Friday, October 1, 2010
Personal Dynamic Media
I really enjoyed this article because it was interesting to see the beginnings of something that we all use in one way or another every day. I didn't know about the Dynabook so I liked reading about it. I thought it was kind of funny how they had all of this speculation in their writing saying things like "Imagine if..." and "What if..." and "Wouldn't it be ______ if..." The Dynabook would be the size of a notebook and could be used by everyone, it could have the power to virtually handle all of it's owner's information related needs. Kay and Goldberg write, "Imagine having your own self contained knowledge manipulator in a portable package the size and shap of an ordinary notebook" (394). Imagine not having that! Haha, most of us carry something similar to that with us everyday, with cell phones becoming more and more useful we all have our own Dynabooks right in our pocket or handbag. I didn't know the idea for something like this existed so long ago. The picture of the mock up of a future Dynabook had be laughing because it just looks like a big Blackberry or a clunky iPad. There was a lot of discussion of children using the Dynabook and it being effected their attention span levels, "Their attention spans are measured in hours rather than minutes!" (394). I thought this was ironic because now we're trying to get kids to spend less time on computers and focus their attention on other things. I can't really remember a time before having a computer. I remember my family always having one and playing on it pretty young. Here's a picture of me and my sister. This picture was taken before my brother was born so I was max 2 and a half. My sister was around 4 and looks even more deranged than I do so I covered up her crazy little face. Haha. This big clunker (a Macintosh, if I remember from what my dad's told my boyfriend...) was from 1991 or earlier. Haha
I enjoyed reading about early paint and word processing programs because I loved to use paint programs to scribble on the screen and word processors to type nonsense. Anyways, it's pretty interesting to see how ideas from so long ago (the Dynabook) are super similar to technology we use today.
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That's funny I got the same sort of Nostalgia when I read this article. I can remember being young and using our huge monitor to paint, type, and not much else. I think the computer tower was half my size and 3x as slow as my last laptop. Its interesting that you noticed that the authors were surprised the Dynabook held childrens attention span while currently society is trying to lean kids away from using it so frequently. I also felt a little like The Jetsons when reading, "Imagine this...imagine that....". I was like, "Yea duh, that's my coffee maker big deal". I can imagine while we're daydreaming about 3D televisions, in the future they'll be saying the same thing I am about the Dynabook.
ReplyDeleteVeggie Delite,
ReplyDeleteYour picture (cute!) brought back old memories of playing games on our giant computer when I was young. I remember my mom helping type something for class when I was in kindergarten and the big font that was used. I agree with you that it is really interesting to see the beginnings of a technology that we use almost everyday, without putting a lot of thought into it. I also agree that the "what if" speculations are fun and interesting to read because now we know what it's like. I also thought what you said about how now a lot of parents are trying to ween their children from the computer a little bit was true. My cousin will spend hours and hours playing with his video games or computer games if his mom doesn't set limits with him. I thought that the children were being used in more of an education way, rather than the mind numbing games many kids play today. Great post!
-gummy frog