Golden Ages and the Problem of Perception
I believe we are in a Golden Age of civilisation. Not everyone has this way of seeing. I hear many commentators, educators and parents express grave concerns about the impact of technology, the internet, mobile devices and computers on young people and education in society generally. To me, it seems pathological, reminiscent of the comic book scare in the 1950s. @teachpaperless makes the point well, by using a quote to launch into this post, supporting... Read More
How can we know the dancer from the dance?
In a world where fortunes are sought through data-mining vast information repositories, the computer is our indispensable but far from infallible assistant. Personas demonstrates the computer’s uncanny insights and its inadvertent errors, such as the mischaracterizations caused by the inability to separate data from multiple owners of the same name. It is meant for the viewer to reflect on our current and future world, where digital histories... Read More
Digital Footprint
Cool Online Tools
Next week I facilitate a workshop designed to assist Year 11 students find some useful online tools to support their learning, especially research, collaboration, organisation, study and presentation. my original wordle There will be a very, very brief presentation and overview of each tool and then students will be free to experiment, exploring the tools of use/interest to them. Do you mind checking out this list and suggesting some more tools?... Read More
Startpage Australia
I have commenced experimenting with Startpage - the “world’s #1 privacy search engine” – which has launched in Australia. This search engine accesses “nine other search engines all at once” and does not collect your data. Increasingly, privacy and the regulations which govern the internet are being debated widely, as online life assumes more and more importance to citizens of our planet. It seems that Startpage have the right... Read More
Why Wikipedians are the Weirdest People on the Internet
Google won't make us stupid
“Most experts agree that Google won’t make us stupid.” PREDICTIONS Read More
Golden Rules for Keeping Safe Online
Read Write Web recently posted a story that I thought would garner more comments. I suspect it only had three, as most people agree with Europe’s 17 Golden Rules for Keeping Safe on Social Networks but are breaking some of them out of neccessity. This is what I mean. The following three ‘European rules’ When joining a social networking site use your personal e-mail address (not your company e-maill address) Use a pseudonym Do... Read More
'How Has The Internet Changed The Way You Think?'
Here are the best answers you are likely to read, compiled by the Edge Foundation at their World Question Centre, to this important question. The following passage, from Tim O’Reilly‘s musings on the question, Pattern Recognition, made me reflect about the challenges of staying ‘educated’ and being and ‘educator’ in our ever-shifting culture: “It used to be the case that there was a canon, a... Read More
#nocleanfeed
Senator Conroy’s recent announcement about the censorship of the internet in Australia has disturbed and perturbed Australians who reflect intelligently on the nature of our civil society and the freedoms we enjoy. The benignly titled press release, ‘Measures to improve safety of the internet for families’ has been released in the week before christmas in an attempt to escape analysis from a distracted public and journalists. I would... Read More
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