Finding Common Ground

How about we give kids license to drive at 15 and say here you go! Have at it! No way, right?!

Like driving, learning to use technology is a skill that requires instruction, guidance, practice and has to be taken seriously. Just like driving, surfing can be fun. But in the same way, there are rules and courtesies of the (information) highway to follow.

These are not my thoughts alone; during the first breakout session at Educon 2.1 an analogy between cars and technology was discussed between Damon Mollenkopf, Hossaim Klalghi (sp?) and myself.

Here are some of the ideas we tossed around:

Should we have a personal police officer around to ticket us at every wrong turn, for every small infraction?

Cars can be dangerous.  Surfing loose on the Internet can be dangerous. Should we stop getting on the highways?

People drive all kinds of cars. Some are newer, some are older. Some are faster, some are slower.  They all serve the same purpose. Same with technology – it doesn’t matter what your model is, it matters that what you have works for you.

It’s taken me awhile to post our conversation. So long, in fact, that I received an email from Damon tonight pointing me to a Sheryl Nussbaum Beach post that makes the same sort of comparisons. Interesting that that post was from November of 2006 and it’s now January 2009. I *think* we have moved forward in this area. I sure hope so!

Are these types of analogies helpful?  *I* believe they are worth thinking about.

Feel free to add others to the comments. They don’t have to be car related:)

Filed under: Thinking... and tagged analogy, educon, educon21, internetsafety, safety