Group items tagged

what the future may hold for IT.

Higher education has to get faster, faster, faster in adopting new technologies

respond to the market forces by essentially blowing up our undergraduate curriculum.

In recognition of such growing concerns about Internet safety, the National Association of Secondary School Principals has adopted a policy statement with recommendations for educators and policymakers about Internet usage. The NASSP recommendations form the cornerstone of CTAP's work in cybersafety education. All school districts can benefit from applying these leadership directives. NASSP recommends that school leaders: Familiarize themselves about all aspects of computer technology, including the mechanics of the Internet, blogs, social networking Web sites, and the liability issues associated with the use of these technologies Form a technology team that comprises staff members, parents and students to act in an advisory capacity to the larger school community Educate staff members and students on using technology within the boundaries of the law Guide teachers and students on how the Internet can serve as effective educational tools Formulate clear guidelines to protect students and teachers against cyber bullying and other criminal activities Conduct orientation sessions for parents regarding student use of the Internet Reinforce these guidelines with parents and encourage vigilance of Internet use at home, including the elimination of derogatory statements against other students or staff.

It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of “reading” are emerging as users “power browse” horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense.

Wolf worries that the style of reading promoted by the Net, a style that puts “efficiency” and “immediacy” above all else, may be weakening our capacity for the kind of deep reading that emerged when an earlier technology, the printing press, made long and complex works of prose commonplace. When we read online, she says, we tend to become “mere decoders of information.” Our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged.

As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation.