There was a great “article” in the Chronicle of Higher Education this morning.  I say “article” because the “article” essentially is an embedded video on their website.  🙂  Anyway, in this “article” Goldie Blumenstyk is interviewing Marty Ringle, chief information officer at Reed College and a founder and former chair of Educause. You can watch the entire video by clicking the article link.

…{Pause for you to go watch the video.}

I have to say that I really get what Marty is saying….particularly the part about not worrying so much about the non-tech adopters.  And, I totally agree as well that a while back I would have said differently.  I too spent many years trying to get non-tech users to adopt new technologies….any technology.  But, now I realize that there are plenty of technology enhanced educational projects to involve myself in (and to satiate my technology addicted lifestyle) if I just focus on those individuals who are excited about technology and just need a little help getting there.  🙂

I also agree that I’ve decided that technology adoption isn’t a generational thing.  I know several millennials who are opposed to social media!  Never thought I would have found one of those…but yet, they exist! I do admit though that while witnessing the phenomena, I do find it a bit of a curiosity (…because I don’t understand it).  I also think this phenomena would be an interesting social behaviorial study…..  Saying no to social media in an over dosed social media world….How do these individuals maintain their social connections?  How do they network? How do they find out about current events?  Why have they chosen this lifestyle?  #OMG…how do they live? {sarcasm}  Think about it a bit….isn’t this exactly what others have said about families who chose not to use electricity?

Maybe I’m just thinking too much about the latest technological revolution. Any time a new technology….electricity, the automobile, indoor plumbing, comes along, there are always a few early adopters, then a large number (majority) adopters, then late adopters, and a few holdouts who will never adopt. These holdouts have probably always seemed like a bit of a curiosity {anomoly}…and have probably always been a focus of research somewhere.

Within Extension I’ve decided that I’m okay if some of us never incorporate technology….because I believe that in our generation, there will be plenty of clientele who have decided that they themselves don’t ever want to use technology.  The danger though for us in Extension is in thinking that just because we as educators don’t like technology…we don’t need to do anything. Careful thought must be given to looking at what our clientele prefer…not just assuming that what we prefer is generalizable to the general clientele population. …But then we should know that….we are after all basing the information we provide on research….and understanding the premise of generalizable data is a pretty basic research concept. And, basing that decision on the ideas of one person is definitely not statistically significant!!!