Hello fellow educators, welcome to podcast number 42. Today I want to take up the conversation again about how the Digital World is transforming everything about education including the educator himself. This podcast is dedicated to those who seek to bring a discipleship based approach to Christian education. For those who are new to the podcast I spent the early part of last year defining what that means in podcasts 1-10. You can access all of last year’s podcasts at www.thechrisianeducator.org and click on the episodes link. And yes we are still sending out free copies of my book “Discipling this Generation for a Digital World” to any one that asks. Details to follow at the end of the podcast. The book outlines the major shifts in culture that are taking place because of digital technology and how we need to rethink our role as educators and disciplers. The changes can be categorized in four ways: We are in the midst of a Communication Revolution that will undoubtedly create change and cultural transformation far beyond the remarkable history of the printing press. This has fuelled Globalization, the second area, in ways no-one could ever predict. Our world has been moving in this direction for the last 400 years as the European powers began to dominate and standardize world trade, colonization and technological systems. But last 20 years, since the advent of the internet, we have seen a much greater shift in trade, culture, communication than in the previous 400 years combined. Boarders are quickly disappearing and world power is being redefined. In the midst of this we are seeing a, not so subtle shift in hegemony from European/American dominance to what Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International calls in his latest book, “The Post American World”, “The rise of the rest.” He makes an excellent case that everything the liberal American democracy has worked hard for, open markets, free trade, democracy has come to pass in most places of the world. We now live in a global community were countries like China, India, Russia, Kenya and Brazil can compete in a global economy. This isn’t slowing down America it is bring everyone else up to her place in a globalized world, hence, the rise of the rest.

Today we continue the discussion about Informationalism, my new word to describe the Google phenomenon. We started this topic four weeks ago in podcast number 39 entitled Educational Futurist and Informationalism where we told the history of how Google started. The fourth area of change, for those of you that were counting, is in the scary and miraculous world of bio-technology. We will reserve this for future podcasts.

Informationalism is probably having is most immediate and noticeable transforming effects in our world of education. This shouldn’t surprise us. The very purpose of the internet has always had the sharing of information as its primary objective. It was first conceived and funded when the U.S. military realized that its shift to computer storage of its information was jeopardized by a potential nuclear attack they created a way to backup and copy information across great distances. When this technology was finally made available to the public in the late 70’s it was first used to share information between Universities. In fact, in the late 80’s, many of the academics of these Universities fought a losing battle to keep this technology from the general public. They argued that it would become overly commercial and intellectual property would not be respected. Sounds prophetic to me.

Then came Google. I know that I make much of the advent of Google but it has become the poster child of all that the internet could become if we would just break away from the old controlling elite. The late great media critic and prophet, Canadian Marshall McLuhan pointed out that whenever we get our hands on a new technology we tend to use it like the older ones. When TV was becoming popular it consisted mostly of guys sitting around reading radio scripts because nobody had realized that TV could tell stories differently.  Most new technologies initially get used in ways that the old technologies dominated. When the internet first became public it was used to transfer and protect information. Email was the primary tool used to create secure and private conversations. Universities concentrated on ways they could transfer their information through secure channels. When the commercial world found the internet they did everything to keep you from finding out about their competitors. They didn’t want you to search the web they wanted you to make their site your one stop experience. Alta Vista, AOL and even Yahoo did not want to let you go out and explore the information world. They wanted to control your access to information. This is what made Google so revolutionary. This is why more browsers today point to Google than any other of the billion websites available. I’ll admit it. Google is my home page. I have already used Google three times in writing this podcast. The last ten years have dramatically changed our psychological relationship with information. And, as stated earlier, there is no other genre of culture being affected more than education. Here is an audio excerpt from my book that outlines the challenge we face:

Just Google It

Don’t let the small and sudden beginnings of Google give you the idea that their ambitions are by any means in-significant. Larry and Sergey have entered into a world that only a few others in history have come. They are now among the ranks of inventors like Gutenberg, Joseph Henry, Henry Morse, Alexander Bell and Bill Gates (who is really a marketing genius, not an inventor, but his name sounds cool in this list). They are listed in the top 25 richest men in the world. They have big plans for their wealth.

