Josh Keady- Entry thirty-four point one (34.1): The big, huge iPad entry: Part 1 of 3

(If you want to read my thoughts on how technology like the iPad plays a part in adding to the widening gap between the upper and lower classes, keep reading.  If you want to read my pre-amble about workflows and how to move beyond "gadgets" in your life, skip to part the second.  If you just want to know what I think of the freakin' iPad already, move three spaces ahead to part 3.)

That we first-worlders are at an interesting place in our history is something that can't really be stressed enough.  For one thing, while the divide between the middle and upper class is widening at an alarming rate.  It's alarming when you think about the traditional niceties that make up that gap: the upper class take vacations, eat better food, have access to better medical care, and have access to a more-wide range of tangible entertainment.  These are all things that Americans in the upper class enjoy, and have enjoyed for centuries, but they are considered (not all rightly-so) non-essentials.  That is to say, even though it's nice to go to the doctor when you have H1N1, it isn't really essential (I don't really believe that, but that's the world we live in).  At the end of the day, we all breathe the same air, read the same newspapers, and with libraries, generally have the same access to information.

The gap is widening and it's partially because of devices like the iPad.  I realized this when I heard this morning that the iPad is only going to cost 499 dollars and revolutionize the way that we surf the web and organize out digital lives.  First of all, I was forced in to a bit of a reality check when I found myself saying only 499 dollars.  499 dollars would buy my groceries for several months.  Second, the iPad is pushing us (you know, us) ever-closer to that hallowed "digital mecca" (or iMecca as I like to say ever since just now when I thought of it) wherein all of our information is digital, all of our digital devices are perfectly interlinked, and all of our cat boxes are self-cleaning.  When the upper class are buying up 500 dollar-a-whack digital tablets, the lower class is buying recycled legal pads and knock-off Bic pens at the Dollar Store.

Such is the evidence of the increasing divide between upper and lower.  While the upper class gets faster, more natural, and just plain better access to an entire other world, the lower class views it through a 15" CRT at 56,600 bits per second.  Maybe you have a flash drive that can be taken back and forth between school and home, or school and the public library, maybe not.  Certainly your life isn't online, certainly your chances to learn the nuances of interaction, learn about all of the ever-maturing trends and opportunities available on the internet are barely there.

Let's face it, a lot of this stuff you have to learn all on your own.  In my four year tenure as an undergrad in the College of Business at OSU, I've only been encouraged to use Google Docs and WebEx in one class.  ONE.  And I've taken everything from Tech writing to programming classes to project management classes.  I mean, look at industry and cloud-based collaboration and document storage are main stream.  If you don't know your way around something like Google Docs, go yo ass home.  They're not teaching this stuff in rural high schools.  They're not even teaching it in undergrad Business programs.  But when you get out amongst it, you better sure-as-shit know how to do it.  How do you get that knowledge?  Experience.

The lower class isn't sitting around at home browsing the net with an iPad on an 802.11n connection.  The lower class isn't buying 14 dollar books with iBooks or whatever it's called.  The lower class doesn't care if the aspect ratio of a 9.7" LCD doesn't match up with a standard hi-def video.  But at the same time, the lower class doesn't know how to convert .docx in to .rtf, doesn't know how to take the red eye out of a batch of photos, geo tag them, post them to a social media site, send to a family member a link for the site, figure out why the link didn't work, send a new link to the family member, and on and on.  These things seem small, they seem trivial, but I'm telling you, they're very important bits of knowledge that are becoming keystones for living a healthy, normal life in our world.

As time moves on, cues from the upper class digital lifestyle are working their way in to pop culture, and from pop culture in to our actual culture.  Twenty-somethings in 2010 who don't know that older versions of Microsoft Word can't open .docx are in the same boat as twenty-somethings in 1950 that didn't know how to read (I'm struggling to find a working analogy here... I realize that illiteracy is essentially timeless, I'm just trying to make the point that in 1950 we were also seeing a lot of future-determining technologies springing up).  The more prevalent that iPad-like devices are, the less of a chance that lower class users will have to be exposed to this increasingly-necessary second world of high technology: the digital lifestyle.

There is, of course, the public school system.  However, while I traditionally stand by the knowledge and abilities of teachers to get it done in the classroom, technology education is sorely, sorely, sorely lacking.  I don't just mean getting computers in the hands of students and educators.  That's something we've been doing since the very birth of the personal computer.  I mean real, honest-to-God digital curriculum and one that promotes a solid understanding of how to build a digital lifestyle.  You can't blame it on teachers, because what's being fed to them is incomplete as well.  I hear it constantly: educators (from pre-school to higher education) come back from conferences feeling "really jazzed" about integrating technology in the classroom and it goes nowhere.

I once worked in a 6th grade classroom with the teacher that was really in to technology curriculum.  Their idea of getting students really in to computers was to have them all do writing assignments on docked Palm Pilots with those wretched portable folding keyboards.  This is the equivalent of a shop class familiarizing students with sheet metal work by giving them all claw hammers and telling them to knock the dents out of smashed up cars.  Parents and administrators, of course, loved this because they walked in to the room and saw 30 young people "using technology".  In fact, what they were witnessing was 30 young people kind of learning to touch type on devices that they'd never again in their lives use (all the while probably causing themselves permanent eye damage from squinting at those miserable little screens).

It's that lack of curriculum and structure that is squandering good chances at helping to narrow the gap.  What am I calling for?  I'm not calling for anyone to put the brakes on technological advancement.  I'm going to get an iPad come hell or high water.  But until we as a nation start realizing the value of technology curriculum in EVERY walk of life, we're helping the chasm to grow wider and deeper by denying the lower class crucial life and work skills.  It's not enough that we "expose" students to technology for a couple of hours a week and hope that they just pick it up somewhere, because unfortunately, the number of young people who actually have the opportunity to just "pick up" real valuable skills is surprisingly small.  Hear this well: while the upper class have the luxury of sitting around with powerful computers, learning to use them at their leisure, the lower class uses yesterday's technology and learns little about the new.

Like it or not, humans are not born with the innate ability to format a Word document, join a discussion on Google Wave, or collaborate in a cloud computing environment.  We don't just "pick up" that stuff.  Until we realize the value in teaching technology in public school beyond Intro to Microsoft Word and touch typing, products like the iPad will have a bittersweetness to their functionality.