Allure of new technological tools

Often when we become aware of new tools we try to use them in familiar ways; we try to adopt the new tools to our tried-and-true methods rather than change our methods to take advantage of capabilities the new tools provide. This has occurred with many or all of the technological tools now being used in an educational environment. It is happening now with wikis. This does not happen because people are not clever enough to figure out how to use the new tools. Often it is because people are just too busy or otherwise distracted to take time to investigate how to best use the new tools. Or it occurs because people become enthralled with the allure of the new tool and they do not adequately consider how to best use it. They fail to do an analysis to determine if they even should use it.

Here is a case in point. What came to be Macromedia Breeze was originally called Presidia; it was made by a company with the same name. Originally about all it offered was a way to add audio to PowerPoint presentations and stream them to the web. After Macromedia bought the company they made many improvements to the product, effectively making it into a new “tool”, and renamed it Breeze. The company I worked for continued to use the new tool, Breeze, the same way we had used the old tool, Presidia. We failed to capitalize on any of the new capabilities.

Before individuals start to use wikis they must make a conscious decision to figure out how to best use them in their particular circumstance. If they use them just for the sake of using a new technology they will gain very little benefit and will possibly cause many negative consequences.