Friedman's Flat World Discovery - A Laymen's View

ICT, the subject, has been my first real exposure to the world wide web in an academic sense. When I completed my first degree, we only touched on VAX and MS Dos. (Bet that brings back some nightmares). The web was in its infancy and it was still a major mystery to most. Of course, I have emailed and occasionally looked something up, but this creation called the internet was largely passing me by.

So it was with great trepidation, I started out on this journey to discover the world of technology I have been missing out on.

Never being a great fan of the Labor Party or it's policies (joke)- I always concluded that Kevin Rudd's master plan to provide every student computer access by 2011, was largely a ploy to gain votes with the younger sector. Maybe it is, but it actually a very valid idea. Especially after reading an article by Thomas L Friedman, written in April 2005 and published in the New York Times. The article, called It's a Flat World After All can be found here.

As part of a brief history lesson Friedman documents some interesting events that have resulted in technology taking over the world and becoming its most vital resource. The fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9 1989, acted as a release mechanism and the world now seemed to have a global outlook. Microsoft Windows 3.0 was launched and 6 months later, in August 9 1995, Netscape brought the internet alive and triggered the dot com boom. Money flowed freely and the world suddenly became much smaller. "Suddenly more people could connect with more people from different places in more different ways than ever before" (Friedman, 1995).
Then came out-sourcing, off-shoring, supply-chaining, open-sourcing, in-sourcing, wireless access and voice over internet protocol. Brilliant minds, with brilliant ideas were interfacing like never before and probably some nuts too. But from this a new language was born, one that knows no borders and not too many constraints - computer code.
With an inexpensive PC and a reasonable internet connection anyone can have access to a brave new world. A world where anything is merely a key stroke away - not just information, but entertainment and communication. And so, on to us a new generation is born - the computer generation.

We as teachers have to learn how to harness this technology to reach our students. This means we have to understand it and not be frightened of it. In 2010, Prep students are eagerly logging on and lamenting the fact that their computer class is only once a week. Ask any teacher, it is the one time that all students are fully engaged and eager to learn and behavior is not an issue. This is the brave new world of teaching and we need to embrace it. (Computers for all students in schools may just be the only policy this government will get right, if they manage to achieve it).

References:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/magazine/03DOMINANCE.htm