EDUC 8842 Module 3

Rhymes of history is one of the six forces that drive the emergence of technology (Laureate Education, 2009b). This force demonstrates how societal patterns from the past are often reinvented through technology to meet current needs. Thus, the rhymes of history force is illustrative of McLuhan's third quadrant of his technology tetrad (Laureate Education, 2009a), specifically the rekindling something from the distant past. According to Thornburg, a new technology is an emergence of the impact felt many years before from another technology (Laureate Education, 2009b). For example, the Internet rekindled the small village kind of connectedness, allowing for everyone online to be involved as a community.

The affect of an innovation can rekindle interactions and activities form the past (Laureate Education, 2009b). Kelly (2007) paints an exciting picture of what life might be like in the next 5,000 days of the Web as a “single machine” composed of three unique components or concepts: embodiment, restructuring, and codependency. Embodiment is a reflection of the humans as the extended senses of this machine, rekindling all previous forms of human communication (Kelly, 2007). Restructuring links data and all things, rekindling how everyone and everything in this environment affect each other in some way (Kelly, 2007). Codependency has everyone relying on everyone else, because they become the web, rekindling the need for socialization (Kelly, 2007). These concepts are already apparent in our current use of the Internet and its affordances, connecting, collaborating, and communicating with each other. Kelly (2007) envisioned the future Web as global, reliable, more personalized and ubiquitous; the future Web will be a large organism that has the humans at its center, as its nucleus. I am looking forward to continue witnessing the rhymes of history as a force driving the emergence of the future Web!

References

Kelly, K. (2007, December). Kevin Kelly on the next 5,000 days of the Web [Speech]. Speech delivered at the EG 2007 Conference, Los Angeles, CA. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/kevin_kelly_on_the_next_5_000_days_of_the_web.html

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009a). McLuhan’s tetrad. Emerging and future technology. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009b). Evolutionary technologies. Emerging and future technology. Baltimore, MD: Author.