More disruption

My recent post on disruptive activism and Edupunk provoked some good discussion, not only on this blog, but also elsewhere on Twitter and on my own Facebook account, where I had shared the link.

In particular, there was an interesting exchange between two highly experienced educators Walter McKenzie and Graham Davies, which (with their permission) I am sharing below.

Walter and Graham raise a number of pertinent issues in relation to the nature of technology, disruptive change and learning, and I welcome further debate on this blog.

Walter McKenzie: I understand disruptive activism....disruptive technologies not so much. It's how we use the technologies. Technology in and of itself cannot be disruptive...
Sunday at 22:50 ·

Graham Davies: Disruptive technology as defined by Christensen is not necessarily a negative term. It usually takes the form of an innovation that we may initially resist but finally accept when it becomes clear that it works better than it's predecessors. Many new technologies are poor performers in their early stages and take a while to become stable and reliable. Some never make it, e.g. CDI which was pipped at the post by DVD.
Monday at 00:34 ·

Walter McKenzie: My discomfort isn't with the concept of being disruptive, but the personification of technology as being able to be disruptive simply by its existence. It can only be disruptive if it is applied in such a way by people...
Monday at 00:44 ·

Graham Davies: No, technology can just be disruptive. Back the wrong horse in a period of change and then you are in trouble. I'm a watch-and-wait person.
Monday at 00:52 ·

Walter McKenzie: Please explain further? I'm probably just slow....I need more context to understand what you are saying....
Monday at 00:55 ·

Graham Davies: What I am saying is that it is essential to wait until it is clear that a new technology really works better than its predecessors rather than seizing a new technology before it has settled down.
Monday at 01:02 ·

Walter McKenzie: OK I agree with that. No need to be jumping on bandwagons without thoughtful evaluation of them first. But ultimately it is how we use them and assess their use, yes?
Monday at 01:10 ·

Graham Davies: I agree.
Monday at 01:12 ·

Walter McKenzie: Thanks for your patience in talking this through with me.
Monday at 01:22 ·

Graham Davies: No problem. I am rarely an early adopter, but once I am convinced about the advantages of a new technology I am keen to promote it. I adopted CD audio quite early on, but held off going completely digital with iTunes until a couple of years ago. Now I am just pissed off with having to convert my huge collection of 33rpm LPs to digital format. That IS disruption :-) Maybe I'll just hang on to my 16-year-old Kenwood deck...
Monday at 01:33 ·

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More disruption by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.