TABLE OF CONTENTS

10 Media Literacy Strategies

Kathleen Tyner

It's not enough, in this age of technology, to simply know how to read books-we have to know how to read new forms of electronic media, too. Media literacy is not so different from the traditional print literacy that parents already value. The trick is to analyze the information, evaluate its usefulness, and respond or reply to it. Kids especially need to learn these skills at some point children must practice decision making about media for the times that you aren't around to guide them. Here are 10 ideas that you can use to build your children's media literacy skills.

1. Don't hesitate to censor media that violates your family's values. Censorship is a loaded word, but censoring is an appropriate act for parents and teachers of young children. Reject media that violates your family's values and establish guidelines your children can follow. And though you can't eliminate the presence of all junk media, you can use it as a teaching opportunity to explore and contrast you family's values against those messages conveyed through media.
2. Emphasize the programming, not the medium. TV is a poor reward for good behavior. By rewarding children with generic television watching, you risk placing more importance on TV than it deserves. To combat generic television watching, use a VCR to tape the quality programs you like. Also, develop a media use plan with your family. By using colored markers to highlight quality programs in the TV listings, you can provide your children with a visual reference of programs that are acceptable to watch. Even if you don't stick to the plan, your kids will get the message that it's important to choose programs, not just watch television.
3. Respect your child's culture. Separate issues of taste from issues of harmful media content. As parents of any teenager will attest, it is only natural that children will love media that you hate. It is important for children to explore their own tastes and learn to make decisions about that they like and don't like. The purpose of media literacy is not to protect children from the toxic waste of media, but to teach them to analyze and evaluate the information provided by media.
4. Deconstruct media. Media are not windows on the world or mirrors of society; they are carefully constructed products with economic, political, social and cultural implications. Discuss how books, television, and billboards are put together. Since children spend so much time with television, they probably know quite a lot about its codes and conventions, although they may not yet have the vocabulary to articulate their knowledge. Together, parents and children can discuss why producers, writers, and directors may have made certain decisions.
5. Question all media. By questioning the media, children learn to question information every time it's presented to them, analyze and evaluate it for themselves, and think independently. Ask children questions that, delve deeper than the story's plot. Look at the way media are manufactured for specific purposes. For example, watch the credits and ask who produced the program, or how may people worked on a film. Why did the director use certain production techniques? How are cartoons made? Who is the audience for their favorite picture book?
6. Recognize media stereotypes. Even though stereotypes rule the media root, experts caution against prematurely raising disturbing questions about negative racial or gender stereotypes. Without context, bringing up societal inequities could erode a young child's emerging self-esteem. Teaching about stereotypes is similar to teaching about sex-there is no need to become explicit before a child is ready. But when asked about media stereotypes, you'll know it is time to have a serious talk.
7. Request media literacy programs in schools. Media literacy is mandated in the school curriculum of most developed countries in the world-except in the United States. If you child's school uses media during the day, you might suggest ways that teachers can teach about media as they use it. Your local public telvision station might offer courses in instructional television for teachers, too.
8. Lights. Camera. Action! Take a creative, hands-on approach to media literacy and encourage your children to create their own videos, books, newspapers, magazines, comic books, or posters. If you own a video camera, your children can write, direct, and act in their own "television" programs. In developing their projects, you children will be exposed to the codes, conventions, and languages of media, which will help them better analyze mass media products.
9. Form a media literacy study group. Parents around the country are forming study groups though their churches, community centers, and PTAs to learn ways to approach media education.
10. Keep you patience. Though media education is more work for parents, this slow process has its rewards. It teaches children to think critically about all information-a skill that will enable a child to become a more productive, fulfilled, and independent adult. This is something worth remembering next time your child interrupts your favorite program with 15 questions about why or how something is being done.

Laws of Robotics

Isaac Asimov from I Robot

1. A robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
(Asimov, Isaac. I Robot. 1950)

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Selected Innovations in Information Processing and Communication, 1830-87

James R. Beniger

(Beniger, James R. The Control Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1986.)

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My Standards for Technological Innovation in My Own Work

Wendell Berry

1. The new tool should be cheaper than the one it replaces.
2. It should be at least as small in scale as the one it replaces.
3. It should do work that is clearly and demonstrably better than the one it replaces.
4. It should use less energy than the one it replaces.
5. If possible, it should use some form of solar energy, such as that of the body.
6. It should be repairable by a person of ordinary intelligence, provided that he or she has the necessary tools.
7. It should be purchasable and repairable as near to home as possible.
8. It should come from a small, privately owned shop or store that will take it back for maintenance and repair.
9. It should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships.

(Berry, Wendell. "Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer". Minutes of The Lead Pencil Club: Pulling the Plug on the Electronic Revolution. Ed. Bill Henderson. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press. 1996)

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The Seven Ways Business is Mastering Opportunity Presented by the Knowledge Revolution

Stan Davis and Jim Botkin from "The Monster Under the Bed"

1. Business is coming to bear the major responsibility for the kind of education that is necessary for any country to remain competitive in the new economy.
2. The marketplace for learning is being redefined dramatically from k-12 to k-80, or lifelong learning, whose major segments are customers, employees, and students, in that order.
3. Any business can become a knowledge business by putting data and information to productive use, creating knowledge-based products and services that make its customer's smarter.
4. A new generation of smart and humanized technologies will revolutionize learning by employees and customers in business before it affects students and teachers in schools.
5. Business-driven learning will be organized according to the values of today's information age: service, productivity, customization, networking, and the need to be fast, flexible, and global.
6. Schools will embrace businesslike practices to improve their own performance. The three R's will be complemented by the new six R's: risks, results, rewards, relationships, research, and rivalry.
7. The revolution in the way we learn will worsen the already grave division between social classes, requiring us to redress human and social inequities.

