To Infinity and Beyond: The Effect of Science on Communication

Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of my favorite astrophysicists. Yes, I realize how nerdy that sounds but I will also say he is really the only one that I actually know of. However, in this video, Dr. Tyson says that we need to look at NASA “not as a handout but as an investment because as goes the health of space faring ambitions, so too goes the spiritual, the emotional, the intellectual, the creative, and the economic ambitions of a nation. So goes the future of America.” I bring this up in a blog about communication because, to a certain extent, I believe we have stopped dreaming. Yes, there have been advancements in communications but most of these advancements have to do with making communication easier. It has to do with making the technologies that we use faster or smaller or more powerful.  What is considered advancements in communication technology is really just new ways to write code so that a useful function comes from it. This is actually sort of a sad testimony to where we are in terms of communication because science can actually help us talk about things and discuss and advance our position, in short, it can help us become better communicators.

Dr. Tyson also has a show called Star Talk and in it he takes current subjects and puts them through the lens of science. One of my favorite Star Talks was one where he talked with Wil Wheaton who played Wesley Crusher in Star Trek, The Next Generation. In it they discussed the things that human beings have done simply through the application of knowledge. Also, they talk about how many scientists have looked on the science fiction genre and drawn their inspiration of invention from the shows.

This is all incredibly important as it pertains to communication because if science and technological advances fuel communications, then it is important that technological advances and the creation of new technologies be on the forefront of communicators. I am not saying that creativity is not still alive but it is being hampered when we are no longer creating new technologies but we are just trying to improve the ones that we have. It speaks to the mindset of communication today. We live in the most technologically and scientifically advanced society ever and yet we no longer think like scientist.  So, for the future of communication technology it is important that we get back to the wonder that it takes to think like a scientists.

There is some questionable language in the show so do not watch it it you are offended by such language. I would like to end by saying that I do not think that things such as social media or communication technologies are bad. I just think that, for the sake of the future of communication in general there should be a shift in the focus of both our technologies and our communication.

Children and Technology- Are Cell Phones the Answer for our Children in Education?

I remember, when I was in second grade, we had different learning stations that we would put our color cards in (we were separated by color groups and that was determined by reading ability) the slots next to the station we wanted and later in the day we would spend thirty minutes and the station that we were able to get. I also remember that there was one station that was more popular than any other station and that was the computer station. Keep in mind, this was in 1990 and so the computer’s abilities were very limited but I do remember one particular game that helped us with our math. There would be an addition or subtraction problem above two frogs and you had to work it out before the computer did. If you did this you got to swallow the fly and the point was to have more flies than the computer at the end of the game.

That was a long time ago and technology has advanced to the point where anyone who has ever watched the movie Terminator has to, at times, wonder when Skynet will become self-aware and computers will take over the world.  However, technology has also advanced to the point where it is so easy to use that it is a wonder why some schools are still not incorporating technology in the educational process.

Some people may say that it has to do with a comfort level that teachers have with technology and yet, according to an article put out by the National Children’s Bureau in Great Britain, many adults feel a sense of safety with at least one form of technology, the cell phone.  But, in the United States, we spend so much time and energy in a losing fight of trying to keep students off of their phones during school hours. I am a Youth Director and there are several times throughout the day that I look on Facebook and see something that my youth has posted on Facebook via their phone. Phones are a part of society now. So much so that parents and kids use them to communicate. It may not be their main form of communication but there are times that they are used to broach difficult subjects. This shows a certain amount of comfort that kids have with computers.

Admittedly, we have other forms of technology that can be used other than cell phones. Also, I admit that children are able to pick up just about any technology at an incredible rate. But, if Allison Gopnik is correct in her TED talk about the way that young children think and, culturally, parents and children are comfortable with cell phone use, then it seems that it would behoove us to adopt them somehow in our education. I bring up the way children think because I think it would be smart to focus the energy on one form of technology.

Education is about spreading the wonder of the natural world around us. It is hard to do that anymore with children whose attention span is thirty minutes at the most. Traditional forms of teaching need to be rethought because it makes no sense to try to get a child to sit still and pay attention when they are just not going to do that. It is not the teacher’s fault it is just that the minds of children now need a multi-sensory learning experience and because technology has become so portable this is a valid option. I like the idea of using smart phones due to the comfort level that so many people have with their phones.

However, I do admit that not everyone has a cell phone and not everyone would be able to afford a smart phone or the data that it would cost to implement the use of cell phones in the learning experience. There is a digital divide in this country but more and more people are actually obtaining the equipment needed to bridge the gap. This has led to a redefining of what digital gap means.  Bridging the digital gap now indicates the fact that, while many people do have technology, those who produce content that is consumed is done so along the same socioeconomic scale that used to separate those who had technology and those who did not. This is an interesting issue because, with the increase of technology, it is very easy to create content and produce it on the internet. So, the question becomes, what can be done to encourage and enable our children to use technology to supplement their education?

The answer, I believe, is a mixture of teaching style and the right technology to encourage the imagination of a child. In his TED talk, chemistry teacher, Ramsey Musallam talks about how one of his student’s curiosity took her to a new level. He made the point that teaching had to allow for mistakes. He also makes the point that if we put technology before a student’s inquiry then, as teachers, that can actually rob teachers of a great tool for learning which are students’ questions.  That means that whatever technology that teachers use in the class room has to not only encourage curiosity but also allow for questions.

