Strange Like Me, Max Ehrman's Desiderata, and so, so many more. I could - and probably will - write a post about every single one of the quotes featured on ZP and how that quote has helped me through some dark moment in life.)

A recently featured ZP was Isaac Asimov's A Lifetime of Learning. Asimov is pretty prolific. Aside from the fact that he published over 500 (yes, five hundred) books in his lifetime, in a 1988 interview with Bill Moyers, he basically predicted what the mother-effing Internet would become. He said, "Once we have computer outlets in every home, each of them hooked up to enormous libraries where anyone can ask any question and be given answers, be given reference materials, be something you’re interested in knowing, from an early age, however silly it might seem to someone else… that’s what YOU are interested in, and you can ask, and you can find out, and you can do it in your own home, at your own speed, in your own direction, in your own time…"

From Zen Pencils: Asimov basically predicting the what the Internet would become decades prior.

Today, we can learn at our own pace, on our own terms, using the computers in our homes for reference. That sounds an awful lot like YouTube tutorials. That sounds like Lynda.com. That sounds like online college courses. That sounds like Google. The point is, he saw and predicted what he hoped the Internet ("computer outlets in every home") would become for us. More than that, he hoped that the automation of mundane informational tasks would in turn make us more creative, engaged humans. In other words, he hoped that technology would be used to its full capacity.

Today's Zen Pencil was, to be frank, something else I've grappled with for the past five years. I've been ruminating a long while now over how I can help my future students to grasp the wonder and grandeur that is a Smartphone, tablet, and laptop. It's the most powerful tool they will ever own (with the exception of their minds). They have the ability to look up virtually ANYTHING. How deep is the Red Sea? How many satellites currently orbit the earth? How old is Alex Trebec? You don't even have to type the whole question before Google autofills it for you. No one seems to understand the labor that used to go into answering simple questions (let alone complex ones). We have such a gift, and I fear that students don't see it. Hell, I think most adults don't even see it. But, (un)fortunately, I'm a middle school teacher, not a world teacher. (I've made peace with this.) What I seek to do is help my students see their technology as one part entertainment to three parts utility.

From Zen Pencils: Asimov's A Lifetime of Learning

Technology is a utility. The Internet is vast - perhaps infinite. It is at times amazing, other times awful. It is distracting and focusing, catastrophic and helpful. It is literally everything. I go down so many rabbit holes on a daily basis - some useful and educational, some (more than I like to admit) completely useless. I have had to learn how to wire my brain to use my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook as more than just a vessel for distractions. It takes extreme discipline to do this. It takes hard work and dedication. But it also leads to a valuable life, at least by my own self-declared, scientist-artist-hybrid standards.

I'm rambling. Clearly, I haven't thought very clearly about this blog post. I am so passionate, and that passion is overriding my judgement. I will leave you with the quote that stuck with me the most, the quote I hope to drive home to my students. May you also be inspired.

It seems to me that when it's time to die - and that will come to all of us - there would be a certain pleasure in thinking that you had utilized your life well. That you had learned as much as you could, gathered in as much as possible of the universe, and enjoyed it. There's only this one universe and only this one lifetime to try and grasp it. And while it is inconceivable that anyone can grasp more than a tiny portion of it, they can at least do that much. What a tragedy just to pass through and get nothing out of it.

From Zen Pencils: Asimov's Lifetime of Learning

Namaste, students of the Universe