(Botkin, Jim and Stan Davis. The Monster Under the Bed. New York: Simon & Schuster. 1994)

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The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Stephen R. Covey

• Habit 1. Be Proactive: Principles of Personal Vision
• Habit 2. Begin with the End in Mind: Principles of Personal Leadership
• Habit 3. Put First Things First: Principles of Personal Management
• Habit 4. Think Win/Win: Principles of Interpersonal leadership
• Habit 5. Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood: Principles of Empathic Communication
• Habit 6. Synergize: Principles of Creative Cooperation
• Habit 7. Sharpen the Saw: Principles of Balanced Self-Renewal

(Covey, Stephen R. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster. 1989)

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Myths Created by the Media

John Davies

1. The media tell us how life really is.
2. The media keep us well-informed; they are objective and balanced.
3. The media and our mass-mediated cultures are inexpensive, even free.
4. The media provide a free flow of information.
5. Information overload is inevitable.
6. Our mass-mediated culture is democratic and egalitarian.
7. The issues of life are simple.
8. Consumption is inherently good.
9. The media have no impact.

(Davies, John. Educating Students in a Media-Saturated Culture. Lancaster, PA: Technomic. 1996.)

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Changing Technology Facts

DeVry Institute

1. During the early 1900's, 85% of workers were in agriculture. Now agriculture involves less that 3% of the workforce.
2. In 1950, 73% of U.S. employees worked in production or manufacturing. Now less than 15% do.
3. The Department of Labor estimates that by the year 2000 at least 44% of all workers will be in data services -- gathering, processing, retrieving, or analyzing information.
4. You're in Paris, and you decide to use your American Express card. Getting credit approval involves a 46,000-mile journey over phones and computers. The job can be completed in 5 seconds.
5. By the begining of the 21st century, less than half the workforce in the industrial world will be holding conventional full-time jobs.
6. There has been more information produced in the last 30 years than during the previous 5,000.
7. The information supply available to us doubles every 5 years.
8. ENIAC, the first modern computer, was built in 1944. It took up more space than an 18-wheeler's tractor trailer, weighed more than 17 Chevrolet Camaros, and consumed 140,000 watts of electricity. ENIAC could execute up to 5,000 basic arithmetic operations per second.
9. Today's supercomputers can perform up to 60 billion calculations per second, but scientists now anticipate "petaflops" computing, a level of performance 10,000 times greater than today's fastest machines.
10. The Pentium is built on a tiny piece of silicon about the size of a dime. It weighs less than a packet of Sweet 'N Low, and uses less than 2 watts of electricity.
11. The greeting card that plays "Happy Birthday" features more computer power than existed in the entire world before 1950.
12. The first practical industrial robot was introduced in the 1960's. By 1982 there were approximately 32,000 robots being used in the United States. Today there are over 20,000,000.
13. Computer power is now 8,000 times less expensive that it was 30 years ago.
14. By 1991, nearly 1 out of 3 American workers had been with their employer for less than a year, and almost 2 out of 3 for less than 5 years.
15. Web use is growing by 2,300% a year.
16. Every 30 seconds, someone on the planet joins the Internet for the first time. By the end of 1996, the number of users is expected to exceed more than 50 million.
17. The net now connects more than 95,000 networks, up from 48,000 a year ago.
18. How many chips are out there? Perhaps 200 billion.
19. Each of the 170 million or so microprocessors turned out annually is the result of a fabrication process that has been compared in complexity to the famous nuclear Manhattan Project.
20. Since the ENIAC computer of 1946, the efficiency of information technology, especially at the chip level, has jumped by 32 orders in magnitude - that's 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, or about 100 octilion times.
21. In 1991, for the first time ever, companies spent more money on computing and communications equipment than on industrial, mining, farm and construction equipment - combined!

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Basic Principles for Communities

Esther Dyson

• Each participant should be clear about what he is giving and what he hopes to get. Overall, those desires should mesh, although they may well be different for each individual.
• There should be a way of determining who is in the community and who is outside it. Otherwise the community is meaningless.
• Community members should feel that they have invested in the community, and that therefore it is tough for them to leave. The ultimate punishment in a strong community is banishment, expulsion, excommunication, exile.... All those words signify the terror of being cast out of a community.
• The community's rules should be clear, and there should be recourse if they are broken.

(Dyson, Esther. Release 2.0: A Design for Living in the Digital Age. New York: Broadway Books. 1997)

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Reasons to Choose to Be Anonymous

Esther Dyson

• Discussing personal problems (especially those involving a third party) with others. You could be an abused spouse, a parent with a rebellious teenager, or simply a government lawyer trying to decide if she really wants to stay in that career.
• Testing ideas you may not want to be associated with. Are you a politician trying to float a trial balloon? Or perhaps a teenager wondering if there's a case for virginity?
• Playing a harmless joke on a friend. This could backfire.
• Complaining about anything from messy washrooms to a sexually abusive boss, a corrupt politician, or a tyrannical teacher. Or you could anonymously warn a friend that his job is in trouble, her loud music is annoying the neighborhood, or his kid is skipping school.
• Asking dumb questions. One example offered by anonymity service provider Johan Helsinguis was that of a C-language programmer who needed answers to some elementary questions and didn't want to reveal his ignorance to his boss.
• Trying out a different identity - real or imagined. Many of these cases have to do with sexual orientation, but they could have to do with age or other aspects of identity. In less innocent cases, people pretend to be experts when they're not, and can cause considerable damage. (But this list is about good reasons.)
• Support and arousing political consciousness in an oppressive political regime. Often political dissent is crushed because dissidents don't know that others feel the same way. Repressive governments, of course, also benefit from anonymity: It hides the extent of dissatisfaction and makes people afraid to trust one another - which is a downside of anonymity.
• Voting - perhaps the most widely recognized and approved form of anonymous behavior. The answer to "Who voted for the opposition?" is properly: No one knows. But their voices will be counted.

