Here’s an Australian icon – we have a huge respect for who he is and what he represents!

Phillip used a lot of stories to tease out the idea of change, and what is happening in our lives now with the introducation of technology.

However, I have to agree with his belief that there is a desperate need to teach kids in the new technology, about the new technologies.

Any teacher would have to agree with Phillip “that unless you process data, it won’t become knowledge, and without knowledge you won’t have wisdom. There is a ‘seduction’ with new technologies. On the other hand technologic determinism is dangerous. Not a single railway line running across the Nallabor – but shunted, choose, switch, change.”

So Phillip urges us the need to be selective.The danger is when it is not selective because we now have a conflict between technology and the human brain. Where there isn’t a thinking framework for uptake of technology. Not just weaponery,but also information technology!

Coming as Phillip does from media I was also interested in his comment about what is happening to media. Up till now media have acted as gatekeepers for information dissemination – but media are starting to lose out in the unmediated world. Research, thinking and communication is taking place in new technology spaces. Where the mediated world was warped or biased, and pervasive conservatism, at least we were all on the same page – we knew in our countries, what the commen agenda is.In the media world this doesn’t happen. It is now easy to go into information loops. Biased blogs, devote their lives to viewpoints that review their own thinking. E.g. communism. The umediated world is open to all possibilities. The promise, the speed, is staggering. The downside is the increasing narrowness of views, and increasing madness.

Ahh…..exactly. That is exactly the issue that is picked up by EPIC 2015 – and the journalists who were concerned about what the future of the media and communication is. I have this in my links under Web 2.0

The trusty old concept came up, that is so valid for consideration of online environements:

Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom. Our job? Help students on this progression.

Only if educators buy-in to the technology do we have any chance of helping our students get to knowledge and wisdom rather than being caught up in a vortex of misinformation.Technology is a good way toengage with the minds of kids in forming and shaping their understanding.