Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ The Global Information Technology Report 2001-2002, Chapter 1. Some Thoughts on How ICTs Could Really Change the World

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community
Not as bad as some of the other chapters in this report. The author accurately summarizes some of the major trends in network technology and them provides some deeply misleading advice on how to prepare for it. The major insight relates to the gradual shift from massively centralized systems of access to decentralized network forms of access. As he says, "A hundred million music lovers exchanging music files among themselves don't ask permission from broadcasters or music publishers." And the nature of data changes: "Disaggregated data - from a school, a clinic, a police station, a well, a store - let us see what a person sees." So what should we do? "Link the schools, cafes, churches... any place people gather in a community... to the internet." Here's a better idea: CRLFcommunity wireless hubs. Use, writes the author, "examples of existing programs as templates for school connectivity" - and yet we know that plunking computer labs into schools isn't the way to go.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Apr 29, 2024 12:08 p.m.

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