Don't be evil....

The title above is the motto of Google. The more paranoid regularly regularly assign evil intent to the big technology corporates such as Google or Microsoft. At the moment, however, it seems that evil is being done to Google by the Bush administration. So far, Google is standing up to the malign 'requests' of the White House (in the specific shape of Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General) to hand over a week's worth of search terms and a million randomly selected addresses from Google's massive database of web addresses. The say the data "would assist the government in its efforts to understand the behavior of current web users [and] to estimate how often web users encounter harmful-to-minors material in the course of their searches". There is a suggestion that other big players in the market (Yahoo! and MSN?) have already complied with similar requests. That would be a pity if true. The domino effect might prove too much for Google, but I hope they resist as far as they are able.

© John Connell
The views expressed in this weblog are entirely my own and are not intended to reflect the views of any other individuals or organizations. All sources will be fully acknowledged.

Schools and ICT: they need each other!

First post on my blog. I hope to use this space to explore how education systems around the world are coping with the inevitable onset of the ubiquitous information and communication technologies. In Scotland, I currently head up a big ICT programme called the Scottish Schools Digital Network (SSDN) - an attempt to take Scottish education into its ICT future by a route that is rationale and planned - but not necessarily too rationale or too planned. The nature of the technology itself, and the nature of education itself, means that the intersecting landscape they inhabit is one of ever-shifting vistas and a constantly surprising and delightful flow of new and ever-more-exciting possibilities. There are those who think ICT is dangerous, and is somehow anathema to sound and effective learning - whatever that might be! The 'Weary Willies', as Billy Connolly might call them, have to be resisted and marginalised. If a state education system is still required - and I believe it is - then it can only survive and thrive by recognising the truth and the reality of the lives led by the learners it hopes to support. ICT is all-pervasive now, and it will continue to be so - the Luddite tendency, however loud it shouts and however hard it tries to decry the world we now live in, has already lost the argument by the irrefutable fact that our children and young people already know better than they ever will that these technologies simply 'are'! Any school system, any mechanism for educating a society, that does not recognise this simple fact, will quickly become irrelevant - and will wither away. The cry "Education first, technology second!" is specious - however, the reverse would be equally pointless! Neither education nor technology is a neutral instrument - we must therefore use them in tandem to ensure that our young people come to understand the nature of the society they are growing up in, and to enable them to live, work and play in ways that are constructive, positive and liberating for themselves and their fellow citizens of this changing world. More to come.....

© John Connell
The views expressed in this weblog are entirely my own and are not intended to reflect the views of any other individuals or organizations. All sources will be fully acknowledged.