Technology Changing Me?

Since I asked my students in CET 6933 to blog about technology has affected them, I find it only fair to reciprocate. Here is my article about how technology has changed the way I do things.

If I had to pick one technology that has had the greatest affect on my day ot day life - it would have to be email. I still recall as a graduate students getting my first email account. The concept of being able to write a message on the computer and sending it someone at the time was quite novel. As long as the other person had an email address you could communicate almost instantly - a great improvement over the status quo.

Now we flash forward 20 years to today. My normal work routine has me checking my email as the first thing I do in the morning (if there are no early morning meetings). I've avoided the temptation of being connected 24/7 - I still limit my email time to set times of day; morning, after lunch, prior to leaving work, and after dinner. If I miss one of these - I don't fret, any message that is that important will warrant a call to my cell phone. SO what do I do on email? I arrange meetings, read FYI's, respond to student questions, pass along documents, and pretty much all the things everybody else does. This part of life (email) has become pervasive and is my preferred form of communication.

Since I receive and send so many emails, I needed a better way to organize them. Because I typically remember who sent me a mail, I realized that filing them by Sender made a lot of sense. Now my email cabinet has the folder "By Sender" and under that each letter of the Alphabet "A", "B", "C", and so on.... And in each of these folders all those senders. My "S" folder along has 71 sub-folders for every sender with a last name ending in "S". Does this work? I can typically find any mail that I want in seconds based on this scheme. But that brings up another question - which is where did I learn how to do this type of organization? Since there is no class required of all students in "How to Manage Data" - I had to come up with a workable scheme on my own. (There used to be a class in filing at most Universities, though I never took it).

This all leads to my final point. Knowledge and communication advances in technology have chenged the life of nearly everybody - most of all our students. We, however, do not prepare them for this new world. In fact, the opposite is true - they teach us ways and tools to better manage information and communicate. I count myself lucky in that, as I aged, I never adopted the annoying habit of "shunning" advances and closing myself off to them. However, as professional educators we should take a different viewpoint. We should be at the forefront of using advances and passing them on to our students - teaching them ways to better use the huge amassed amount of knowledge and data that are out there and readily available. If it looks like I learn and teach at the same time, passing on insite from students to other students - give yourself an A for being perceptive.

Web 3.0

As part of my job as a faculty member and supposed technology "guru" I both track new technologies, and also consult on how to capitalize on technology advances. Right now there is plenty of speculation about Web 3.0. The current term "Web 2.0" describes the conversion of web technologies to allow facilitate communication and social networking. So what will Web 3.0 be?

I'll cut right to the chase - Web 3.0 is all about a custom experience for the individual. Right now the web does have a level of personalization - I personally consider the tools and gadgets that I use from iGoogle a very convenient personalization. But to understand Web 3.0 I will need to fast forward you into the future.

At 6 AM your computer wakes you up and reminds you that you asked it to remind you that you wanted to go for a run this morning. Since your first morning meeting is 9 AM, it has determined that you can get in 4-5 miles before showering and have time for breakfast and work. It has preloaded music on your iPod based on your preferences and what you listened too on previous workouts. After your run and shower, the computer goes over your daily schedule and to-do list so you will be ready for the day. It also suggests to schedule a lunch meeting with a client and after your OK contacts the client to get a confirmation. It will get back to you as soon as it gets confirmation - and lets you know.

The latest news based entirely on your interests have been loaded into your car system so that you can listen on the way to work. While you drive, and listen - the car informs you on an incoming call to confirm your lunch meeting and suggests a location (which you confirm). As you arrive at work you realize that need to grant access to one of your friends into your house. Your work computer informs your home system to allow the person into the house based on a positive facial recognition.

I can easily continue this - but the concept is simple. Web 3.0 is all about 2 concepts - customization and convenience. Over the next 10 years this technology will converge to allow you to customize the services you use - and most people will use this ability to add a level of convenenience to their lives.