(Dyson, Esther. Release 2.0: A Design for Living in the Digital Age. New York: Broadway Books. 1997)

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Controversial Issues in Science, Technology, and Society

Thomas A. Easton

Part 1. The Place of Science and Technology in Society

• Issue 1. Should the Federal Government Point the Way for Science?
• Issue 2. Is Science A Faith?
• Issue 3. Should the Theory of Evolution be Replaced by Creationism?

Part 2. The Environment

• Issue 4. Will Future Generations Have Enough to Eat?
• Issue 5. Should Society Be Concerned About Global Warming?
• Issue 6. Is Ozone Depletion a Genuine Threat?
• Issue 7. Are Electromagnetic Fields Dangerous to Your Health?
• Issue 8. Are Environmental Regulations Too Restrictive?

Part 3. The Cutting Edge of Technology

• Issue 9. Should the goals of the U.S. Space Program Include Manned Exploration of Space?
• Issue 10. Is It Worthwhile to Continue the Search for Extraterrestrial Life?
• Issue 11. Should Genetic Engineering Be Banned?

Part 4. The Computer Revolution

• Issue 12. Will the Information Revolution Benefit Society?
• Issue 13. Are Computers Hazardous to Literacy?
• Issue 14. Will it Be Possible to Build a Computer That Can Think?

Part 5. Ethics

• Issue 15. Is the Use of Animals in Research Justified?
• Issue 16. Is it Ethical to Use Humans as "Experimental Animals"?
• Issue 17. Is it Ethically Permissible to Clone Human Beings?

(Easton, Thomas A. Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Science and Technology, and Society. Guilford, CT: Dushkin/McGraw-Hill. 1998.)

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3 Ts for a Creative Economy

Richard Florida

1. Technology
2. Talent (creative not human capital)
3. Tolerance

(Florida, Richard. The Rise of the Creative Class. Basic Books, 2002.)

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Creative Class Core Values

Richard Florida

1. Individuality
2. Meritocracy
3. Diversity
4. Openness

(Florida, Richard. The Rise of the Creative Class. Basic Books, 2002.)

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Creative Worker Labor Market Characteristics

Richard Florida

1. horizontal vs. vertical careers
2. identify more with occupation than company
3. bear more responsibility for every aspect of their careers

(Florida, Richard. The Rise of the Creative Class. Basic Books, 2002.)

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Creativity Index

Richard Florida

The index is a mix of 4 equally weighted factors

1. creative class share of the work force
2. innovation measured in patents per capita
3. high tech industry using Milken Institute's Tech Pole index
4. diversity, measured by Gay Index (Bishop: "Where gay households abound, geeks follow."

(Florida, Richard. The Rise of the Creative Class. Basic Books, 2002.)

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Bill Gates' New Rules

Bill Gates

1. Insist that communication flow through e-mail.
2. Study sales data online to share insights easily.
3. Shift knowledge workers into high-level thinking.
4. Use digital tools to create virtuals teams.
5. Convert every paper process to digital process.
6. Use digital tools to eliminate single-task jobs.
7. Create a digital feedback loop.
8. Use digital systems to route customer complaints immediately.
9. Use digital communication to redefine the boundaries.
10. Transform every business process into just-in-time delivery.
11. Use digital delivery to eliminate the middle man.
12. Use digital tools to help customers solve problems for themselves.

(Gates, Bill. "Bill Gates' New Rules." Time 22 Mar. 1999: 72-82)

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Signposts Along the Path of Virtual Realism

Michael Heim

• Be clear about what virtual reality is in the strong sense.
• Avoid glib exaggerations such as "Now we're cyborgs," or "Everything's virtual reality."
• Refuse to fear an all-pervasive technology monster.
• Virtual worlds do not re-present the primary world.
• VR transubstantiates but does not imitate life.
• Bracket the current attacks on "virtual life" and "virtual communities."
• Now is the time for constructive criticism, while the electronic layer of reality remains largely in prototype on the drawing boards.
• Realism in VR results from pragmatic habitation, livability, and dwelling.
• Observe closely those spots where high-end VR touches earth-centered applications.
• Look closely at the bio-psychic imbalances created by computer technology.

(Heim, Michael. Virtual Realism. Oxford University Press. New York. 1998.)

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Stages in the Evolution of Our Universe

Michio Kaku

(Kaku, Michio. Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension. New York: Oxford University Press. 1994.)

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The Ten Tenets of Chindogu

Kenji Kawakami and Dan Papia

1. A chindogu cannot be for real use
2. A chindogu must work
3. Inherent in every Chindogu is the spirit of anarchy
4. Chindogu are tools for everyday life
5. Chindogu are not for sale
6. Humor must not be the sole reason for creating Chindogu
7. Chindogu are not propaganda
8. Chindogu are never taboo
9. Chindogu cannot be patented
10. Chindogu are without prejudice

(Kawakami, Kenji and Dan Papia. 99 More Unuseless Japanese Inventions. New York: W. W. Norton. 1997.)

