Internet Control

Yes, it's possible.  Here's a link to an interesting article from Eureka Street, an online publication from Australia.  Titled Preparing to Kill the Internet (Michael Mullins), the author presents an overview of the response of President Obama to the Egyptian government's shutting down of the internet over the last few weeks.  His address included the usual declaration — 'we stand for universal values, including the rights of the Egyptian people to freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, and the freedom to access information'.   What wasn't mentioned was freedom of access to the internet.  And the U.S. itself is introducing an Act to protect cyberspace in the event of cyber warfare.   ... just putting it out there... 

Bread and Circuses

Is technology neutral, or does it carry meaning?  A pencil, a pen, a printing press, a hammer, or a saw, are items that are not filled with meaning in themselves.  A tool is something that does something useful or helpful in some way. The meaning of a tool is specific to that item.  What is done with the tool changes the meaning of the tool, of the device. Technology has changed everything we do in that it has created ways to communicate differently.   The user has the power to change the meaning of the device.

Technology is not just the tool, however.  It is now driving the way communication happens.  It is driving business, it has changed how we communicate ideas to one another, it has created immediacy of interaction that has never before been available to humanity.  Technology becomes meaningful as soon as the tool or device is used to create a message.    

Is the medium of technology purely informative, or is it there to create a message?  Can it create a message without interaction with the user?  I think of propaganda being created with the tools of printing presses and exhibited in the technological tool the newspaper, such as what happened in Germany prior to the beginning of the second world war.  I think of communicating across space and time.  Would we have known as much about what is happening in Egypt if people had not had access to cell phones?  Is the use of all the toys, or devices we now acquire merely a modern version of bread and circuses?  What does it mean to pacify an entire generation of users into having access to instant information, to vicarious entertainment, to not having to wait to obtain any gratification?  The meaning of each use, each transaction, is richer than it appears at the surface level.  There is depth and meaning to the use of technology.

 

Does not having access to technology change what we know?  Does it create a socioeconomic gap?  Does it contribute to reduced learning for certain students who don't have the actual tools in their hands?  The gap has the potential to get bigger as we load more learning, more transactions, onto technological devices.  What happens when the user has to bear the cost of technological change?  Until recently, much of the Internet was freely available, without commercial or economic constraints, but that is changing.   The recent debate in which the government tried to override the decision made by the CRTC, technically an arms-length decision-making body, illustrates the fact that technology is no longer the wild west of the past.

The user should be able to think freely about how and what they are doing with the technology they use.  But being engaged in the use of technology requires decisions on the part of the user -- cost of the tools, cost of using those tools, validity of the information that is sent out and received, verification of the source of the information, decisions made on the basis of information received, and ultimately, how the technology drives the user from one stage of knowledge to another.

M- (Multi/Mobile) Tasking

M - learning... another catchy phrase designed to lure us into a brave new world.  Mobile learning.  The ability to move learning away from a static situation -- it allows the learner to drive some of their own planning, like the when and how we can learn.  Mobility of information.  Ease of information usage.  Multiple uses of technologies, multiple tasking of information.  Many different perspectives.

The Smart board demonstration was a good introduction to a kind of technology that is designed specifically for a certain setting.  The company used teachers to verify how wonderful the product is in the classroom. The user needs familiarity with files, menus and PC-based menu system, but once that is figured out, it is catchy and feels fun.  My personal interest is in the iPad, an item that looks and feels much easier to use.  It doesn't pull the eyes of the class to the front of the room, it's more of a personal device.  But it feels easy.  I'm sure the day is coming when Apple develops a big iDevice with easy-to-use apps that will sit in front of the room.  Either item costs money and requires an infrastructure that connects them to the bigger world, but most schools have that in place, so it shouldn't be a huge issue.  However, there are some schools that have rooms with only 2 or 3 electrical outlets, and some buildings don't have a wireless connection, which will limit the use of either object.

The RefWorks program is another phenomenal time saver, as long as the user sorts and files information correctly.  There have been many occasions when I've had to go back and find a reference, either on the shelf in the library or in a database.  This is another smart piece of software that saves time and could save energy.  But it's only as good as the information you put into it.  It's still essential to check the information you are using or citing for reliability.  The average user, looking for a quick fix, might not know how to figure out whether a site is real or not.  How can we trust what we are reading or seeing?  Just using the product, or obtaining it from cyberspace is no guarantee of accuracy.  And the user has to know how to keep all the bits together -- organization of information is just as important.

Ivor Tossell writes about the role of social media in the Egyptian uprising in the Globe and Mail on Feb. 1, 2011:  "The transparency and immediacy that the Internet affords can be deceptive...with all the ways we've learned to project our presence electronically, it's easy to imagine ourselves drifting over the line from spectator to participant."  Read the article at The Globe and Mail.

How do we define our own roles in using these wonderful new innovations?  Are we unbiased users?  Did we succumb to the lure of ease in obtaining information?  Does the immediacy help us forget where we may cross a line?