Wires & Lights in a Box
Last night, I watched Good Night, and Good Luck. I found the cinematography to be the most enjoyable part of the film: black & white, tight shots, and billowing cigarette smoke. I also enjoyed getting caught up in the rush of live broadcasting, a process that to an outsider must appear as pure chaos. Unfortunately, the story of Edward R. Murrow’s assault on McCarthy was too familiar to be particularly engaging.
What really caught my attention enough to inspire this post was Murrow’s final statement in the film. He said:
This instrument [television] can teach, it can illuminate, and yes, it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it towards those ends. Otherwise, it is merely wires and lights in a box.
Murrow was referring to television, I was reminded of educational technologies. Computers, the world wide web, blogs, wikis, PDAs, and such are only as valuable as we humans determine them to be. This is hardly profound and perhaps even cliche, yet given the way television has gone, we humans, as a whole, may not have the determination for which Murrow had hoped. We need to check our intentions, constantly.
Technorati Tags: Murrow, edtech, innovation
July 13th, 2006 at 11:06 am
You know, I had a similar reaction in watching the film. I also wanted to take up smoking.
But I didn’t make the leap to edtech, and I appreciate the thoughts you express above. I suppose it’s true of any tool/technology – hence arguments about the inherent goodness or badness or neutrality of, say, guns.
So what do we need to do to make the leap from tool to agent? In other words, when do we stop “working” a device and begin to “use” it? What do we as educators need to do in order to help our students?
July 13th, 2006 at 11:07 am
Also, check this out:
Murrow search at the Archive.