Monday, 28 February 2011

The Dean’s Blog: ‘I have an iWife’

Since Christmas I have an iWife. She bought an iPhone and an iMac and has managed with my iSon’s help to get them to talk to each other and to his iPhone and to his iStation in his Architektburo. It was his iDea. Personally I saw nothing wrong with her carrier pigeons and our eyeball-to-eyeball (or is that iBall?) conversation. I am in danger of becoming an App that has yet to be downloaded. On the plus side family conversations have become a little easier in that when they are together they always speak in Schwiitzertuuetsch (sp?) but now when discussing iLife it’s all in English with ‘ge’ in front of the verbs and bad vowel sounds.

But the enthusiasm and sense of cult is palpable, even to a non worshipper at the altar of i like me who owns a smartphone of a different iLk. There is a common set of rituals and a common technical lexis that binds these people to their machines and to each other in an almost Masonic way that offsides remarks like, ‘Yeah, well, my GL Arena 900 transmits My Music direct to the car’s Bose 12 speaker system, you know, wireless…’ And the silence and dropped eyes tell me all I don’t want to know about extra facilities not buying membership to the iElite. It’s the phone equivalent of Nespresso capsules; ‘what else?’ encapsulates the attitude. Ask Denner. ‘Was suscht?’

But, and there is a ‘but’ here, the whole withering experience has given me clearer insight into why a smartphone is the first piece of clothing our students put on in the morning. I see the fascination, I appreciate the dizzying range of colours, the spinning, morphing world of widgets, the expanding universal choice of ring tones for arrival and dispatch of sms, msn, phone call comment or connection. There’s a tailor made world of sensory delight for each of them masquerading as important communication and technical innovation and each kid is the master tailor, or indeed the Master of this universe. Every day there are a dozen new ideas, apps, sounds, tricks, games, facilities, clips to show and tell and swap.

It is no surprise, then, that they want to pull out their phone in class or just before the bell or keep on communication and downloading after the teacher has come in and indicated the class is starting. No wonder but no excuse, of course. Some things are even more important in school in the classroom, in the lab, in the gym however dull our world of talk may seem.

In G10 English we are doing a poetry unit and we had read and analysed a couple of poems by Taylor Mali. There was a small computer problem in the classroom when I wanted the G10 students to watch him rap four of his more famous poems on Youtube at an ECIS conference I attended. Three boys immediately offered to access the clips on their smartphones and suddenly interest levels and involvement shot up 2000% as they huddled around the small screens shushing each other if someone spoke. Electric! They were in charge – it was their world and for a moment a teacher’s, too. Everyone who gets a smartphone (and has someone to pick up the horrendous costs) can join this world, feel they belong and interact. It is a social leveller, all users are equal.

But iSome are more equal than others.

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