In the TED talk mentioned above, Allison Gopnik pointed out how, when we are young, we naturally use the scientific method to figure things out. This is important because what the scientific method does is allow us to make wrong assumptions in order to finally get to the correct answer. So, if that is the case, then it would make sense that whatever technology is used to help supplement learning should also allow for the use of incorrect assumptions by the students. It would seem that we naturally learn by first ruling out what is wrong. In schools today we are more concerned with the idea that the students just know the right answer rather than also know what the wrong answers are. Technology is similar if we look at the internet and the use of Google in school. People “Google” to get the right answer rather than having to suffer the inconvenience of going through the wrong answers. This is not conducive to learning.

I suggested using phones in the classroom because of students’ comfort with them. The idea that it is important for students to feel the ability to be wrong is okay is what drove my thought that cell phones would be the ideal technology to be used in a learning environment. If students feel comfortable with a particular piece of technology then perhaps they will feel better about making a mistake with that same technology. At least then they are with something they feel safe using.

References

The Role of Mobile Phones in Family Communication- Kerry Devitt and Debbi Roker, Children & Society, Volume 23, 2009. pp 189-202

New approach to a traditional problem?

There is a theory in communication studies that states that people, when they first meet another person, desire to lower their uncertainty about the other person. This is, in a sense, what companies are trying to do when they advertise. This lowering of uncertainty is what we call, having a relationship. Before organizations can get their consumers to the point that they are even willing to reduce the uncertainty about whatever it is that the organizations are trying to sell (a product or an idea normally), there must be something that catches the consumer’s attention. Consumers must become familiar with the organization. This is generally done through branding. Think the Nike swoosh or the Coca Cola label. This leads to the question of whether an organization can use blogs to effectively help with the branding process.

Branding is an associative process. It is what people think about when they see that logo or hear about a company. For instance, when people see the Nike swoosh, they associate it with sports gear. The association is with a particular quality of gear that a consumer can buy, usually at a large markup of price, but people are willing to buy it still. Mostly because they know (have reduced uncertainty) what they are getting. However, if you were to ask a student at the University of Oregon what they thought when they see the Nike logo, they may say something completely different. This is because the CEO of Nike, Phil Knight, is an alumnus and regularly contributes to the university. It would seem that, at this stage of branding, an organization would not want to rely solely on their blog. Yes, they could use the blog to help reveal the branding but they would also want to rely on traditional and new campaigns at getting the word of their brand out. People have to be made aware that there is a product and that the blog is there to help consumers understand the product better.

The next stage in branding is creating familiarity with the product(s) that a company offers. This is where a blog can really start to help in the branding process. A blog is a place to develop a deeper understanding of a company. Basically, this is where you can define your brand. If the blog is kept by those who run the company or by those who know what the people in charge of the company want for that company, this helps consumers get to know the people of the company better. This is important because people want to know the people behind a brand before they support what the brand stands for. As I have mentioned in other blogs, I work at a church. This, to me, is like when a person is invited to church for the first time. Usually, if they accept the invitation, it is because they know and trust the person who invited them not because they are necessarily interested in what the church has to offer. It is in this vein of thought that a company that decides to start a blog to brand themselves should work. There is a possibility of developing relationships online but that is only if there is someone for the consumers to develop that relationship with.

If a company works on getting the public familiar with their brand, they can then start to build trust. This works a little different from people to people relationships because, usually, both people exchange information to reduce uncertainty in the relationship. However, the burden to reduce uncertainty in a relationship between an organization and their public falls firmly on the shoulders of the organization. This is where blogs are useful but they can also be used to measure the success of the attempts at reducing that uncertainty by said organizations. One of the ways this could be measured by the companies using blogs is by monitoring the comments section. As a company helps its consumers feelings of uncertainty reduce, the amount of interaction between the two should increase. A lot of companies would only measure this by looking at the increase in the consumption of their goods but I think a better way to measure that would be by looking at the comments left on the blog.

If people actually trust the company then they would feel more comfortable letting the company know when it is doing well and, more importantly, when it is doing badly.  The comments left by those who try to help the company improve show that the consumer has a sense of ownership. This is a measurement of success in branding. A good example of this is the branding for college sports teams. One of the goals of sports teams, besides winning of course, is to increase participation from those who support the team and to widen their reached audience. If you ever talked to someone who is a fan of a particular team about that team, you can gain a sense of the ownership that person has with the organization. While talking about their team, usually they use the pronoun “we” even if they do not play for the team or go to the school the team represents. Even if the team is doing poorly, the person will still use the term “we” but they will then offer what they believe to be the answer to the problems their team is facing. This shows ownership in the same way that the comments on a blog offering opinions on how to better serve them do. If a person did not feel ownership of the company, they would normally just switch to a different company.

This desire for a company to offer a better brand is what leads to commitment, the final stage of branding. I do not think that a company will get to this stage just by having a blog; however, if the blog is run appropriately and is used to reduce the uncertainty of new consumers while allowing for current consumers to feel as though they belong and can trust the company, then the use of a blog is most certainly a good tool for branding.