This month I’m trying something new: prompts. I have a nasty
habit of getting involved in products with all sorts of verve and enthusiasm
and then allowing them to fizzle out fairly soon afterwards. That’s why I’ve
signed up with WordPress.com’s ‘Writing 101’ course which is free and which
will give me daily prompts to inspire my writing. Now, being me, I’m going to
avoid simply writing about the topic that’s prompted. Instead, I’m going to go
with whatever associations my crazy mind makes and then go from there.
The first thing that leapt into my mind when I looked at the
prompt was GoPro. You see, today the Learning Commons received two brand new
GoPro Hero 3+ video cameras. They truly are things of beauty. I say this not
just because they look cool (which they do), or even because of the potential
they have for our students to generate some truly amazing material. What really
amazes me is the attention to detail and usability of the products. Let me
explain.
After having opened the box, it took me very little time to
figure out what went where and how to get the device up and running for the
first time. Then, following the information in the instruction manual (yes, I
read them), it was no trouble at all getting the camera to communicate with my
iPhone via the app. Using this, I could see what the camera was seeing, start
recording, change the mode of the camera and turn the device off. I need to
stress that I managed to get all this right in about 15 minutes or so.
This is
something that is truly beautiful to me. I can still remember how arduous it
was having to install anything remotely technical. Getting Office to run for
the first time took a day’s worth of loading and unloading stiffy discs into a
drive and waiting for the files to copy bit by bit. And then, inevitably, when
you got to disc 32 of 36, somewhere a gremlin would strike, the process would
be interrupted and you would have to start all over again. That is, if your
computer hadn’t found itself being hurtled through the nearest window.
As time progressed, things got slightly better, but they
were still a hassle. Setting the timing on the video recorder so that you didn’t
miss your favourite show while you were out for the evening was a process that
required several Ph.Ds from at least two major universities. Well, that or a
dad who knew which knobs to twist. I should also point out that getting the
video recorder to ‘talk’ to the TV in the first place was a tricky matter too.
Now, everything is infinitely easier. To get any device to
connect to another, one simply takes a single HDMI cable and plugs it into an
HDMI port. Done. My computer updates and installs programmes often without my
even knowing it’s happened. I can present from my iPad while I walk around the
room, and the picture appears on the wall in real time. And I can take a tiny
piece of previously unexplored tech out of the box, and have it remotely tethered
to my phone within minutes. Take a moment to think about that. Then, take a
moment to think about where it will still go.
I have no doubt that in 20 years, my children will laugh as
I regale them with stories of being excited about the release of the first
smartwatches. They will try to contemplate what life was like when we had to
have actual hard discs of plastic to listen to music and, horror of horrors, wait for new albums to arrive in the stores.
I believe this kind of progress is beautiful and I am so excited by what it
holds for us.
There are many others who will not feel this way. They may
view technology as invasive, or obstructing and they may see many of the
newly-emerged gadgets as fads. And, you know what, they may be right. However,
I prefer to see these developments as opportunities to learn, to develop and to
grow. Making things more easily accessible opens the world for so many people, including
our students and it broadens their capacities to change the way we live our
lives; to make them better.
So, ultimately, what the GoPro represents to me is the
beauty that is human ingenuity. It represents our capacity for improving, for
innovating and for creativity. I have no doubt that the students will be
astonishing me with their creations very shortly. Judging by the hours of
footage users have uploaded to YouTube of their amazing experiences that have
been captured using these little cameras, there are many great things to come.
I am so excited to share those with you when they eventually arrive.
