TAD Consortium March 2000 Information Update 3
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CONTENTS
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NEWS/TRENDS
--- Latin America PC Market
Grows Steadily
--- Ecommerce
Suffering Down Under
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Study Finds E-Rate Is Achieving Its Goal Of Building Internet Framework For 21st-Century
Schools
--- French Ministry Bans
English "E-Mail"
ANNOUNCEMENTS/REQUESTS
--- Harvard Health &
Internet Meeting, May 30-31
PROFILED ORGANIZATIONS
--- Women'sNet Community Radio Pilot
Project
--- International Network on Ethnoforestry
(INEF)
ONLINE RESOURCES
---
"Information and Communication Technologies for Sustainable Development"
--- History of European
vocational training policy
--- Making Lifelong Learning a reality
--- "The Multilingual World Wide
Web"
--- Resources For
Methods In Evaluation And Social Research
--- The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization
--- Using the World
Wide Web to Enhance Classroom Instruction
PRINTED AND OTHER RESOURCES
--- Student Success
And The Use Of New Technology In Education
--- Nine Rules for Good
Technology: Stephen Downes
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NEWS/TRENDS
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Taken from Nua Internet Surveys: March 6th, 2000
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IDC Research:Latin America PC Market Grows Steadily
PC penetration is increasing steadily in Latin America,
with sales of desktops, notebook and PC servers up 15 percent in 1999 over the previous
year's figures, according to IDC.
Growth in the Mexican market was particularly strong, with sales of PCs almost doubling
during 1999.
Over 5.9 million units, with a total value of USD7.39 billion, were shipped in the region as a whole last year and over 5.4 million of those units were desktop PCs.
Almost half of all PCs sold in Latin America last year were manufactured by non-brand local producers. Of the branded PCs, Compaq was the most popular with 18 percent of total sales in the region. IBM was second most popular, followed by Acer, Hewlett-Packard, Alaska and Dell.
Low pricing, strong marketing and localised sales strategies are the main factors driving the growth of the market.
http://206.35.113.28:8080/Data/LatinAmerica/Content/LA022400PR.htm
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Taken from Nua Internet Surveys: March 6th, 2000
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Freehill,
Hollingdale & Page:Ecommerce Suffering Down Under
Australian ecommerce is being stunted because of consumers' worries surrounding privacy and the perception that ecommerce sites do not take good care of private and personal data.
According to a new study from Australian legal firm Freehill Hollingdale and Page, only 18 percent of websites offer visitors privacy protection options. Only 12 percent have published a privacy statement online and just 6 percent hire external auditors to examine and review privacy standards.
According to Freehill, Hollingdale and Page, ecommerce merchants need to clearly advertise their privacy policies to potential customers. In many cases, companies had excellent privacy policies but did not publish them. Four-fifths of companies that responded to this survey said they followed a privacy protection code. Nine in 10 said they never pass on consumer data to other companies.
Almost a quarter of companies polled did not provide a secure, encrypted method of payment over the Internet. Clearly, Australians still have some cause for concern.
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For Immediate Release
March 2, 2000
CONTACT:
Andy Carvin, Benton Foundation
202-638-5770
andy@benton.org
STUDY FINDS E-RATE IS ACHIEVING ITS GOAL OF BUILDING INTERNET FRAMEWORK FOR 21ST-CENTURY SCHOOLS
Report by Benton Foundation and EDC/Center for Children and Technology Examines Impact in Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee
Download the report: http://www.benton.org/e-rate/e-rate.4cities.pdf
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The E-Rate works. The first in-depth study of the federal program designed to help wire schools and libraries to the Internet shows that the E-Rate discounts on telecommunications services have had a significant impact on communications infrastructure in four large, urban school districts: Chicago, IL; Cleveland, OH; Detroit, MI; and Milwaukee, WI. Entitled "The E-Rate in America: A Tale of Four Cities," the study was released today by the Benton Foundation's Communications Policy and Practice Program and the Educational Development Center's Center for Children and Technology.
Funded by the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation, the study will be the subject of a leadership roundtable today at the Benton Foundation, where featured guests, FCC Chairman William Kennard, and Linda Roberts, director of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology Director, will discuss its conclusions.
A key component of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the E-Rate provides school districts and libraries significant discounts in buying telecommunications services. Thirty-six thousand applications have been filed in the E-Rate program's third year, and nearly 60 percent of those came from the country's neediest schools and libraries. By the end of 2000, it is expected that a total of nearly $6 billion will be invested with the largest benefits for the poorest communities.
