John Naughton, of the Guardian’s, Observer, will be releasing his his latest book in January 2012. Its entitled, What You Really Need to Know About the Internet: From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg.
This is an extended version of his excellent 2010 essay “The Internet: Everything You Ever Needed to Know.” The essay is an informative read for those unsure, unaware, insecure, or afraid of the internet…as well as those who believe the internet will fix education.
I’d also suggest that either those teachers who believe technology is the next phase of education as well as those teachers who still don’t have an email read Todd Oppenheimer’s article, “The Computer Delusion,” in conjunction with Naughton’s essay.
If interested, Oppenheimer’s essay became a highly informative and balanced expose regarding trends of technology and computers in classroom. Oppenheimer’s book, The Flickering Mind: Saving Education From the False Prophet of Technology is informative and packed with real-world examples and applications. Despite the title, Oppenheimer is not against technology, rather his is a cautious and informed approach.
A Google books preview is available here.
There’s also a good review–albeit leaning to the technology optimists’ side–here.
Because the book will not be available until the opening of 2012 here’s a few comments upon Naughton’s essay and forthcoming book:
From the byline of John Naughton’s Observer essay:
“In spite of all the answers the internet has given us, its full potential to transform our lives remains the great unknown. Here are the nine key steps to understanding the most powerful tool of our age – and where it’s taking us.”
From BoingBoing on John Naughton’s book:
“John Naughton’s latest book, From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg, What You Really Need to Know About the Internet, expands on his spectacular Observer feature article, “The internet: Everything you ever need to know”, which I [Corey Doctrow, of BoingBoing] described as “a marvel of economy, the kind of primer you want to slide under your boss’s door.”
Gutenberg to Zuckerberg fills an important gap in the published literature of the Internet: a fast, thoughtful, thought-provoking read for intelligent people who don’t quite get the Internet. We all know these sorts of people — often powerful and accomplished, but at a disadvantage in that they got their start before the net came along. These people struggle to put the Internet in perspective, buffeted on the one side by colleagues who reassure them by telling them that the transformative nature of the net is overstated; on the other by juniors, analysts and press who tell them that they’re doomed unless they rebuild their lives around the net.
Naughton, a seasoned business journalist, sums up the big, important effects that the Internet has in a very quick read, placing them in historical perspective, projecting to their plausible futures, warning of their imminent dangers. From copyright to collective action, from governance to e-commerce, Naughton’s book sets out, in reasonable, measured tones, the systemic underpinnings of the net’s disruptive power, and promises attentive readers the theoretical and practical grounding they need to separate hype from hope.”
