Change the world?  Can you? 

One dude did. A monk named Martin Luther (1483-1586) did, with the help of German printers and the new technology of the day: the printing press.

Check it out at the Minneapolis Art Institute . “As an entrepreneurial venture, they (the printers) set the 95 Theses into type, printed them and reproduced them,” says MIA Art Curator Tom Rassieur,”When they saw how rapidly they were selling, they made copies and copies and copies. It went viral.” (Via @NPR: How Technology Helped Martin Luther Change Christianity  – Martin Luther, New Technologies .)

Wait. This was not the first time that a literacy technology transformed the world.              New literacy technologies used in the transformation of history is traceable to the 1st Century. (Kurt Weitzmann’s, Late Antique and Early Christian Book Illumination. 1977, George Braziller, Inc., New York, NY.)

Codex – the book form still in use today – was introduced and slowly replaced the scroll. Scrolls were as long as 35 feet and were bulky, prone to breakage and deterioration.

Get this: Codex did not fully replace scrolls until the 4th Century. (The Transition from the Roll to the Codex: Technological and Cultural Implications: Transitional phases in the formation of the book.)

400 years. Whoa. A good thing to remember when we argue with students about the use of their phones, rail against faulty internet, dispute with colleagues about new media, technology transformation and it’s ethical use and question the practical approach of Open Scholarship (Blog 5):

Books: the technology that we depend on today took 400 years to adapt and adopt.  

Adapt and Adopt.  Hmm.  Think about that when you seek to link ideas for change to students using #AdventureLearning and WeExplore  to global issues or when you try to  change the social recycling patterns of your community.  400 years.  Adapt & Adopt. Are you willing to try some patience?  Are you willing to question? Are you willing to adapt and adopt?