It doesn't take much to get me excited about teacher education programs when it comes to technology. You might imagine from that, my enthusiasm when I discovered "Wireless Literacy is ARRL Education & Technology Program Goal"...oblivious to the eham.net source. No, it is not about wireless connections to the Internet, but about amateur radio stations in high schools. At the moment I am torn between what feels like the quaintness of teaching an old (gasp) technology whose primary domain is one-to-many broadcasting and the possiblity of the confusion of terms. When is the last time that you thought of radio as wireless technology?
There is something deeper here that is food for thought. In Donald Norman's book, The Invisible Computer, there is a historical reference to how early adopters of AM radio receivers learned how to operate the equipment. If I recall correctly, the advertisement for these new machines touted that the technology could be mastered in just a few weeks. Today, a similar comment would sound like a Jay Leno blonde joke. OK, so where am I headed with this? AM and FM radio stations are considered infrastructure in much of the world. The overlay receivers are pretty much ubiquitous...in cars, portable units strapped to joggers, etc. When we want to listen to news, sports, weather, music, or talk...we just turn on the device, adjust a knob, push a button or two and hardly look at the device itself...and it works! We moved from a two week learning curve for the technology to something that we pretty much take for granted. Here's the technology kicker: we must translate that same learning curve process into the world of computer and educational technology. Technology should not be something we have to teach any more than we would consider offering a course on how to operate an AM/FM radio. How long will it be before a Jay Leno descendant says something like, "Did you hear the one about the blonde teacher who handed out instructions on how to turn on a computer?" It is difficult to see much humor in that now, avoiding the obvious innuendo of 'turn on', but we need to get to a time when this sort of comment is wrought with humor...call me impatient, but I think it is time.