What Was Your 'WOW' Moment
Dr John Cuthell of MIrandanet likes to ask people what was their 'wow' moment, that nanosecond in which they realised that technology had something truly transformative to offer.
That 'wow' moment!For me, that moment came in 1976. Interestingly, I had already been using technology, but at one remove. I was teaching Economics at the time, and in order to familiarise my students with the vagaries of the stock market, I enrolled them in a game called Stockpiler. The idea was that you were 'given' a certain amount of money, and the students' job was to use that to maximise their profit through the buying and selling of shares.
Each week they would pore over the share prices and, having spent their 'spare' time (I didn't believe in such concepts) in the previous week reading periodicals like The Economist and the newspapers (I'd made sure these were amply available) and then make their decisions.
I would then collect in the forms on which they'd detailed their instructions, and send it off to some central processing place. Around a week later we'd find out how we did.
That was interesting, but it's hard to become excited by the technology when the time between input and output is so high.
About a year after I'd joined the school, a student brought in his computer. He had taught himself to program it, so I asked him to knock up a quick program to emulate a concept called 'the multiplier'. He did so, and the rest of us crowded around the screen. When we saw the numbers responding instantly to the suggestions we threw at him ('Make the interest rate 12%'; 'Lower income tax to zero'), I knew things could never be the same. With this technology it would be possible to model the behaviour of systems and show instantly the effect of changes in inputs on the outcomes.
That was my 'wow' moment. What was yours?
Terry Freedman, Educational ICT Consultant
I forgot to say, the reason this blog post came about was that Sandra Crapper and I were discussing this topic, the 'wow' moment, at the BETT Show.
BETT, BETT 2010, BETT Show, BETT2010, autobiography, wow moment in Diary, Using and Teaching ICT 
Reader Comments (2)
My biggest wow moment on how connected we all are was not as far back as the one you mention. I think I am a little slower processing things sometimes.
Anyhow, I made a post on my blog about Curtis Bonk's The World Is Open back in July. Here is the link http://burlingtonhigh.blogspot.com/2009/07/technology-is-changing-our-world-but.html.
But the wow came the next morning when I received a great e-mail from Curtis Bonk thanking me for the post. I guest I am wowed on two fronts. First, by how quickly we are able to track information that is relevant/important to us. Secondly, I am constantly wowed at how accessible the bright folks in my PLN are. Since the first wow, there have been a lot since due to the great effort people make to extend themselves to help others.
Thx, Patrick. That's a great story, and I loved the blog post you referenced. Interestingly, it ties in with a series I was thinking of getting going if I can persuade a few subject specialists to contribute. I'm starting with an article about citizenship and ICT, and then I'll see what happens. I agree with the idea that the web can serve any subject, and I really liked your comment that we have to keep challenging ourselves to think outside our comfort zones.