Ready for the next stage of scientism and technopoly in education? The new techno-savior is (drumroll) the iPhone (and other smartphone-like devices). This month's Fast Company contains a starry-eyed paean to the new solution for all our educational ills."American children now spend 7.5 hours a day absorbing and creating media
-- as much time as they spend in school. Even more remarkably, they
multitask across screens to cram 11 hours of content into those 7.5
hours." ("A is for App," Fast Company)"Remarkably" is a tricky word here. Probably intended to be positive, as the article suggests that harnessing the power of smartphones for education may be the skeleton key to greater productivity. But at what price? Consider:"The picture that emerges [from recent studies] of these pubescent multitasking mavens is of a
generation of great technical facility and intelligence but of extreme
impatience, unsatisfied with slowness and uncomfortable with silence." ("The Myth of Multitasking," The New Atlantis)Could Neil Postman have foreseen such a world? His classic study of television culture, "Amusing Ourselves to Death," was written in the pre-ubiquitous Web world. What will this kind of multitasking (remarkably, a term originally applied to computers' functioning) mean for the next generation? For the future of humanity?What do you think?Is the iPhone the essential next-gen educational tool?Will technology's use make kids smarter?