Hear Ye, Hear Ye: It is the Dawning of The Age of Mobilism

Context: While Cathie and Elliot were attending a UNESCO-sponsored meeting in Paris (no, not the one in Texas, but the one in France) the Museum d’Orsay was also holding an exhibition of Eduard Manet, the Father of Modernism , the first such exhibition in 30 years in Paris. While it wasn’t an easy process, they bought tickets and spent about 3 hours at the show.

Elliot: What’s “modernism”?
Cathie: It says in the guidebook that modernism was a reaction to realism…
Elliot: What’s “realism”?
Cathie: I saw that coming. Manet and his colleagues adopted new ideas in art and those ideas gained widespread adoption, ushering in the Age of Modernism
Elliot: Oh.
Cathie: Similarly, mobile technologies are gaining widespread adoption – and ushering in the Age of Mobilism.
Elliot: Boy oh boy, are you a lateral thinker! How you got from Modernism to Mobilism… I haven’t the foggiest. But you are right on the money! Mobile technologies are absolutely becoming totally pervasive…
Cathie: … except in K-12, where, rough guess, 95% of schools ban them from their campuses.
Elliot: Ironic since it was today’s youth who were the early adopters of mobile and have been the major intensive users of mobile technology.
Cathie:  We definitely need to label the youth of today as the “mobile generation”…
Elliot: … Yes, “digital generation” was appropriate for 1995-2005, but now “digital” is too vague a term.
Cathie: The defining characteristic of the Age of Mobilism…
Elliot: … and for the mobile generation…
Cathie: … is connectedness – being connected via mobile technology to each other, to information, to resources, 24/7.
Elliot: Ha, ha, ha… Ask the kids what is the very first thing they do after they open their eyes in the morning and they will say: check my text messages!
Cathie: The need to be connected, to not feel isolated, is a deeply human emotion; now the technology…
Elliot: … the mobile technology…
Cathie: … enables us to be that much more connected to each other, 24/7.
Elliot: The pundits, who are adults, talk about the shallowness of such connections and the shallowness of the mobile generation.
Cathie: And the mobile generation has the right to say: adults just don’t understand!
Elliot: Yet again!! 
Cathie: In 1995, when the Internet was beginning to rise in importance, every company needed an “Internet strategy.”
Elliot: And now, in the Age of Mobilism, every company needs a “mobile strategy.”
Cathie: But “mobilism” isn’t even in the dictionary!

Comments

[Jeff Shafer]

As a science educator I am continuously disappointed in the attitudes of politicians towards beefing up science and mathematics instruction in our public schools. It does not take a genius to know that Asian countries, like South Korea, China and others out perform American students in these areas, and have for decades. South Korea's push to incorporate mobile learning devices into their education programs by 2015 should rankle all U.S. educators and politicians. But does it? Unfortunately, no! The sorry state of affairs in U.S. education should be a clarion call to all that we need to begin to address these problems. There is at least one or two bright spots and these have to do with dedicated education consultants and a few future thinking school superintendents and principals who see the third wave of technology (mobile learning devices) as offering a chance to recover some of the lost ground in science and mathematics as well as other content areas. However, I believe tech businesses need to do more in the way of encouraging mobile technology use in our public and private schools.