When | ask for help, am told that | do not have to understand; | only have to accept and learn to operate.
Now that is confusing to me after having been told all my life that | had to understand. Nevertheless, I am wil-
ling to take a leap of faith and to believe without understanding, In that regard, my Baptist minister becomes a
lot like my computer literacy instructor, and | have been down that road before. Technology is a mystery I can
handle, and with faith that passeth understanding | can go forth into the world with loins girded to do battle.

The second hurdle, however, is more difficult for me. The concepts are hard enough; the language with
which they are explained is impossible. I have no training in speaking in numbers and shorthand. The fact that
someone drives a 280-2 or a 450-SL tells me nothing about what is driven. | pay Southern California Gas for
Hierms used and Southern Calitornia Edison for killowatts used, but 1 do not know what | have paid for. An in-
sert in my gas bill tells me to purchase a digital thermostat; my daughter has a digital radio; my son owns a digt-
fal wristwatch; and there is even a National Digital Corporation. But what does digital mean? And chips. What
are chips that seem to be the central clue to the mystery of how it all works? Chip off the old block, chipped
tooth, my dog, Chip, chocolate chip? What is chip that thou art mindful of him?

Byles and megabytes? Vhev are only misspelled words to me. And although 64K has been explained to me
several times, the explanation never stays in my memory. Uplink sounds like a rude Italian gesture.

And these are the simple words. What about the higher order words used by the technologist to explain
the larger mysteries: cellular radio, organic computers, fiber optics, holography, bubble memories, biocybernetics, video-
com, optecom. 1 feel like a bone-head English student who suddenly finds himself in second-year Latin.

The third hurdle has to do with the media hype to sell computers. The marketing offices are constantly
trying, to seduce me with exciting promises of new experiences, luring me on with exotic shapes and forms and
ever cheaper prices. Late one evening in a moment of weakness I even entered the aptly named Radio Shack--a
house of ill compute. Shyly | ran my fingers over some of the more well-developed models and blanched when
a salesman asked me if | had tried one of the user-friendly models. He said I could use whatever software I
wanted. With a sly grin he said he had a friend who could line me up with an Apple if I didn’t see anything |
liked there. When he started talking about The Source, | fled this supposed Garden of Eden, my innocence in-
tact. :

And yet--there is something that intrigues me about the technology; something related to hopes and
dreams and larger visions pulls me to it. In my little Baptist heart | see in technology the hope of answers--
answers about expanding, growing, improving, and learning. The seeker in me pursues that hope--and in spite
ol my great ignorance, in spite of my lack of training, in spite of my resistance, in spite of my English teacher's
understanding, of the world--I want to learn about technology. My goal is to lift myself up from the technologi-
cally disabled and to become, perhaps not able, but at least, more comfortable, more secure and more useful
than lam. Perhaps [| will even get my other speaker repaired so | can hear Ernest Tubb in stereo.

Terry O'Banion, Executive Director
League for Innovation in the Community College

For further information, contact the author at 23276 South Pointe Drive, Suite 103, Laguna Hills, CA 92653.

DO IUGLA AS C -OLL £ GE

ARCH IVES

 

 

Suanne D. Roueche, Editor
August 17, 1984, VOL. VI, NO. 21

INNOVATION ABSTRACTS 15 @ publication of the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development, EDB 348, The University of Texas at Austin,
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Foundation Issued weekly when classes are in-session during fall and spring terms and bimonthly during summer months.

The University of Texas at Austin, 1984
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