Joan Didion once wrote, “It is easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends.” This is often the nature of technological advancement—it is always changing, always evolving, and always attempting to improve upon itself for the benefit of society.
If I were sent back in time to the year I was born, early 1999, I would struggle to adjust to the foreign reality, so far removed from the 21st century mindset I’m familiar with. But perhaps more definitively, if a woman of 21 years old in 1999 was sent forward to this year, 2020, that adjustment would likely be the more difficult of the two.
My generation has grown up incrementally experiencing first-hand some of the most close-knit, remarkable series of developments in digitized technology the world has seen—and with that, we have also experienced a subsequently distinctive shift in the world itself. Though we are barely cognizant of it from day-to-day life alone, we have been living in the heart of another technological revolution.
It is not odd to anyone that my current iPhone looks different than those of some of my friends, depending on when in the last year we had individually decided to vie for an update. And that’s not to mention how different today’s iPhone appears from the very first cell-phone I owned, nearly a decade prior—much less that of my parents and their first cellular devices, nearly (but not quite) two decades prior. That level of influx of development passes us by as a normal feature of technological innovation. But is it always for the best?
Back in elementary school, I learned to type proficiently in the now-archaic school computer labs. Meanwhile, my mother struggled to replicate that same success on her own for years to come. It simply wasn’t intuitive enough. Eventually, those computer labs where I learned to type were replaced by hundreds of new laptops set to be loaned out and taken home by each student, along with an individualized account for a website designed specifically for our schoolwork—Canvas.
This was the beginning of an experiment within my district, dubbed “e-learning.”
Shortly after the laptops were introduced, snow days that had previously been an exciting reprieve were instead replaced with toiling away at those laptops for hours just to submit my math homework from home—instead of making snowmen. In retrospect, it was an unwitting preparation for my final year of education here at Purdue.
Since high school, I have experienced a handful of online learning management systems, latched onto eagerly by ambitious academic administrations seeking their own piece of innovation pie as the practice of online learning becomes more normal. I have worked with Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard, Zoom—and now, amidst the backdrop of the socially distant COVID-19 pandemic, Brightspace.
Now, in the same way that I have been able to transfer my previously learned typing skills from keyboard to keyboard, one might imagine that that same luck would apply in navigating from one learning platform to another. After all, Learning Management Systems such as Brightspace are not new to my generation—nor is the process of adapting to new technologies. Interestingly, the design concept behind a Learning Management Systems is fairly simple—the core being rooted in what is known as Human-Centered Design, i.e., a design formulated to “match the needs and capabilities of the people for whom they are intended” (Norman). As a result, there is an expectation of consistency, familiarity and intuitiveness demanded when navigating from one learning platform to another.
But unfortunately, this has not been the case. Which is a bit curious—Don Norman articulated on the matter in “The Design of Everyday Things,” early on, stating that as new industries rise up (such as that of the online learning platform) “new methods of interaction are continually arising and evolving.” Which is true—the advent of things such as discussion boards, assignment portals able to close at 11:59 a.m., and recorded lecture material has changed the classroom long before social distancing was a familiar concept. So, while learning management systems are not new, per se, their popularity and utilization at all levels of learning has become increasingly relevant in the last decade, and of course even more so as the last eight months have necessitated them. However, Norman goes on to point out that “each new development seems to repeat the mistakes of the earlier ones; each new field requires time before it, too, adopts the principles of good design” (Norman, 8). I think that that’s an important contingency to acknowledge and accept with a level of grace when it comes to approaching the usability and utilization of a platform such as Brightspace, especially when the platform has the pressure of transition and the responsibility of being truly great.
If I were sent back in time to the year I was born, early 1999, I would struggle to adjust to the foreign reality, so far removed from the 21st century mindset I’m familiar with. But perhaps more definitively, if a woman of 21 years old in 1999 was sent forward to this year, 2020, that adjustment would likely be the more difficult of the two.
My generation has grown up incrementally experiencing first-hand some of the most close-knit, remarkable series of developments in digitized technology the world has seen—and with that, we have also experienced a subsequently distinctive shift in the world itself. Though we are barely cognizant of it from day-to-day life alone, we have been living in the heart of another technological revolution.
It is not odd to anyone that my current iPhone looks different than those of some of my friends, depending on when in the last year we had individually decided to vie for an update. And that’s not to mention how different today’s iPhone appears from the very first cell-phone I owned, nearly a decade prior—much less that of my parents and their first cellular devices, nearly (but not quite) two decades prior. That level of influx of development passes us by as a normal feature of technological innovation. But is it always for the best?
Back in elementary school, I learned to type proficiently in the now-archaic school computer labs. Meanwhile, my mother struggled to replicate that same success on her own for years to come. It simply wasn’t intuitive enough. Eventually, those computer labs where I learned to type were replaced by hundreds of new laptops set to be loaned out and taken home by each student, along with an individualized account for a website designed specifically for our schoolwork—Canvas.
This was the beginning of an experiment within my district, dubbed “e-learning.”
Shortly after the laptops were introduced, snow days that had previously been an exciting reprieve were instead replaced with toiling away at those laptops for hours just to submit my math homework from home—instead of making snowmen. In retrospect, it was an unwitting preparation for my final year of education here at Purdue.
Since high school, I have experienced a handful of online learning management systems, latched onto eagerly by ambitious academic administrations seeking their own piece of innovation pie as the practice of online learning becomes more normal. I have worked with Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard, Zoom—and now, amidst the backdrop of the socially distant COVID-19 pandemic, Brightspace.
Now, in the same way that I have been able to transfer my previously learned typing skills from keyboard to keyboard, one might imagine that that same luck would apply in navigating from one learning platform to another. After all, Learning Management Systems such as Brightspace are not new to my generation—nor is the process of adapting to new technologies. Interestingly, the design concept behind a Learning Management Systems is fairly simple—the core being rooted in what is known as Human-Centered Design, i.e., a design formulated to “match the needs and capabilities of the people for whom they are intended” (Norman). As a result, there is an expectation of consistency, familiarity and intuitiveness demanded when navigating from one learning platform to another.
But unfortunately, this has not been the case. Which is a bit curious—Don Norman articulated on the matter in “The Design of Everyday Things,” early on, stating that as new industries rise up (such as that of the online learning platform) “new methods of interaction are continually arising and evolving.” Which is true—the advent of things such as discussion boards, assignment portals able to close at 11:59 a.m., and recorded lecture material has changed the classroom long before social distancing was a familiar concept. So, while learning management systems are not new, per se, their popularity and utilization at all levels of learning has become increasingly relevant in the last decade, and of course even more so as the last eight months have necessitated them. However, Norman goes on to point out that “each new development seems to repeat the mistakes of the earlier ones; each new field requires time before it, too, adopts the principles of good design” (Norman, 8). I think that that’s an important contingency to acknowledge and accept with a level of grace when it comes to approaching the usability and utilization of a platform such as Brightspace, especially when the platform has the pressure of transition and the responsibility of being truly great.
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