"The E-rate is bringing the opportunities of the Information Age to all of our children," stated Larry Kirkman, president of the Benton Foundation. "It is the major public-interest commitment of the 1996 Telecom Act and is the largest new federal commitment to educational equity in a generation.
In each of the four city school districts, the study found network infrastructure deployment has accelerated and Internet access has significantly expanded. "The E-Rate appears to be a refreshing case of federal dollars well-spent," according to the Benton Foundation's educational technology specialist, Andy Carvin, who also served as editor of the report.
A serious challenge reported by local school systems in the study, however, is the need for resources to upgrade each school's basic infrastructure - including electrical systems and hardware, areas not covered under the E-Rate program - in order to handle the demands of an advanced telecommunications network.
"We found in most instances that 'school building basics' delayed the deployment of information technology funded by the E-Rate," said Dr. Margaret Honey, Director of the EDC/Center for Children and Technology. "While it is an obstacle that districts are fighting to overcome, it ranks as a major problem that can undermine implementation, particularly in the poorest schools and those with the most outdated infrastructures."
When examined as a whole, though, the report concludes that the E-Rate is making a real difference in urban schools: "The E-Rate is playing a major role in making it possible for these large, urban districts to get robust networking infrastructures into place," Dr. Honey continued. "Establishing that infrastructure is a crucial step toward making online resources and electronic communication part of the daily work of all teachers and students."
"The E-Rate in America: A Tale of Four Cities" may be downloaded for free on the Benton Foundation Web site at http://www.benton.org/e-rate/e-rate.4cities.pdf
Paper copies of the report may be purchased online through Amazon.com.
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FRENCH MINISTRY BANS ENGLISH "E-MAIL"
In an effort to limit the spread of English throughout the Internet, the French Ministry of Finance has banned from official French civil service use such common English language business words as "e-mail" and "startup." In their stead, civil servants are directed to use the phrases "courier electronique" and "jeune pousse" (a young plant). The announcement came as two French newspapers -- Liberation and Le Monde -- reported that French President Chirac had used the phrase "les start-ups" last week as he toured Republic Alley, a building in Paris that houses many young French Internet businesses. (UPI 6 Mar 2000)
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ANNOUNCEMENTS/REQUESTS
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Harvard Health & Internet
Meeting, May 30-31
The Internet and the Public's Health: Impact on Individuals, Communities and the World is a conference to be presented by the Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School on May 30-31, 2000 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The conference will explore the promise of the Internet in
relation to four critical areas:
- supporting the doctor-patient relationship;
- improving healthcare systems;
- reaching the U.S. underserved;
- improving health in the developing world.
In addition to twenty panelpresenters, including George Sadowsky, Vice President of Education, Internet Society, keynote speakers include Tom Ferguson, The Ferguson Report; Esther Dyson, EdVentures, Inc.; Phil Nudelman, Group Health/Kaiser; Fred Bukachi, HealthNet Kenya; and George Lundberg, Medscape. Fee is $350 before March 31; $425 thereafter.
The complete program and registration is available online
at
www.hsph.harvard.edu/health-internetconference,
or call 617-432-1026 (USA) for more information.
The health & Internet meeting opens a week of Internet discussions including the Harvard Internet & Society conference and a companion program offered by the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
For program information and registration for these two meetings, visit www.is2k.harvard.edu.
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PROFILED ORGANIZATIONS
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I'd like to tell you about Women'sNet
Community Radio Pilot Project, which was conducted in Gauteng, South Africa, and
worked with community radio stations and gender organisations from the same communities.
The Objectives of the pilot were:
Both groups have found the training to be useful, and were committed to improving the content on radio stations. Informal partnerships were created, and both parties looked at ways in which to work together in practical ways (e.g. connecting with key people in organisations working toward gender equality, and putting more women's voices on the air) Community radio stations have started developing gender sensitive strategies for the upcoming local government elections were devised. Some radio stations have already changed their programming styles to include women's voices and more interviews on gender programming.
Although there has been general commitment, the lessons learned from the pilot so far have shown that:
Participants have included:
A work-in-progress version of the site can be found at http://radio.womensnet.org.za
It will be formally launched on 29 March 2000.
Sonja Boezak
Women'sNet Information Co-ordinator
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I wish to inform you about the role of ICT in ethnoforestry networking particularly the role of International Network on Ethnoforestry in Community Forestry through the use of ICT.
Introduction: This post describes the network that is promoting the Equity of Knowledge between indigenous communities and formal forestry scientists across the globe. The International Network on Ethnoforestry was established on 4 January 1999 at the Indian Institute of Forest Management in India. INEF is a peer group of concerned foresters, scientists, international agencies, and non-governmental organizations working for the documentation, dissemination and integration of indigenous knowledge on forest management with formal forestry, in various cultures and indigenous peoples in different parts of the globe. INEF is supported by the Indian Institute of Forest management (IIFM), Bhopal (India), Asia Forest Network and RECOFTC. IIFM provides assistance for housing the headquarters of INEF. The network is coordinated by Deep N. Pandey and assisted by 30 faculty members at IIFM.
At present, INEF has 299 members across 100 nations interested in the sharing and field application of indigenous knowledge on forest management in order to ensure the equity of knowledge, livelihood security to indigenous people and sustainable forest management across the globe. INEF members clearly see that ethnoforestry has to be understood in the wider context of traditional ecological knowledge. The philosophy of sustainability is incarnate in indigenous knowledge systems. All over the world, the context-specific knowledge on forestry can be integrated with formal forestry science, and can help address the problems of forest depletion and threatened livelihoods of local communities. Current activities of INEF include the compilation of an annotated bibliography on the global status of Ethnoforestry; a research project on Ethnoforestry in India, and collaborative training to stakeholders on ethnoforestry. The most important activity is the INEF mailing list that has brought together for the first time various stakeholders on one platform who are helping in the retrieval, transmission and field application of indigenous knowledge on forests in various parts of the world.
Networking Technology: INEF initiatives is using a very simple technology but with profound impact. It is the e-group mailing list. This project is aiming to accomplish the goal of Equity of Knowledge between the indigenous communities and formal forestry scholarship through retrieval, transmission and field application of the indigenous knowledge on forests in collaboration with the formal forestry. This project is unique that for the first time in the human history the concern for equity of knowledge has addressed at the worldwide scale and among the audience that has the potential to alter the course of development interventions in the field of natural resource management. Never before such a gathering of individuals and organisations have attempted to influence those who matter in the policy implementation sector that knowledge is the key to empowerment of poor and marginalised local communities. The project is also unique that it has established the arrangements for a free flow of information from the international bodies to the village level in order to apply the knowledge that hitherto was residing in the academic circles and the communities. By pooling together the knowledge of communities and foresters, and integrating it to implement in the field has yielded rich dividends to the communities. This alone is believed to be the effective way of addressing the problems of deforestation and threatened livelihoods. INEF through the use of ICT has also shown that both the knowledge systems are compatible and computer-based simple technology of mailing lists can have profound impact on any developmental project that is aiming to address the integration of knowledge systems. Future of the humankind depends on the speed of the exchange of information and INEF has shown it to be a reality with unprecedented results.
Interaction of INEF with Users: Every day-users of the INEF are foresters, policy makers, scientists, students, village forest protection and management committees, NGOs, anthropologists, sociologists, wildlifers and international agencies. The typical way of interaction is through a simple e-mailing list either for sharing his information, research, case study, findings or for seeking some information from other INEF members. This has helped a very wide circulation and enhanced the applicability of indigenous knowledge in real life situation. Information needy people also have recourse to the archives of the mailing list that he can retrieve. Information is also assembled in the form of the URL links in several websites to help even those who are non-members of the INEF but may at some point of time be interested in the information retrieval for application in their areas.
Overcoming the Problems: The problems of non-availability of the e-mail connections in the villages has been partially overcome by several members who get the information in their mail and share it with the people of the villages in which they are working. In addition to this, INEF has embarked on a path to collect vast literature on ethnoforestry through e-mailing list and it will soon be published in several local languages of various parts of the globe. In addition to this, a CD ROM is also being developed to help those users who may have a PC but may not get e-mail for long. Another form of interaction of the users is that participants of the several international workshops are given the URL to retrieve the information as and when they need. For this purpose direct presentations are made through the website: http://www.egroups.com/groups/inef.
Achievements and Results: Most important result of the INEF has been the wide realisation among the various stakeholders that it is easy to retrieve, transmit, integrate and apply the indigenous knowledge on forests. It has fulfilled the need of the international community involved with indigenous knowledge and also of the village communities among whom these scientists have been working. INEF initiative has been instrumental in development of the similar initiative in various countries in the form of foresters association. Entire research of the 270 core members is readily available to anyone who needs it. The measures of success are the collective hits to the various sites where we have placed the information (more than 10000), individual e-mails among the members, pooled knowledge in the form of URL that was submitted for the inclusion in the databank (300 sites), and pooled documents for the compilation of Global Status of Ethnoforestry (more than 500 papers, reports etc.). Another measures of success is the examples of actual application of the knowledge in the field.
Lessons and Looking Beyond: The experiments of INEF has been since recently replicated by Nepal Foresters Association who are now using the similar kind of technique to retrieve, transmit and apply the information related to the forestry. Some of the lessons that we have learnt include:
Challenges that we face: The major barrier is the non-availability of the internet to a very large audience in the third world population who incidentally also happen to be rich in Indigenous Knowledge on forests and natural resources.
Second barrier is the illiteracy among the third world masses who are not able to read and write.
Third barrier is the dominant thinking of those who matter. The majority of foresters, policy makers and scientist do not really believe that village communities are equally knowledgeable if not more.
Our Future: We at INEF have planned the following activities that will depend partly on the availability of resources:
Further transfer of the pooled information to the practicing foresters and communities to help its application in the field. This may be possible through the series of trainings and workshops in various regions.
With regards,
Deep Narayan Pandey
Indian Forest Service
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ONLINE RESOURCES
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I would like to draw your attention to a new section being developed on the portal site of SDNP (India) on "Information and Communication Technologies for Sustainable Development" at http://sdnp.delhi.nic.in/resources/internetinfo/internetinfo-frame.html
We have started to feature update news clippings, relevant articles and publications as well as information about organisations who are working towards ICT for development. I just want to bring to your notice that Information Technology is receiving a big boost in India and a separate Ministry for Information Technology has been set up to look into the key issues and challenges relating to IT growth in India. The Indian National Informatics Centre has already laid the internet backbone to cover all the districts in India and is working towards internet connection in every village.
At the same time, giant leaps are being made in the area relating to the actual content to be transmitted over the internet. To just share with you an example - the largest agricultural market in Delhi has just got online. It implies that farmer groups in neighbouring states of Delhi can check the price they will receive for their produce beforehand and then decide upon the best option where they want to offload their produce. Now this is a kind of ICT-model which really holds prospect for India or take the case of villagers of Tumkur in Karnataka in India who have put the entire land records of the village on the computer and in a stroke have put the revenue officer more accountable to people.
In my opinion just putting the right or maybe strategic information in the public domain has a self- steering effect and the societal and market forces rearrange themselves according to it. The GKD focus on Access, Empowerment and Governance are therefore of utmost importance. At this point there is a need to foster creation of intermediary organisations to steer the impact of ICTs in directions which reduce the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
Warm Regards
Vikas Nath
Programme Officer
SDNP India
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Taken from LearningWire #91
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History of European vocational training policy
A new study from CEDEFOP charts the development of vocational training throughout Europe and provides links to a range of training policy sites in different countries.
http://www.trainingzone.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=13511&d=1
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Taken from LearningWire #91
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Making Lifelong Learning a reality
Malcolm Wicks, the Minister for Lifelong Learning is interviewed in an article on the Lifelong Learning website and explains his commitment to making the idea a reality, and why it is so important to both young and old alike.
http://www.lifelonglearning.co.uk
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A document entitled "The Multilingual World Wide Web" may be of interest to some as a background on some of the issues and technical aspects of being able to produce and display content in multiple languages on the WWW. Anyone interested may want to give a look at:
http://www.mind-to-mind.com/documents/i18n/multilingual-www.html
Donald Zhang Osborn, Ph.D. osborndo@pilot.msu.edu
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From The Scout Report for Social Sciences, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2000. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/
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Resources For Methods In Evaluation And Social Research http://members.localnet.com/~shackman/evalwebs.html
This Website offers a substantial annotated listing of "resources for methods in evaluation and social research." The focus is on "how-to" do evaluation research and the methods used: surveys, focus groups, sampling, interviews, and other methods. Most of these links are to resources that can be read over the Web. A few, like the GAO (Government Accounting Office) books, are for resources that can be sent away for, in this case, books that are free for US residents. The materials, which are clearly organized by the table of contents, have been compiled by Gene Shackman, a research scientist in the Analysis and Evaluation Unit at the New York State Department of Health.
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From The Scout Report for Social Sciences, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2000. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/
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The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization [QuickTime, Shockwave, Flash, .zip, Netscape Navigator or IE Explorer 3.0+ recommended]
http://www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/
This superb companion site to the PBS special of the same name that previewed in late February offers a wealth of information and interactive elements for learning about Ancient Athens. The site centers around in-depth examinations of five key Greeks: Cleisthenes, the founder of democracy in Athens; Themistocles, the creator of the Greek navy; Pericles, Athens's most famous ruler; Aspasia, "the 'first lady' of Athens"; and of course, Socrates. The narratives are supplemented by video clips from the broadcast that can last as long as five minutes but download quickly and easily. In addition, an expandable timeline offers descriptions of a millennium's worth of key events in the history of Ancient Greece. The site's more innovative interactive elements include a map that lets the user choose to zoom in on different portions and structures in ancient Athens and learn more about their role in Athenian life as well as an interactive keyboard that lets users see and hear the ancient Greek alphabet and compare it to modern English equivalents. Most impressive are the real time Webcam of the Acropolis, a detailed 3-D animation of the Parthenon and entire Acropolis as it was in the glory of Classical Greece, and a substantial videoclip showing and discussing the Parthenon in particular. Finally, the site offers educational materials in the form of lesson plans geared to major figures and events.
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Using the World Wide Web to Enhance Classroom Instruction
by Norman Mathew and Maryanne Dohery-Poirier
The use of the World Wide Web (WWW) as an instructional tool is gaining momentum as more teachers, instructors, and trainers incorporate it into their repertoire. Grouped together, any instruction that makes use of a computer is called Computer Based Training (CBT), and those strategies that employ the Web as the repository for instructional information are known as Web-Based Instruction (WBI). WBI can be employed in a distance education model or as an adjunct to teacher-led classrooms.
Specifically, WBI can be used to meet the needs of a more diverse student group. Typical classes consist of students with varying abilities and previous knowledge, and WBI can help a teacher address these differences. WBI also allows students to work a pace that is more comfortable - some students work faster than their peers while others may wish to take longer. In addition, the use of WBI provides the opportunity for multiple grade levels to be accommodated in the same classroom at the same time.
>From a teacher's perspective, SBI can help with many daily management tasks by reducing the paper flow required for paper-based instruction, allowing for quick and easy revisions to instructional materials, and ensuring that instructional materials are always available to students. In addition, because the bulk of instruction is delivered via the Web, the teacher is free to spend time working with individual students and small groups; less time is spent in whole-class instruction.
An added bonus of Web-Based Instruction is the fact that it can offer students a "virtual teacher" because students can access the instructional materials anytime, anywhere. This allows students who were absent the opportunity to access instructional materials away from school, and even the possibility to accommodate students in a course when their schedule is full.
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_3/mathew/
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PRINTED AND OTHER RESOURCES
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Taken from NETWORKING, published by the Node Learning Technologies Network <http://theNode.org>.
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STUDENT SUCCESS AND THE
USE OF NEW TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION
(January 2000) McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd.
How do Canadian college and university teachers define "success" for their students and how do they use technology to achieve it? Student Success and the Use of New Technology in Education, a study commissioned by McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd., attempts to come up with answers to these questions through a survey of 2500 of the publisher's faculty contacts in business, arts and science departments across the country.
"Critical thinking," the "ability to apply learning," and "analytical thinking" are the top ranking factors in post-secondary teachers' definitions of student success, but as separate groups college teachers place more emphasis on career/job preparation while university instructors stress mastery of knowledge. Both groups see "the teaching/learning environment" as the chief motivating factor in student success, view course preparation as the most important thing they do to contribute to student success, and rate "lack of time to devote to course preparation" as their most significant obstacle. Less than a quarter of respondents ranks technology as a "very important" tool in helping them achieve their objectives for student success.
The authors of the study note that "lack of time" is a constant theme throughout teachers' comments, especially in the use of technology "where it is frequently mentioned as the key reason why teachers fail to progress as quickly as they feel they should." In spite of time pressures and lack of support to integrate technology into their curriculum, 66 percent of respondents said they were either "extremely" or "very" interested in increasing their use of technology in the classroom. While they foresee decreasing their use of e-mail over the next 1-3 years, they predict making greater use of Web links, downloadable teaching notes and support readings, CD-ROM support materials, Web assignments, electronic study guides, and presentation slides.