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Three Ways of Thinking

Alan Kay

1. storyform
2. logical argument- an explanation is set forth as a tightly connected sequecne of assertions about the words; it is a powerful clockwork for working out implications
3. systems dynamics- a kind of ecological way of thining about complexity, in which parts actively interact

(Kay, Alan. Revealing the Uses and Misuses of Computers in Education)

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The Four (Soft ) Functions of the Virtual Class

Arthur Kroker and Michael Weinstein

1. Soft Money: The Information Economy
2. Soft Power: The Information Leviathan
3. The Cyber-Net: Soft Health / Soft Sex / Soft Intelligence
4. Soft Values: Information Culture

(From Data Trash: The Theory of the Virtual Class by Arthur Kroker and Michael Weinstein)

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Road Maps for Following the Digital Route Taken by the Virtual Class Across the Landscape of the Body Recombinant

Arthur Kroker and Michael Weinstein

• Map 1: The Digital Superhighway as Ruling Metaphor
• Map 2: The Information "Superhighway" Does Not Exist
• Map 3: Seduce and Virtualize
• Map 4: The Information Elite
• Map 5: Soft Idology
• Map 6: The Red Guard Meets Generation X
• (From Data Trash: The Theory of the Virtual Class by Arthur Kroker and Michael Weinstein)

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The Political Economy of Virtual Reality

Arthur Kroker and Michael Weinstein

1. Pan-Capitalism
2. Surplus Bodies
3. Abuse Value
4. Virtual Capitalism
5. Virtual Politics
6. Liberal Fascism
7. Retro-Fascism

(Kroker, Arthur and Michael A. Weinstein. Data Trash: The Theory of the Virtual Class. St. Martin's Press, New York. 1994.)

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The Virtual Manifesto

Arthur Kroker and Michael Weinstein

1. Tactical Envelopment
2. The Disappearing State
3. A Definition of the Virtual Situation
4. Ideological Delegitimation

(Kroker, Arthur and Michael A. Weinstein. Data Trash: The Theory of the Virtual Class. St. Martin's Press, New York. 1994.)

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100 Top Events of the Past 1000 Years

LIFE Magazine

("The 100 Events," LIFE Special Double Issue, The Millennium. Fall 1997)

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The 100 Most Important People of the Past 1000 Years

LIFE Magazine

The 100 people who made the millennium had to change more than just a corner of the world, he or she had to divert the great stream of human history.

1. Thomas Edison- Inventor of the incandescent lamp as well as many other modern conveniences society takes for granted
2. Christopher Columbus - His "discovery" of the American continents changed the economy of Euorpe
3. Martin Luther
4. Galileo Galailei
5. Leonardo Da Vinci - The Renaissance Man
6. Isaac Newton - Law of Universal Gravitation
7. Ferdinand Magellan - Provided proof that the world was round by circumnavigating the globe
8. Louis Pasteur - Pasteurization of foods and beverages, understanding of germ theory, and advancing the science of immunology
9. Charled Darwin - Theory of evolution
10. Thomas Jefferson
11. William Shakespeare - Playwright whose masterful use of the English language has captivated audiences for 400 years
12. Napoléon Bonaparte - Seized power in France and set out to conquer the world until stopped by a union of Euopean armies.
13. Adolf Hittler - Chancellor of Germany who embarked on a vicious campaign of global domination
14. Zheng He - Great Chinese naval explorer
15. Henry Ford - Made the automobile affordable to the average American family, so that it became a necessity of life
16. Sigmund Freud - His views on the power of the unconscious to influence behaviour gave rise to the age of psychotherapy
17. Richard Arkwright - The founder of the modern factory system, a system in which specialized workers using specialized machinery, work together in one place
18. Karl Marx - Father of Communism
19. Nicolaus Copernicus - The sun is the center of the solar system
20. Orville and Wilbur Wright - Flew the first powered airplane
21. Albert Einstein - Theory of relativity
22. Mohandas Gandhi - Led India's drive for independence through his policy of non-vioolent non cooperatioon and civil disobedience
23. Kublai Khan - Ruler of the Mongols who completed the conquest of China and became the first emberor of the Yüan dynasty
24. James Madison
25. Simón Bolívar - Fought for the independence of northern South America
26. Mary Wollstonecraft
27. Guglielmo Marconi - Invention of the wireless
28. Mao Zedong - Communist Chinese leader
29. Vladimir Lenin - Powerful Russian leader of the Bolshevik revolution
30. Martin Luther King Jr. - Leader of the Civil Rights movement
31. Alexander Graham Bell - Inventor of the telephone
32. René Descartes - I think therefore I am.
33. Ludwig Van Beethoven
34. Thomas Aquinas
35. Abraham Lincoln - President of the United States as the nation faced the Civil War
36. Michelangelo - The greatest sculptor of all time
37. Vasco Da Gama - The first European to round Africa's Cape of Good HOpe
38. Süleyman the Magnificent - Greatest Sultan of the Ottoman Empire
39. Samuel F. B. Morse - Developed the first telegraph machine
40. John Calvin
41. Florence Nightingale - Worked for health-care reform in the military, improved conditions in hospitals, workhouses, and established first school for nurses
42. Hernán Cortés - Led the conquest of the Aztec's in Mexico
43. Joseph Lister - Revolutionized surgery
44. Ibn Battuta - Islam's most extraordinary traveler, having traveled from Spain to the east coast of China
45. Zhu Xi
46. Gregor Mendel - Discovered the fundamentals of genetics
47. John Locke - Enlightenment philosopher who wrote that people by nature have certain rights, including life, liberty and property
48. Akbar - The greatest of India's Mughal emperors
49. Marco Polo - Inspired Europeans to seek out the Orient
50. Dante Alighieri - Author of The Divine Comedy, a walk through the cultural, political and religious landscape of 13th century Italy
51. John d. Rockefeller - The first American billionairre who made his money in oil and turned to philanthropy in later life
52. Jean-Jacques Rousseau - A polemicist who wrote that a good society could improve people if they would submit their own desires to the General Will
53. Niels Bohr - Elucidation of quantum theory changed how we understand the smallest components of matter and energy
54. Joan of Arc - French hero who led the French to crucial victories in the Hundred Years War
55. Frederick Douglass- Advocate for freeing the slaves and a beacon of morality
56. Louis XIV - The Sun King, credited witth making France a leadinng power and blamed for precipitatinng its decline
57. Nikola Tesla - An inventor of the electric age, patenting his work on the rotating magnetic field and alternating current
58. Immanuel Kant - He established the direction of modern philosophy
59. Fan Kuan - Chinese painter of monumental landscape, Travelers Amid Streams and Mountains, based Taoist principles of becoming one with nature
60. Otto Von Bismarck - Unification of Germany into a single powerful nation
61. William the Conqueror - The conqueror of England in the Battle of Hastings in 1066
62. Guido of Arezzo - Musical theorist who devised a system of musical notation and perfected a method of teaching sight-singing
63. John Harrison - Developed the marine chronometer
64. Pope Innocent III - His 18 year reign dominated the Middle Ages, increasing the influence of the Chatholic Church
65. Hiram Maxim - Changed the way we wage war with the invention of the recoil mechanism for weapons
66. Jane Addams - Founder of Chicago's Hull House, helped to found the American Civil Liberties Union.
67. Cao Xueqin - Wrote the greatest novel written in vernacular Chinese
68. Matteo Ricci - Influenced European Enlightenment thinkers with his manuscript on China
69. Louis Armstrong - His improvisational verve and technical virtuosity defined jazz
70. Michael Faraday - Discoveries and inventions dealing with magnectic flields and electric currents laid the groundwork for the electrical age
71. Ibn-Sina - Islam's most renowned philosopher-scientist
72. Simone De Beauvoir - Developer of existentialist philosophy and writer of the most influential feminist book of the 20th century
73. Jalal Ad-Din Ar-Rumi - A 13th centruy Sufi Mystic whose poems spread Islam to a wider audience
74. Adam Smith - Scottish economist whose principles would become the bedrock of modern capitalism
75. Marie Curie - Won two Nobel Prizes for her work with radioactivity and isolation of radium
76. Andrea Palladio - The man who is probably history's most imitated architect
77. Peter The Great - Willed Russia to be a modern world power, a great reformer and a great despot
78. Pablo Picasso - Spanish artist who dominated 20th century art
79. Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre - Developed a practical process of photography
80. Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier - Founder of modern chemisstry
81. Phineas T. Barnum - The consumate showman
82. Edwin Hubble - Discovered that the Andromeda nebula is located beyond the Milky Way, and that the universe is expanding
83. Susan B. Anthony - Tireless campaigner for women's suffrage, a leader in the first wave of American feminism
84. Raphael - Italian artist who has influenced artists every since the early 1500's
85. Helen Keller - Renowned author, antiwar activist and advocate for the rights of workers and women, the deaf and blind
86. Hokusai - One of the greatest artists of the millennium whose works include Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji
87. Theodor Herzl - Father of the movement that led to the founding of a Jewish state
88. Elizabeth I - Ruled England for 45 years providing a span of stability, growth and achievement
89. Claudio Monteverdi - Wrote some of the first successful operas
90. Walt Disney - Creator of a stable of unforgettable cartoon characters; a multimedia visionary
91. Nelson Mandela - South African leader agains apartheid
92. Roger Bannister - First man to run a mile in under four minutes
93. Leo Tolstoy - Russian author and philosopher
94. John Von Neumann - One of the greatest mathematicians of time, working on both the hydrogen bomband the digital computer
95. Santiago Ramón Y Cajal - His work is the basis for modern neuroscience
96. Jacques Cousteau - Popularized exploration of the oceans, promoted marine conservation, invented scuba-diving equipment
97. Catherine De Médicis - Italian-born queen of France and mother of three French kings
98. Ibn-Khaldun - A Tunisian diplomat, one of the 14th century's most brilliant minds, wrote a history of the Muslim world
99. Kwame Nkrumah - Worked to gain independence for Ghana, triggering decolonization throughout Africa
100. Carolus Linnaeus - Devised system of naming orders, genus and species of plants and animals

("The 100 Most Important People of the Past 1000 Years". LIFE Special Double Issure, The Millennium. Fall 1997)

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Photography- 150 Years of History

LIFE Magazine

("Milestones: A look at 150 years of innovation". LIFE. Volume 11, Number 10, pp. 26-34. Fall 1988.)

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Ten Recommended Attitudes About Technology

Jerry Mander

1. Since most of what we are told about new technology comes from its proponents, be deeply skeptical of all claims.
2. Assume all technology "guilty until proven innocent."
3. Eschew the idea that technology is neutral or "value free." Every technology has inherent and identifiable social, political, and environmental consequences.
4. The fact that technology has a natural flash and appeal is meaningless. Negative attributes are slow to emerge.
5. Never judge a technology by the way it benefits you personally. Seek a holistic view of its impacts. The operative question is not whether it benefits you, but who benefits most? And to what end?
6. Keep in mind that an individual technology is only one piece of a larger web of technologies, "megatechnology." The operative question here is how the individual technology fits the larger one.
7. Make distinctions between technologies that primarily serve in the individual or the small community (e.g., solar energy) and those that operate on a scale outside of community control (e.g., nuclear energy). The latter kind is the major problem of the day.
8. When it is argued that the benefits of the technological lifeway are worthwhile despite harmful outcomes, recall that Lewis Mumford referred to these alleged benefits as "bribery." Cite the figures about crime, suicide, alienation, drug abuse, as well as environmental and cultural degradation.
9. Do not accept the homily that "once the genie is out of the bottle you cannot put it back," or that rejecting a technology is impossible. Such attitudes induce passivity and confirm victimization.
10. In thinking about technology within the present climate of technological worship, emphasize the negative. This brings balance. Negativity is positive.

(Mander, Jerry. In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. 1992.)

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Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television

Jerry Mander

Argument One: The Mediation of Experience

• A. The Walling of Awareness
• B. Expropriation of Knowledge
• C. Adrift in Mental Space

Argument Two: The Colonization of Experience

• A. Advertising: The Standard-Gauge Railway
• B. The Centralization of Control

Argument Three: Effects of Television on the Human Being

• A. Anecdotal Reports: Sick, Crazy, Mesmerized
• B. The Ingestion of Artificial Light
• C. How Television Dims the Mind
• D. How We Turn Into Our Images
• E. The Replacement of Human Images by Television

Argument Four: The Inherent Biases of Television

• A. Information Loss
• B. Images Disconnected from Source
• C. Artificial Unusualness
• D. The Pieces That Fall Through the Filter

(Mander, Jerry. Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. New York: Quill. 1978.)

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Seven Negative Points About Computers

Jerry Mander

1. Pollution and Health
2. Employment
3. Quantification and Conceptual Change
4. Surveillance
5. The Rate of Acceleration
6. Centralization
7. Worst-Case Scenario: Automatic Computer Warfare

(Mander, Jerry. In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. 1992.)

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Eleven Inherent Rules of Corporate Behavior

Jerry Mander

1. The Profit Imperative
2. The Growth Imperative
3. Competition and Aggression
4. Amorality
5. Hierarchy
6. Quantification, Linearity, and Segmentation
7. Dehumanization
8. Exploitation
9. Ephemerality
10. Opposition to Nature
11. Homogenization

(Mander, Jerry. In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. 1992.)

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Six Negative Points About Genetics

Jerry Mander from In the Absence of the Sacred

1. The "Andromeda Strain"
2. Mandatory Genetic Screening
3. Creation of New, Patentable Animal Species
4. Gene-Line Therapy and "Designer Babies"
5. Monoculture in the Genetic Wilderness
6. Gene Wars

(Mander, Jerry. In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. 1992.)

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Table of Inherent Differences between Native and Technological Peoples

Jerry Mander

ECONOMICS

POLITICS AND POWER

SOCIOCULTURAL ARRANGEMENTS AND DEMOGRAPHICS

RELATION TO ENVIRONMENT

ARCHITECTURE

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

(Mander, Jerry. In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. 1992.)

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Questions to Arrive at a Set of Process Patterns

Marshall McLuhan and Bruce R. Powers

1. What does any artifact enlarge or enhance?
2. What does it erode or obsolesce?
3. What does it retrieve that had been earlier obsolesced?
4. What does it reverse or flip into when pushed to the limits of its potential (chiasmus)?

(McLuhan, Marshall and Bruce R. Powers. The Global Village: Transformations inWorld Life and Media in the 21st Century. Oxford University Press. New York. 1989.)

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Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives

John Naisbitt

(Naisbitt, John. Megatrends: Ten New Direcitons Transforming Our Lives. New York: Warner Books. 1982)

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The Power of Invention

Newsweek

I. How We Work: Henry Ford's new techniques of mass production changed the way we build things. The personal computer changed everything.

• The Assembly Line
• The Transistor
• The Houses of Invention
• Sticky Stuff
• The Computer
• The Silicon Chip
• Faxes and Copiers
• The Future
  
  Landmarks: the combine harvester, shopping malls, airbags, the cloverleaf, the computer mouse, cell phones, bar codes

II. How We Live: No king in history has had the array of gadgets we use every day with the flick of a finger.

• Household Appliances
• Air Conditioning
• Plastics
• The Movies
• The Compact Disc
• Television
• The Boeing 747
• The Future
  
  Landmarks: La-Z Boy, the Brownie camera, disposable diapers, long-playing records, spandex, Teflon, pop-top cans

III. How We Fight: Mankind has paid a heavy price for the tools of warfare, but they have yielded benefits, too.

• The Atomic Bomb
• Radar
• Rockets
• The Future
  
  Landmarks: napalm. helicpoters, tanks, smart bombs, poison gas, parachutes, the bulletproof vest

IV. How We Heal: Science has not only helped us live longer. We're happier, healthier- and better-looking.

• Antibiotics
• Body Imaging
• The Birth-Control Pill
• The Future
  
  Landmarks: vaccines, blood typing, the contact lens, pacemakers
  

(NewsweekExtra Winter 1997-98)

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What We Want Students to Know About Technology

Neil Postman

1. All technological change is a Faustian bargain. For every advantage a new technology offers, there is always a corresponding disadvantage.
2. The advantages and disadvantages of new technologies are never distributed evenly among the population. This means that every new technology benefits some and harms others.
3. Embedded in every technology there is a powerful idea, sometimes two or three powerful ideas. Like language itself, a technology predisposes us to favor and value certain perspectives and accomplishments and to subordinate others. Every technology has a philosophy, which is given expression in how the technology makes people use their minds, in what it makes us do with our bodies, in how it codifies the world, in which of our senses it amplifies, in which of our emotional and intellectual tendencies it disregards.
4. A new technology usually makes war against an old technology. It competes with it for time, attention, money, prestige, and a "worldview."
5. Technological change is not additive; it is ecological. A new technology does not merely add something; it changes everything.
6. Because of the symbolic forms in which information is encoded, different technologies have different intellectual and emotional biases.
7. Because of the accessibility and speed of their information, different technologies have different political biases.
8. Because of the conditions in which we attend to them, different technologies have different social biases.
9. Because of their technical and economic structure, different technologies have different content biases.

(Postman, Neil. The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School. New York: Alfred A. Knoph. 1996)

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The History of the World

Gregory Rawlins

The past is but the beginning of a beginning, and all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn.

H.G. Wells, The Discovery of the Future

History in the computer world divides into seven epochs, moving from the absolute outer darkness of the Second World War and on in to the garish klieg lights of the twenty-first century.

Prehistory (before 1945). Nobody had computers to play with. Nothing happened.

The Paleolithic (1946-1964). Computers existed, but they were far too unreliable, expensive, and hard to use. In those near-prehistoric times, almost nobody had computer access. Even halfway through the Paleolithic there were no commercial computers at all. All computers were one-of-a-kind laboratory instruments, all finicky prototypes used almost exclusively for warmaking or scientific research. They were so big and expensive that a priesthood grew up around them to protect and serve them - and to bask in their reflected glory.

The tail end of the Paleolithic, however, saw the first primitive computer languages and the first commercially successful minicomputers.

The Neolithic (1965-1971). Computers got a bit easier to use with some reasonable, but still primitive, languages. The machines were steadily becoming cheaper but were still much too costly and unreliable for most uses. Most of them were ungainly behemoths needing lots of care and attention. The priests continued to keep everyone else's hands off; making the computer easier to use would only threaten their status.

Toward the end of the Neolithic, some computers were finally given keyboards and screens. Programs that made operating the machine easier were then also becoming common.

The Dark Ages (1972-1981). The microprocessor was born and languages began to improve a little, although many people still had to use punch cards and other Neolithic technologies. In those ancient days, computers were still largely confined to big corporations, universities, and government installations. Nonetheless, there was a massive movement away from military and scientific tasks and toward commercial and financial ones. The priesthood began to wither, although its dying hand continued to control how easy computers were to use.

Toward the end of this period, prices plummeted and power skyrocketed. Commercial personal computers appeared and punch cards vanished almost entirely.

The Middle Ages (1982-1992). Personal computers existed, but they didn't have enough memory or speed to do anything really useful, and they were too big and clumsy to carry around comfortably. Software tools were still pretty bad, but at least they were now fairly common.

At the very end of the Middle Ages, portable computers finally became practical. Although they were still pricey and had weak batteries and poor screens, millions of normal people started using them.

The Modern Age (1993-present). Computers continued to get cheaper and better, faster and smaller, and stronger. They also started talking to each other across international networks. They almost had enough memory and speed to start doing something really useful. They were still unreliable, although less so than before; computers continued to crash regularly, for the stupidest reasons.

Still, improved, less detailed languages were becoming a little more common. Rudimentary handwriting- and speech-recognition systems appeared in portables. Useful computers had almost become cheap enough for most middle-class families inn advanced countries to afford one.

They shrank in size to the minimum needed for us to use them comfortably. The notebook became the portable of choice. Big dinosaur computers died like flies in a snowstorm. High-powered computers reached paperback size. Enormously good graphics machines went on sale as children's video games. Now little Timmy or Janie could get for Christmas something that would have supported a multimillion-Dollar graphics lab ten years before.

The price of high-caliber computers had steadily dropped from the price of jumbo jets to that of houses, cars, and then refrigerators. Today - still plummeting - they are approaching the price of expensive toasters. Massive memory, high speed, and tiny machines are not facts of life. Hardware prices continue to tumble, while poser and reliability skyrocket. The price of software, however, has not kept pace with the hardware's cheaper prices. It remains hard to use and is still handmade.

The Future. In the future, computers will be much better. They will be a million times smaller, cheaper, and faster, have a million times more memory, and, best of all, be a million times easier to use, because they'll no longer be stupid enough to do exactly as we say. They'll more often do what we actually mean. Software won't be hand made anymore.

In that future, computers will be as common as shoes. Everyone will have at least one, itself made of many, perhaps millions, of smaller computers. They will become life time companions; we'll all get one at birth, take it everywhere, and use it for everything. Some will be pets, and we'll probably ask them to fetch sticks and frisbees for us. Cats, of course, will continue to ignore us.

(Rawlins, Gregory J.E..Slaves of the Machine: The Quickening of Computer Technology.pp. 58-61.A Bradford Book, The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1998)

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Traditional Programming Works Well Only When Five Things Are True

Gregory Rawlins

• First: We know exactly what we want to do.
• Second: We can foresee every possible eventuality.
• Third: We can predict a correct action for each such eventuality.
• Fourth: We can execute each such contingent action flawlessly.
• Fifth: The solutions we need are especially efficient.

(Rawlins, Gregory J.E..Slaves of the Machine: The Quickening of Computer Technology.p. 79. A Bradford Book, The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1998)

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Lessons from the Luddites

Kirkpatrick Sale

1. Technologies are never neutral, and some are hurtful.
2. Industrialism is always a cataclysmic process.
3. Only a people serving an apprenticeship to nature can be trusted with machines.
4. The nation-state, synergistically intertwined with industrialism, will always come to its aid and defense, making revolt futile and reform ineffectual.
5. But resistance to the industrial system, based on some grasp of moral principles and rooted in some sense of moral revulsion, is not only possible but necessary.
6. Politically, resistance to industrialism must force not only "the machine question" but the viability of industrial society into public consciousness and debate.
7. Philosophically, resistance to industrialism must be embedded in an analysis---an ideology, perhaps---that is morally informed, carefully articulated, and widely shared.
8. If the edifice of industrial civilization does not eventually crumble as a result of a determined resistance within its very walls, it seems certain to crumble of its own accumulated excesses and instabilities within not more than a few decades, perhaps sooner, after which there may be space for alternative societies to arise.

(Sale, Kirkpatrick. Rebels Against the Future; The Luddites and Their War on the Industrial Revolution; Lessons for the Computer Age. New York: Addison-Wesley.1996.)

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Dimensions of Five Community Theories

Linda Stoneall

(Stoneall, Linda. Country Life, City Life: Five Theories of Community. New York: Praeger Publishers. 1983)

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The Twelve Themes of the New Economy

Don Tapscott

(Tapscott, Don. The Digital Economy: Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence. New York: McGraw-Hill. 1996.)

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Industrialism's Six Interrelated Principles

Alvin Toffler

1. Standardization
2. Specialization
3. Synchronization
4. Concentration
5. Maximization
6. Centralization
   

(Toffler, Alvin. The Third Wave. New York: Bantam Books. 1981.)

