Tech-Faced

Facebook just pointed out the many advantages of reading literary fiction; of course, I had to share that on my wall; that is so me! Of late, when I have a few minutes between sets of ungraded papers, waiting for a call back from the pharmacy, or just trying to unwind after a whirlwind day, I find myself scouring Facebook.

Now there is nothing extraordinary or new about this. I would not exaggerate if I claimed that this behaviour is quite common for the 21st century homosapien. It is a sign of the times that I split the people I know into two main group, those on Facebook and those who resist. Since I belong most definitely to the former, I despair of ways of keeping in touch with the latter. Surely, I am not expected to do something primitive like actually making a voice call? My students would shudder at the very idea. After all, even if one were to dial the number (is that phrase obsolete?), what would one say? Every time I do make a voice call, I am aware of an underlying wish that the person I am calling would not pick up, that I could just leave a succinct message and hang up to end the awkward experience. I am also aware that, like the rest of my Gujarati family, I tend to speak louder when I talk on the phone, the logic involving a physics formula about the complex relationship between the volume of the voice and the distance it has to travel. The end of such a call, inevitably, is accompanied with a distinct awareness of the needlessly high tones that one has to own up to.

No. Let us connect on Facebook instead. Or perhaps text. Surely, you have downloaded WhatsApp on your smart phone? Why involve something as personal as, as strange as disembodied voices?

One of the TV channels I watch proclaims Vasudhaiva Kutumbekam (world is one family) as its tag line. I cannot think of a better descriptor for the globalization that I take for granted, an idea that my younger self could only sigh over while watching Star Trek. My child posts pictures from her phone onto my Facebook wall so that now, I know what the EU headquarters in Brussels look like; my cousin FaceTimes with us from Vadodara so that his toddler can show us his new toys; my Google+ holds our clan's photo albums; my Geni informs me when a birthday nears; I can even borrow books from my county library on my Kindle while waiting for my flight connection at Heathrow.

A few of my friends are disappointed at the direction the world seems to be taking; the figure of Darth Vader seems to personify this fear of losing our humanity to technology, very much like the Minotaur expressed the ancient Greek's fear of losing humanity to the beast within. This is a valid fear, of course. However, if being part machine helps us become more human, does it not make the machine more human than the other way around? Take pacemakers or dialysis machines, for example. Would we be willing to go back to a world without those? I remember typing up papers with carbon sheets ensconced in between, which copious gallons of whiteout could not salvage. If given a choice, I would never go back to those days! Many fictional re-creations of post apocalyptic stories explore what the world would be like without the present day's communication channels. My blood runs cold with fright when I read those.

I cannot imagine that devices that help us communicate in varied ways can be essentially malignant. Certainly, some people will misbehave and misuse these devices; however, do we let the fear of misbehaviour guide us? Is it even in our nature to do that? History is evidence that we have always looked for ways to make the world smaller; thanks to Facebook and smart phones, this world is at our fingertips, and it is up to us to expand it exponentially until it becomes real or to contract it to a thumbnail.

I am grateful that I live in the same age as these devices. Worlds I had thought were lost to me have been returned a thousand fold; I am thinking of ancient legends, the dance form I was trained in (Kathak), my favorite painting genre (Indian miniatures), Hindi songs and films from the 1960's, and garbas or Gujarati folk dance music so ancient that most lyrics are derived from oral history. One can enjoy the Gregorian Chant and Sanskrit shlokas with the same crystal clarity as though they were being spoken in one's presence. I can find ancient trade routes or recreate a festival day of an Indonesian wife without much trouble. I wouldn't be able to spark my students' interest in Greek Mythology or Folk Tales if I couldn't bring up Google Images of Echidna or Baba Yaga.

I could go on, of course. I do so love the times I inhabit, may the Luddite gods forgive me! I fail to imagine what the next half decade will bring, but I am very excited about it.

