The Big Fresh December 5, 2015 Just-Right Tech

Technology is the campfire around which we tell our stories. 

                                                                                                               Laurie Anderson

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend a lecture and discussion by Genevieve Bell, vice president of Intel’s Corporate Strategy Office.  No, she wasn’t going to explain her patents for consumer electronic innovations (though she apparently holds several). Bell leads a team of social scientists and designers who travel the world to learn how people relate to electronics and use their findings to shape technologies of the future.

Because she is Intel’s resident cultural anthropologist, her work is about how technologies affect our relationship with time, space, and each other. Fascinating, right?  You have no idea!

In Genevieve Bell’s words, she is a “storyteller” who helps people understand where technology is going. “That has become a very complex story,” she says. “We have mobile technology, fixed technology, information technology, technology infrastructure. What anxieties do people have around new technologies and how can we address them?”  Bell describes herself as a futurist: “How do you think about the future? I think you have to think exquisitely and critically about the present. “

One of the things I loved about her work is her insistence that words and labels matter.  For example, she was hired to be “Director of User Experience.” Her working group of 100 social scientists and designers travel the globe, observing how people use technology in their homes and in public. She changed their name to “People and Places.” Dr. Bell explained, “You have to understand people to build the next generation of technology.”

The practical application of her work to education struck me again and again as I listened to her speak of her work.  She notes that in her assessments, she never asks, Does this technology help make you more productive? “That’s the wrong question,” she insists.  “We’re asking too many of the wrong questions.”

She has two key questions she asks people about the new technologies she is testing:

Does this make you feel more connected?

Do you feel fulfilled?

I am adding these two questions to the top of my assessment list.  After listening to more of Genevieve Bell’s stories and ideas, I am adding one more:  Was it time well spent? These questions can be a guide as we observe children using any app or program in the classroom.

This week we look at technology in classrooms. Plus more as always — enjoy!

Ruth Shagoury

Contributor, Choice Literacy
Ruth Shagoury is a professor emeritus at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. She blogs with her daughter Meghan Rose about children’s books at www.litforkids.com.