In using the results of this study readers should bear in mind that fully 55 percent of respondents described themselves as "inventors," "super innovators" or "innovators" with learning technologies. And here we come to a very important caveat on any generalization from the findings: the group surveyed is not a representative sample of Canadian post-secondary teachers and the survey medium (computer disk) and rate of return (10 percent) may have further skewed the results. For balance, it may be useful to compare the findings here with those of a recent study by the University of California, Los Angeles in which 67 percent of professors reported they are stressed by keeping up with emerging technology, and relatively few use the Internet for research purposes (35 percent) or to prepare class presentations (38 percent).
Nonetheless, Student Success and the Use of New Technology in Education provides a valuable glimpse at the priorities of a small, experienced, technologically-adept group of college and university teachers. Indeed, these may be the very teachers to provide leadership and mentoring for their peers.
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ARTICLES
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What distinguishes a good technology from a stupid technology? I would argue that there are some easily identifiable features which separate the good from the bad. Here then are my Nine Rules for Good Technology:
1. Good technology is always available. This distinction is what makes buses, in spite of all their other advantages, bad technology. You can't always count on the bus being there. That's why people prefer cars. In the educational field, the technological equivalent of the bus is the equipment trolley, necessary because only one projector (or workstation, or overhead projector) is available to serve five classrooms. Good technology does not require scheduling, relocation, or set-up. Imagine what life would be like if we had to schedule our use of the elevator. Or to make reservations to use the telephone.
The availability requirement raises cost considerations. Equipment which costs less is more likely to be available. But cost is not the sole, or even the primary determinant. If some technology meets the other criteria as described below, it will be made widely available, despite the cost. Think of elevators again, bank machines (ATMs to you Americans), electrical lights and highways.
2. Good technology is always on. Or if not always on, can be turned on with a single one-stroke command, or better yet, start automatically when the need arises. One thing which makes the telephone useful is that we do not need to boot up the operating system before we make a call. Electrical lights are a significant improvement over systems which required individual ignition with a match or candle. Streetlights are practical because they turn on when it gets dark outside. A weakness of motor vehicles is that they are *not* always on - causing endless frustration for users needing transportation on a cold winter's day.
Much of today's educational technology requires long and sometimes cumbersome initialization procedures. After wheeling in the projector from the other room, for example, the three teachers and technician would spend some time plugging it in, turning it on, spooling the film, and positioning the screen.
This requirement has significant energy consuption considerations. A portable device, for example, cannot always be on because it must carry its own power supply. Energy itself - especially in inefficient forms like gas and oil - is too expensive to be consumed merely for convenience. Devices with low energy consumption, even portable one, can always be on, however: think of watches, telephones, bank machines and elevators.
3. Good technology is always connected. Fire alarms - especially institutional fire alarms - are useful in this way. Indeed, were the detector not connected to the warning system, the fire alarm would be useless. Telephones again are useful because no procedure is required to connect to the telephone system.
As recently as last month, I spent about fifteen minutes in a room with a dozen or so highly paid professionals waiting for the ITV system to be connected to the remote location. I have spent much time listening to my modem dial up a local provider (and luxuriate today in the convenience of an always-on DSL connection).
4. Good technology is standardized. One television will function much like another television (televisions became less good when brand-specific remotes were introduced). One telephone will connect to any other telephone in the world. One brand of gasoline will power your car as well as any other (which is why diesel cars represent stupid technology, despite their other advantages).
Technology which requires that you own a MacIntosh computer to play the video, or that you purchase a copy of MS-Word in order to view the document, or that requires that you connect with AOL in order to send email, is stupid technology. I can't believe how much of this stupid technology we have purchased over the years, and conclude that it must be only because there is no alternative. But such stupid technologies will be replaced.
5. Good technology is simple. 'Simplicity' is a slippery concept, but you will notice that the best technologies can be learned by looking at the input device, and not by studying a manual (OK, when you're a child, somebody will have to teach you how to operate input devices like knobs, switches and keypads).
Here's how I distinguish between good computer programs and bad computer programs (computer programs are inherently bad technology for other reasons, but let's leave that aside): I try to install and run the program without the use of any manual. Installation is today much easier thanks to a good computer program called 'Setup'. Running the program is a different matter. When I have to stop and think (and read some very small print) about how to get rid of that paperclip icon so I can type a letter, I know I am dealing with bad technology. Good technology, by contrast, is intuitive: to use an elevator, I press the floor number. Simple. To make a phone call, I dial the number. Easy.
