Geoff Day :: Blog :: McLuhan Lives!

Comments

1. Thanks for the McLuhan resource Geoff!

    I love this quote - it's sooooo timely . . . timeless:

    "For that matter-the drop-out generations will even get rid of the cars, says McLuhan. They will work at home, connected to the corporation, the boss, not by roads or railroads, but by television. They will relay information by closed-circuit two-way TV and by computer systems. The great massive American rush-hour flow over all that asphalt surface, going to and from work every day, will be over. The hell with all that driving. Even shopping will be done via TV. All those grinding work-a-daddy cars will disappear. The only cars left will be playthings, sports cars. They'll be just like horses are today, a sport. Somebody over at General Motors is saying -- What if he is right?"

   Mike Redfearn on Thursday, 01 May 2008, 11:52 EDT # |

2. Interesting.

   Students chat, message, blog and embrace web 2.0, yet some school boards implement complete bans on cell phones?  How will the suppression of technology prepare students for the way they will work and live in the future.

   Are we asking students to "ride horses" when they should be inventing teleportation?

    

   Tara 

   Tara Smyth on Thursday, 01 May 2008, 14:30 EDT # |

3. If only it were the distant future I would not have quite the same concerns but this is NOW! I share all of the concerns and feel sad that McLuhan was not heeded sufficently as it became obvious that his words were accurate, if not in the details at least in the direction.

   Education changes slowly as it should not bend to whims and fancies but is it now incapable of changing fast enough? These technologies are part of our culture - they will not go away. To ignore them is to become more out of touch with the students we teach and their REAL needs in their future IMHO. Academia's view of technology was once described as "the arrogant rift" - can we afford to let this rift become a chasm of discouragement for learners? 

   Geoff Day on Thursday, 01 May 2008, 16:52 EDT # |

4. PS - although I have posted this before as a response to another issue I think it fits well yet AGAIN! McLuhan wrote this in a book called Counterblast in the late 60's:

   "The children of technological man respond with untaught delight to the poetry of trains, ships, planes, and to the beauty of machine products.
   
   In the school room officialdom suppresses all their natural experience; children are divorced from their culture. They are not permitted to approach the traditional heritage of mankind through the door of technological awareness; this only possible door for them is slammed in their faces."

   I wonder what McLuhan would be saying now?
   

   Geoff Day on Thursday, 01 May 2008, 17:04 EDT # |