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clarifying question on the "hipster pda" -- a joke... right?
Michael Time | Mar 15 2008
Hi all, There are some fantastic ideas on this site. Then there are some not so fantastic ideas on this site. When in doubt, I let my students have a look and tell me their gut reaction. So when they saw the (now aging) discussion over the "hipster PDA" some days ago, it caused some of the most raucous fits of laughter all year. They, and now I, would like to know whether the "pen-and-paper PDA" was a big joke... right? I mean, are people really congratulating each other for carrying around paper and a pen in their pocket to keep track of their lives? Er, did we just reinvent something? Most of my students are from upper Harlem. They don't come from families that can buy $600 Treo devices so for them, a crumpled napkin and a half-broken pencil is about as efficient and good of a "PDA" as anything else. Except they don't call it the "hipster PDA"--as they chimed in yesterday, they call it "common sense." As one of them concluded, next thing we know, we'll be hearing about blog posts about how awesome it is to read a book in paper form rather than online, because that way we can take notes in real-time without digital mediation, and that increases productivity, and hence it is an amazing idea. Or a big joke. 2 Comments
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 Half-Joke, Half-ReinventionSubmitted by SansPoint on March 15, 2008 - 5:01pm.
Merlin would better answer this himself, but there is certainly an element of self-conscious humor about the Hipster PDA. For those of us geeks who carried around gee-gaw whiz-bang PDA devices in an ostensible effort to be organized, only to spend productive time fiddling about with Minesweeper, or playing around on the internet, to give up the gizmo and go to paper and pen is quite the logical leap. We have this mindset that if it's high-tech, it's automatically better, but that's not true. Calling a stack of index cards and a pen a PDA is a joke at our own expense. We laugh, but we understand that, "Hey! Maybe I should just write shit down instead of fiddle with my e-mail during the staff meeting... then I'll know what to do." Also, having used a PDA for a couple years (an old Palm IIIe), switching to a Hipster actually was a wake-up call. I actually write stuff down rather than rely on a big, dumb block of plastic and glass that has more power to distract than to be written upon. Oh, and taking notes on Napkins? Bad idea. At least with a stack of index cards, or a notebook, or the like, you keep everything in one place. A wadded up napkin with a note looks very similar to a wadded up napkin with my dried up snot, and both are likely to end up in the trash. By the way, I'm applying for the NYC Teaching Fellowship, myself. I might end up working with you if things go well. If you see me, go ahead and laugh at my ugly, beaten up stack of blank notecards. I laugh at it myself sometimes. » POSTED IN:
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