Cam Sanford

Today I read From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technology, by Denis Baron, for the class EDU 106-02. I found this article to be fun; I think it was interesting how Baron described writing as a technology and not just a form of communication. I had never thought to think of it as a technology since my personal definition of technology was simply devices or “Information Technology”. However, the real definition of technology is “the practical application of knowledge, tools, and methods to solve problems, achieve human goals, and adapt to the environment”. I found the bits about the pencil especially interesting as I had never thought that there would’ve been such discourse, in terms of economics, over something that we can now get for so much less. Baron wrote about how people have opposed things like writing, spell check, etc. Which is something I find also interesting; we use those so frequently. Spell check is automatic on every device I’ve seen; or at least highlighted automatically. Writing is something that is so popular in society now that thinking people used to oppose it is something I had never thought of. I believe this article gave me insight into how society has always been adapting through the technology of writing; will AI be something that becomes natural too?