In one of my posts, I highlighted Howard Rheingold’s post about the Amish and their relationship with technology. He suggested that instead of a mad rush to bring technology into our lives, we should have an ongoing conversation with technology. The cultural critic, Neil Postman, also has a similar view about technology. Postman in fact tries to make this conversation a little clearer by suggesting that we think about six questions that we should ask when a new technology is introduced. The six questions are:

• What is the problem to which this technology is a solution?
• Whose problem is it?
• What new problems might be created by solving the original problem?
• Which people and what institutions will be most seriously harmed by this new technology?
• What changes in language are being forced by these new technologies?
• What sort of people and institutions gain special economic and political power from this new technology?

In my view, the questions are meant to prevent us from rushing into implementing or using any new technology. In the field of education, these questions become all the more important because it is going to impact and area of human endeavor, that is, education, that is clearly supposed to be designed for the future. As an educator who had been part of Singapore’s well-known MasterPlan for IT in Education (MPITE) team, I have had an abiding interest in the use of ICT in schools. However, Rheingold’s and Postman’s suggestions for a conversation with ICT, have both given me cause to reflect on the use of ICT in education. I will be sharing my thoughts on the questions raised by Postman in relation to how ICT is supposed to be used in education. So do look out for them. In the meantime, click on the book cover to read Postman’s “Technopoly”.

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