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How The Fall TV Lineup Fared

Melanie Wells

This chart compares how the 26 new fall shows broadcast on ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC are faring from Madison Avenue's perspective, two weeks after the season's official launch Sept. 22. Measurements used are:

1. Viewer share is the percentage of TV sets in use that are tuned to a particular show as measured by Nielsen Media Research.
2. Projected share is what advertisers expected to the average for the fourth quarter
3. Actual share is the average for the weeks of Sept. 22 and Sept. 29

Advertisers are compensated by the networks when shows fall short of viewership guarantees for the quarter. compenstaion most often comes as additional ad time. If the show over-delivers, it's a bonus to advertisers.

Bonus value (conpensation owed) figures shown here are estimates for 30 second spots. They were calculated by multiplying a show's ad rate by the percentage difference between the projected and actual shares.

(1) aired only one week

Sources: The Myers Report, Nielsen Media Research, agency estimates, Advertising Age/p>

(Wells, Melanie. "Networks pay when viewers stay away."UAS TODAY10 Oct. 1997: B1+.)

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Leadership and New Science

Margaret Wheately

(Wheatley, Margaret. Leadership and New Science.San Francisco: Berrett-Hoehler. 1994.)

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Technology and Society -- Ways to Support the Big Picture

From ASTE conference, 4/96

Issues:

1. Have's and Have-not's empowered vs. disenfranchised
2. Maintaining a fix on why we are doing this -- beyond being just fun
3. What's the means and What's th ends?
4. Reality vs. Surrogate Reality
5. Practical used of technology
6. Focus on process rather than devices
7. Dealing with people who wil not have information technology employment -- What is the place of skills of "old" but necessary skills
8. How to deal with all of the information
9. The impact of information technology on indigenous culture
10. The impact of information technology on where we live
11. The discriminating use of technology and understanding when technology helps vs. addressing real issue -- technology co-dependence
12. Inter-generational paradigm -- speed of change
13. Global restructuring -- economic and cultural change
14. The impact of technology on relationships and communication -- changes in the way people interact with one another
15. Impact of technology on our sense of community
16. Impact of technology on public education -- values have changed/ what will be
17. Speed of communication is driving "sound-byte" mentality -- it's hard to achieve depth and people want that these days -- living in a world of abstracts
18. The need for technology is driving budget decisions
19. Is technology training students for the sound-byte mentality
20. Balance between mine-body-spirit is becoming unbalanced
21. Who's paying for and who is controlling it -- who are the gatekeepers controlling the flow of information
22. The Internet is designer Proac -- people go on-line because they know they can be someone different (virtual vs. non-virtual person)
23. Kids need one experience: school and real-world -- need to teach real-world skills
24. Need to increase independence -- elimination of "basic skills"
25. Either or vs. Both and
26. Lots of people being let out
27. People who are fearful of technology
28. Quality of information
29. We are now free to publish mis-information
30. Driven by human fascinationwith gadgets and new stuff
31. Time commitment needed
32. Keeping up with the changes
33. Training concerns -- need for support within school system
34. Focus has changed to self-directed learning vs. what classes can I take
35. Sharing enthusiasm with others vs overwhelming them -- levels of knowledge
36. Filtering information presented to us -- where do we start with so much coming in
37. Is technology driving education or is education driving technology?
38. Stress vs. excitement of living in a constantly changing world -- evolution will select for life-long learners
39. Change is happening everywhere in our society
40. Separating out what is useful information
41. People don't know what to "ask" for
42. Technology allows people to rediscover the job of learning
43. Empowered to become the "experts' in this new field of technology
44. Early users have opportunity to learn what is really happening -- the friendlier it gets, the less we know about what is really happening, the more we have to trust other people
45. We can fix things but can't always develop things we need

Solutions:

1. Techno support groups
2. Allow kids to be risk takers with support
3. Role-playing issues related to use of technology -- FDA of technology
4. Help people learn how to solve the problem vs. solving the problems for them

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Social Impacts of Technology Session

ComTECH '97

Asked of the participants: What are the issues that compel you to be here?

1. Impact of technology on social skills.
2. Impact of technology on communities - less verbal communications.
3. Technology additions - within home - larger scope
4. Impact of technology on health - physical and mental
5. Just because we can upgrade - do we have too?
6. Basic compatibility issues
7. Quantity vs. Quality - indiscriminate use of information
8. Sound-bite mentality
9. Reversal of employer-employee roles
10. Organizational restructuring
11. Collapse of the pyramid
12. Veracity of information on the internet
13. Privacy issues: personal files - accuracy of personal information.
14. Price of being highly competitive
15. Learning technology at the expense of education fundamentals
16. Using technology at the expense of understanding the processes that are involved
17. Using technology for technology sake rather than a tool
18. A lack of sensory and meta information
19. A lack of body language and eye contact
20. A lack of intimacy
21. Workable system of ethics - copyright issues
22. The effect on intellectual revolution
23. On-line communication can be more inclusive than face-to-face communication
24. The have's vs. the have nots
25. When technology we are addicted to fails - what then?
26. Does technology really save time?
27. Lack of adult training in technology-training/awareness
28. Can the technology control us - Big Brother
29. Changing employment base-types of jobs
30. Rapid change in jobs and the need for life long learning

Question posed to participants: What should we teach our children?

1. Teach them balance
2. Difference between right and wrong - ethics
3. Technology vs. Behavior issues
4. Other ways of knowing
5. Slowing down
6. Is technology necessary for success
7. Thinking critically
8. Don't assume the machine's right
9. Common sense
10. Realities change over time
11. Relativity of ethics
12. Difference between analog and digital
13. Naturalistic inquiry
14. Basic communication
15. Time
16. Change is the universe and life is understanding
17. Balance between inner-awareness and external awareness
18. Awareness of native needs
19. The importance of the Three R's, even in a high tech. world
20. Consumer education
21. More interest in safety and the environment
22. Proactive consumerism

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Telecommunications Timeline in Alaska

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First Countries to Use Stamps

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