Simplicity goes hand in hand with range of function. The problem with MS-Word and a host of other programs is that it tries to be all things for all people. Stupid. Compare that with GuruNet, which lets me look up and word on my computer screen by alt-clicking over the word. Simple. So when looking for good technology, look for technology which does exactly what you want: no more, no less.
6. Good technology doesn't require parts. You don't need to replace anything in your telephone. My new vacuum cleaner (the much advertised Fantom Lightening) is good because it doesn't require bags (it's bad because it requires special filters). This is why cars are bad technology: they require a never-ending array of parts from gasoline to air filters to oil filters to oil.
Sometimes it is not possible to do without parts - but this is a sign of a transitional technology. Perhaps even good technologies, such as ghetto- blasters, need parts, such as CD-ROMs. But a ghetto-blaster which did not need CD-ROMs (it would download MP-3s off the net) would be better.
If looking at a technology which requires parts, follow this rule: the same rules apply for parts as apply for technologies. DVD-players, for example, are not good technologies until DVD disks become widely available. Electric lights are not good technology if they require non-standard light bulbs. Programs which require complicated start-up routines are not as good as those which start with a single command.
7. Good technology is personalized. One of the things which makes a telephone useful is that you have your *own* telephone number. In a similar manner, email is useful because you have your own email address. Bank machines would not be at all useful unless they opened your bank account - and only your bank account.
Some of the simplest technologies succeed because they are personalized. Clothing and hats are selected on the basis of size and personal preference: standardized clothing which adjusted itself to your size and personal preferences would be even better. Houses are good technology because they are a place you - and only you - can enter. Personalized housing is made possible with personalized keys, another good technology. Things like credit cards, smart cards, pagers, cell phones and eyeglasses are other examples. Bad technology forces you to fit its requirements. My copy of MS-Word - which *really* wants me to spell like an American – is an example of bad technology. Ticket or teller windows, customer service counters, or registration desks - devices which force you to go to them, stand uncomfortably in a lineup, and to interact in a standardized way (no papers? go to the end of the line) - are bad technology.
8. Good technology is modular. By 'modular' I mean composed of distinct parts which may be arranged or rearranged into a desired configuration with a minimum of fuss and effort. To a degree, this requirement is a combination of the requirements that good technology be standardized and personalized, but modularity takes technology a step beyond either of those features.
Bricks and wood are good technology, for example, because they interconnect neatly and can be assembled into custom configurations. Legos are even better because they don't require parts like nails or cement (which is why Lego, and not Mecanno, is the construction toy of choice. The stereo systems we purchased in the Seventies were good examples of modular technology. Using the standardized RCA jack, we could assemble systems with or without pre-amps, tuners, equalizers, or even turntables (the diamond needles in turntables were bad technology).
Today's Universal Serial Bus (USB) represents good technology because it will allow computer systems to be assembled like the stereos of old. telephone jacks - which made telephones portable - were a big improvement over the hard-wired systems. Books - and paper generally - is good because its modular ( a person may assemble a book out of individual sheets of papers (hence binders are good technology) and a library out of a collection of books.
9. Good technology does what you want it to do. And not something else. A good ship will take you across the Atlantic Ocean. A bad ship will collide with an iceberg and sink. A good airplane will fly from Mexico to San Francisco, coming to rest at the airline terminal. A bad airplane will experience control problems, coming to rest - in pieces - at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
The minor trials and tribulations posed by more mundane examples of bad technology may not be of such titanic proportions, but they differ only in scale, not quality. Software which crashes instead of running is bad technology, obviously. Telephone systems which connect you to India instead of Indiana are not useful. Doing 'what you want it to do' is a highly personal thing. Parents often criticize teens' clothes because they represent bad technology. If you want clothes to protect you from the cold, then your daughter's selection of light chiffon and an ultra-mini represents bad technology. But if you want clothes to accentuate your physical features, then the same clothes represent good technology.
Technology should do exactly what you want it to do. Technology which does something else, either by design or by accident, is not good technology. Don't try to force bad technology in to the mold. As Farhab Saba argues, "Without belaboring the point; a locomotive is not going to fly, if you put jet engines on it, and train the engineers how to fly."
--
Stephen Downes - Information Architect - University of Alberta stephen.downes@ualberta.ca http://www.atl.ualberta.ca/downes
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Telematics for African Development Consortium
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* For resources on distance education and
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