A blog post by Meg Ormiston
@megormi
Reading through my Linkedin feed yesterday I came across a post by Omowale Casselle, the Co-Founder at Digital Adventures where he talks about letting computers do what they do best so humans can do what they do best. Casselle writes on Linkedin, “Google Gmail letting me know that I haven’t responded to an email that was received from a parent or school principal 3, 4, or 5 days ago is incredible. This is where I see the future of technology heading, people using intelligent algorithms to help create and deliver more value. Let the computers do what they do best and let the humans do what they do best.” Omowale Casselle
I commented back with: “I agree with you, Omowale, let the computers do what they do best. Speaking of that, I upgraded to @Grammarly Premium last week; it is a game-changer for me! I need to remember to let the computers do what they do best, so I can focus on the message in my writing instead of mechanics and grammar. When I write my next book, my editors will be shocked! BTW this post has a 99 overall score thanks to Grammarly. Love it!”
This message came back from Omowale: “Not familiar with Grammarly. But, I will take a look as I do lots of writing on a weekly basis. So, if there’s something that reduces the mental load while enabling me to focus on the message; that sounds great!”
As entrepreneurs in the education market, we are both focused on helping students thrive in the digital age, and this exchange had me thinking about a couple of things including writing for an authentic audience and letting computers do what they do best so humans can do what they do best.
Omowale is great on Linkedin posting almost every day, and I always take a few minutes to read what he has to say. I have been following Casselle’s work with Digital Adventures through Linkedin for over a year and in a chance meeting last Sunday I met Omowale for the first time. Once I connected the dots, I quickly could recall many of the ideas he shared in his posts and his progress to grow Digital Adventures. His children were with him, and they thought it was funny someone would recognize him for his online writing on Twitter and Linkedin. I knew him because he writes for an authentic audience almost every day, and people like me are reading and giving him feedback in the form of comments. We are learning together using technology.
As you look at our public exchange we are learning together as Omawale shared his Gmail tip, I shared my new Grammarly Premium discovery. Collaborating is what humans do best, they learn together, and the technology we highlighted are just tools to connect with an authentic audience and help us be more productive. After our face to face meeting, we could have jumped over to email and kept our conversation between the two of us. Instead, we are transparent learners sharing strategies that work for us, and I believe this is precisely the digital world we need to prepare our students for.