On Google’s Corporate Information Webpage the bold statement announces their intentions:

“Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Organize the what? The world’s information?! Can this be possible? So far they are on track. They have had to overcome hurdles, particularly anyone who publishes intellectual property but does not want it freely accessible by Google, but even this is changing in the new world of “net-ethics.” Google has developed a number of partnerships with libraries, universities and information services to digitalize any and all text in the world, that’s right, everything in the world, from the Harvard Classics to what is written on cereal boxes. Its insatiable appetite to gather, index, know and distribute continues to grow at a faster rate than Microsoft did when it gobbled up any and all companies it its wake.

In five short years Google is a cultural icon. The phrase “just Google it” is applied to anything we need to know. It is not uncommon to hear someone say “I googled that article” or “I googled my term paper,” or how about, “I googled your name and found…” Even if we use another search engine, we still say “I googled it at Yahoo.” You have a part in the digital world when you know what that phrase means.

Something has changed in the psyche of our culture. I can’t recall exactly when I started to experience this change in my consciousness of knowledge. Perhaps it began when I discovered Google or maybe a bit later as I honed my search techniques. My conscious concern for knowledge, or rather my lack thereof, shifted to a sense of security, a false sense I might add, that I could find nearly anything I need to know on the net. Thanks to Google, I knew where and how to start my learning acquisition. This is a dangerous thing for a fellow who makes his living as an educator. This new consciousness is the reason I titled this chapter, “Informationalism.” There is something deeper happening to our culture. Information is becoming an “ism,” a religion with its own set of morals and ethics. If something can be known, then it is immoral to not be able to find it. People are worshiping everyday at the computer screens of this new religion. Google is the temple and Brin and Page are the high priests.

Google is causing me rethink how we educate our children and young people. Do we concentrate our focus on teaching “facts” that can easily be googled at any time or place, or should we focus our attention on teaching our students how to search? I am a huge advocate for good, scholarly research and getting the facts right. Certainly, the teacher must “give the facts.” But in an age where any and every fact is right there, literally at their fingertips, is it not more important for us to teach how to find the right facts, and when these are found, how to critically think about them? Teaching our kids how to search will become one of the compulsory topics of education.

Google is changing how we do business. It has become my first choice when I need to find a product or vender. I like the democratic approach of being able to choose based on Google’s criteria rather than on good marketing savvy. There are still a few flaws as Google can still be partially manipulated by those who try to beat PageRank. But generally, I can find almost anything I want by just “googling it.”

As you heard I believe we need to rethink our relationship with information. Technology hasn’t just changed our access to information it has changed how we handle information, how we remember information and most importantly how we discern truth from the information we are googling. I popped this question to Sue Savard. She is our Online Course and Grad Director in our Online school and has written and taught our online English curriculum. She has been teaching students in the Online world for the last 4 and ½ years. Here is what she said when I asked how Google and digital technologies are effecting our students:

Audio only

In the next couple of weeks I would love to hear from some of you seasoned educators who were in the classroom in the pre-internet world and are still teaching in the digital world. We will always welcome some comments from the new digitals in the teaching profession as well. This way you want have to endure the nostalgic comments of those of us who had to walk three miles in the snow to the school library and use a card based index system prepared by moody, menopausal librarians who won’t turn the heat on and won’t tolerate my disruptive questions about how to find the gross national product of Senegal. Hmmmm, I am coming to love my Google librarian even more than I thought I could.

Next week will continue this discussion on Informationalism. We would love to hear from you and I deeply value your comments. If you would like us to mail you a free copy of my book, Discipling This Generation for a Digital World, simply send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and let us know what type of an educator you are, home schooler, classroom teacher, school administrator, or interested parent. Please let us know how you heard about the podcast and, of course, please include your mailing address. Thank you for listening and thank you for your commitment to discipleship-based Christian education.