My boy met me at the door this evening with this question, “Dad, when you were a kid did you know about a commercial called ‘School House Rock?’”

Scratching my head, I answered, “Yup.” He followed up quickly, like 10-year-olds do when pressing their point. “Did you know they used a song called ‘Three is a magic number?’ They took the song from Jack Johnson!”

“Uh, no, not exactly,” I explained.

So after dinner we sat down in front of YouTube and called up several episodes of School House Rock. My wife and I hummed and sang along. Not only was I reminded about how much those programs influenced me, I was struck by how much our world has changed in 30 years. We saw typewriters, a train caboose, and all sorts of items for which my son had no context.

There I was, teaching my son with a computer about educational cartoons while sitting in front of a computer - accessing the Internet via a wireless connection - the very week I’m studying Father Walter Ong’s work on orality and oral cultures.

Ong says that without an alphabet or even symbols, primarily oral societies actually think and transfer knowledge differently than those cultures that have the ability to write a story and preserve their important thoughts.

It’s clear to me that not only do I think differently today than the Biblical Hebrews who wandered the desert and helped Moses write Genesis, but my son - who does not understand how typewriters work - thinks and problem solves completely differently than I do.

Technology is like a drop of ink in a glass of water. Once it is introduced, it cannot be extracted and we are changed forever.

By the way, if you do not remember School House Rock, stop by YouTube, and watch my favorite, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEJL2Uuv-oQ.