Super cool, or just too much?

One of the things I've been going over and over in my head with all this technology is the comfort and education levels of the people who use it.

I just finished reading the article with predictions of the future of learning and technology that Sheila linked to and I couldn't help thinking - especially regarding Prediction #1 about augmented reality - that it is just too much! Having that much stuff come at me at once would be overwhelming. A "digital overlay" to my life?

Original Photo by odolphie

If I take a personality assessment, like the Five Factor Model, I always fall just "left of center" closer to introvert than extrovert. I need time to myself. I value silence. Too much stimulation coming at me all at once leaves me drained. I hate televisions in restaurants, and actually carry a TV-Be-Gone in my purse. (I've never used it. Afraid I'll get in trouble.) And as cool as this technology is, and as exciting as I am about it, sometimes I feel like it is all too much noise, like the screen in the restaurant that keeps drawing my attention away from my dining companion. What does it mean for introverted learners? Or is it actually a boon for them because they can do it in their own time in the privacy of their own home or car?

I also wonder about the learning curve, both for trainers and for participants. One of the predictions in the article as that your performance at work, or maybe even at home, would be rated publicly. Imagine public 360 reviews! We've been testing a new performance review/development program at work for the last two years, and one of the biggest hurdles was the technology - getting people to fill out forms in Microsoft Word! We're super excited about a different performance recognition/review tool that lets both the employee and supervisor add information to a shared file throughout the year so the review will basically be done when review time comes. But, that also means that any staff engaged in this process have a new technology to learn.

I've probably mentioned a dozen times on this blog that I love the idea of wikis, of sharing knowledge that way instead of sending them back and forth in emails, having a repository of knowledge. Getting people past the trepidation stage into the development and participation stage seems to be difficult in some organizations.

How much does technology leave learners in the dust? Or does it make learning more accessible? Or does it depend on how it's used? (It seems like that is the answer to everything. "It depends.") I'm not sure I know the answer. What do you think?