Now my patient reader must excuse me. I must go back to preparing a collection of my favorite garbas on my flash drive so that I can plug it into my car and listen to these ancient lyrics on my way to work. After that, I must find a kidney friendly recipe from websites recommended by my online support group, transfer money between accounts, and order a birthday gift from Amazon; I must flex my fingers and send them racing across the keyboard, and the world I manage. In between these chores, if you are on Facebook, I might wander in and say a quick Hey.



 

Navigating the Tornado: CMS and Other Frustrations

This month has somehow taken wing and I stand here, on its exit threshold, not quite remembering how I got here. The first quarter of the year is past, my child's FAFSA updated, my CMS  (Classroom Management System) updated for next quarter that begins on Monday, and even my laundry is more or less done. So, of course, I worry about my work ethic, hopefully to re-examine the way I work, the hours I spend on it, and if I am doing too much or too little for the job that has defined my decade.

One can always argue that it is not possible to do too much: after all, this is the only job I have and the way I do it will define who I am in ways I cannot control. Do I love it? Yes, most days I honestly do. I don't love it so much on days like today, when I look back at my break week with frustration and defeat.

My patient reader would argue, of course, that all that frustration and defeat stem from within me, and that my job has little to do with it: after all, no one has mandated that I change the text book for the course no one asked me to create in the first place; no one has mandated that I construct individual, detailed rubrics for each assignment in each course; no one has suggested that my courses have insufficient assessment / evaluation tools, or that these tools need to be rephrased, re-constructed, or changed in any way. I also know that no one really likes change, and that these hours and days I have wasted on these updates are going to earn me dissatisfaction and frustration from the very people for whom I've made these changes, the students, who will not be able to use their friends' notes, books, and tests for this quarter.

I also know I am isolated in my struggle to manage and force my CMS into doing what I want it to; it resists! It seems that no one has the power to make it do my bidding, even though everyone wants it to. So I have spent most of this week constructing, breaking down, revising, adding, and subtracting the same elements repeatedly until my head is spinning and I've had to walk away to get a perspective. I have felt what the doomed Athenian youth must have felt as they blundered around the Minotaur's labyrinth, trying to get an idea about its structure and ending up lost, not knowing which way North lies.

Actually, most of this month has felt that way, like trying to navigate logically through a tornado. This week, I talked to a few people at work about our CMS and some other electronic resources available to faculty. I have been embarrassingly, foolishly enthusiastic about adding customized rubrics to my GradeMark, about the new databases our library is going to add later this year, about the new tools I am discovering, like the Prezi. I confess to waxing poetic about the wonderful free Google resources for educators.

I usually look for my compasses in the eyes of the people around me, to get  my bearings, to figure out if I am headed the right way or at least the way I want to go. But I have received mixed signals: half the people give me thumbs up and seem to cheer me on, promising to call me if they get lost; equal number of people have looked away, vowing to have little to do with me or my ways, shaking their heads over how lost I've allowed myself to become. A friend suggested that I should learn to curb my excitement a bit, for if I indulge it, I am likely to spend hours, days, weeks in learning about these resources, helping whoever wants my help and that to realise that I am not going to get paid for all those hours, days, and weeks. A respected, well-meaning colleague, only half in jest, showed me a pencil and asked me if I'd forgotten how to use it. I remain shell shocked and lost.

The form and idea of higher education are changing at Warp Speed. I realise that. I also understand that institutions like the one I am with presently might either not survive this change or might metamorphose into something completely different. So my enthusiasm and excitement do sound pointless and foolish, even to  myself. I stand here at the end of my break week, and I must confess to an undeniable strain of guilt and indulgence that run through my enjoyment in learning little things I didn't know before, things that are little more than clicks and links and a few taps on my keyboard, when everything is said and done.

A very good friend, one of the few people whose opinion I value highly, one of my Axis Mundi, wondered at my excitement at the saw that is cutting away the branch I perch upon. I feel unwarranted in pointing out that there would be no other way for me to fly, unless that comfortable branch were sawed off. Most probably, I will have to leave my body behind in this flight. So this post goes out as a hope and prayer that the skies are worth it, that the wings are strong enough, and that my eyes are keen and wise enough to absorb the views.