introduction lecture po1

James Sunderland 2008

Participation in Occupation 1Technology

BT230001

Lecture One: An Introduction


Course Assessment

Terms• Blog creation • Blog profile• Posting of tutorial Tasks

Technology Application Report• Report/letter for funding of a specific

technology.

James Sunderland 2008Retrieved 1 February 2007 from: http://scripturist.org/don't%20panic.jpg


Some Introductory Thoughts About Technology

• Technology definitions

• Humans use of technology

• Technology and its role in history

• ‘The problem with technology is…’

• ‘Technology is great because…’

• Technology and occupational therapy


How do we define technology?


Technology:

…The total knowledge and skills available to any given society.

(Collins Concise Dictionary, 1989)


“To me, it is important to understand that technology is practice, it is the way we do things around here. This definition takes machines and devices into account, as well as social structures, command, control, and infrastructures. It is helpful for me to remember that technology is practice. Technology, as a practice, means not only that new tools change, but also that we can change the practice. If we have the political will to do so, we can set certain tools aside, just as the world has set slavery and other tools aside. It is also the nature of modern technology that it is a system. One cannot change one thing without changing or affecting many others.”

Ursula Franklin, The Real World of Technology. 1989 Massey Lectures


Technological change and human history


Technology made large populations possible; large populations now make technology indispensable

Joseph Wood Krutch


• Our first use of technology. The evolution of tools. Man as tool maker

• Focus on survival and subsistence

• Evolution and specialisation

• The Industrial Revolution

• Arts and Craft movement


Technology….the knack of so arranging the world that we don’t have to experience it.

Mark Frisher, writer (1957)


Technology Today

• Is our technology change greater, or more affective, than that of the past?

• What have computers done for us?

• Future Shock v Future Hype?


We live in a society exquisitely dependant on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology

Carl Sagan


‘The problem with technology is….’


• Dislocation from role, routine and common place• Creation of more work, are things being made

simpler?• The stress of keeping up, learning and coping

with change and systems• Ethical issues• Inequality of access• Technology Myths and threats (the paperless

offices and atomic power)• Dependence, power failures, storage issues?• Something new is always better?


When you get the urge to predict the future, better lie down until the feeling goes away

Forbes Magazine (July 10, 1978)


Technology Hype?


The chief cause of problems is solutions

Eric Sevareid


Attitudes towards technology

• Technicism• Optimism

• Pessimism• Avoidance

The difference in a persons attitude towards technology is dependent on that persons exposure to it rather than the notion that it is age that determines positivity/negativity.

James Sunderland 2008Retrieved February 1, 2007. from http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/img/techno/comprage070206.jpg


Buying the right computer and getting it to work properly is no more complicated than building a nuclear reactor from wristwatch parts in a darkened room using only your teeth

Dave Barry, humorist


When is Technology widely adopted?

• Useable design (fits with current systems)

• An element of cool

• Benefits must outweigh losses from previous technologies being replaced

• Cost (affordability)

• Marketing and financial clout (Microsoft)

• Form follows failure


‘Technology is great because…’


What it has allowed us to do

• Contact with the wider world

• Exposure to cultures and people

• Spread of information

• Easy of function

• More comfortable and longer lives

• Increased ability


I have a microwave fireplace. You can lay down in front of the fire all night in eight minutes

Steven Wright, humorist


Technology and Occupational Therapy


Occupational Therapy Texts

From Willard and Spackman’s Occupational Therapy

It has been said that activity is the bridge between one’s inner reality and the external world. It is through our activities that we are connected with life and with other human beings. Through the activities in which we engage, we learn about the world, test our knowledge, practice skills, express our feelings, experience pleasure, take care of our needs for survival, develop competence, and achieve mastery over our destinies. (p.296)


From Health through Occupation, by Gary Kielhofner

THE CORE BUSINESS OF OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY

Is to enable healthy daily work/labour for those for whom assistance is needed - either temporarily or permanently. Occupational therapists manipulate contexts, not people. They are the only health professional whose core business this is.

Life takes on meaning in the minute-by-minute reality in which we experience ourselves achieving the ordinary things that sustain a sense of the commonplace, a security in the very ordinary nature of most of our experiences. We are anchored in the familiar reality of our daily lives. Mundane though it maybe, it is the stuff of our sanity. Beyond this unreflective involvement in moment-by-moment life, we are attached to a larger world – one bound by an extension of time to past and future, of self to relationships with others, and of personal purpose to the grander scheme about us.


…the generation, alteration, manipulation and maintenance of contexts constitute what may properly be called the art of occupational therapy. Further, by virtue of its ability to create, modify and maintain meaning this art constitutes a fundamental aspect of the healing process in occupational therapy.

The situations we create, and the tasks, opportunities, challenges, and celebrations we provide are the dimensions of our art. (pp.308/9)


from : At Our Wit’s Beginning by Peter Wilson

Conceived by and within nature the human species is a part of nature: conceiving of nature sets the species apart from nature. To verify our conceptions we set about exploring nature, making use of it to shore up our independence. Our ideas, explorations and use of nature connects us to the world, which also means with each other. As individuals we enjoy a measure of independence and individuality, but to prevent our being cast off we must rely on our connections, our relationships, to sustain us. Having good connections, making connections, finding the right connections, are the ways in which human beings get on in the world. Being connected to the world, conceiving of a world that is not apparent to our senses means that we join our ideas to the materials of the world and put a construction upon them and thereby build our own environments. In these we live within the environment of the world at large. (p.3-4)


Journal Articles

Breines, E.B. (2002). Technology and occupation: contemporary viewpoints. Occupational therapy education in a technological world. The American

Journal of Occupational Therapy, 56(4), 467-9.

Hammel, J.M. & Smith, R.O. (1993). The development of technology competencies and training guidelines for occupational therapists. The

American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 47(11), 970-997.


Conclusions• As humans we possess the ability to manipulate and test the

environments we live in. Over many ages this testing has gleaned much information. We have developed a cunning and guile in the way we look at our surroundings and adapt them to our needs and wants. We as human beings can see the possibilities in situations and devise alternate strategies. Problem solving has become our forte. We have knowledge and process which can be directed to the achievement of desired end results.

• Assistive tech is the obvious link between OT and technology. We should also be considering the common place. How are technologies used? What do new technologies offer our clients? How are human occupied in technologies. After all this is the domain we work in

• Technologies as tools. Right tools for the right jobs cause and effect. We can make effective use of modern day technologies or be damaging in their use if we don’t know how, when or why we should use them


Asking the right questions is superior to finding elaborate answers to the wrong questions

Steven Schnaars, Megamistakes (1989)

introduction lecture po1

Technology

technology hype

specific technology

real world of technology

nature of modern technology

technology bt230001

technology carl sagan

occupational therapy

spackmans occupational