The Real Power of Technology

Technology, weapons and other tools of society are created by people, for people, for the needs of people and of course are used and misused by people. Technologies are latent items in that they have no desires, no political views, no ulterior motives but offer possibilities to either assist and promote human kind or to in some hands, be used to destroy or kill. The key to this statement is "in some hands". The best we can hope for is that technology is in the hands of Adam Smith's (1759) "man whose public spirit is prompted altogether by humanity and benevolence and who will endeavour to establish the best that the people can bear"
I couldn't agree more with Vicente in this chapter. First in his introduction (p248) he opins that with the ever accelerating proliferation of technology that we often forget that it is people who have control over technology; not the other way around. Although we feel that our lives would end without our cell phone, email, GPS or automatic coffee makers, the power of these technologies is truly in our hands. We are the ones who decide which technology to use, how to use it and when it no longer serves our needs.
The Walkerton incident is a clear example of the failures of a top-down political system. But was it really top-down? Certainly water quality was government mandated, but controlled at the lower levels by the people not in the provincial government but by those at the site itself. Smith's (1759) claim about "the best that the people can bear" is evidenced through the Ontario government's tailoring of their policies to their constituents wishes (Vicente, p 266). Society is no longer ruled in fiefdoms or autocracies, but it is the people who put bottom-up pressure on governments to make appropriate decisions and, unlike in the Walkerton incident, follow through in the implementation, supervision and controlling of such decisions.
Enter Rasumussen's (1997) framework of hierarchy of Risk Management in Dynamic Society. While this hierarchy illustrates some of the different levels of risk management, I believe it illustrates the communication network necessary for risk management to exist. Furthermore, public opinion solely at the government level could be inaccurate as it is the public that decides on which products to purchase from which companies and the workers themselves, at the bottom of this hierarchy are members of the public themselves.
Moreover, should this hierarchy be so hard and steadfast? Can or should communication jump levels and allow the worker to communicate with the company, bypassing staff and management? People may not speak with their mouths in many cases, but with their hands with what they use and with their wallets with what they buy. Vicente supports this opinion stating "Interdependencies across levels are critical functioning of the system" (p270).
With the above being said, could the Walkerton incident occur at a school with the implementation of technology? Could unskilled, uninformed, albeit well-intentioned teachers be given carte-blanche rule over technology and its use in a classroom, school or jurisdiction and then the technology be not used or, even worse, mis-used? While teachers' practices are indirectly monitored sporadically via external assessments such as the provincial achievement tests and diploma examinations, how long can teachers go un-monitored in their class room until disaster strikes? Isn't this the root cause of such pendulum swings in education usually due to a lack of feedback and people inadvertently crossing a perceived safety boundary? By implementing a Rasmussen's (1997) framework as a guideline for creating a technology communication network, it may be possible to learn as we progress in the hopes of averting problems. Perhaps the time has come for teacher quality standards implemented by provincial governments to include the appropriate use of technology in the hopes of preventing disaster before it strikes.

I'll close in agreement with Vicente (p278):

The real power isn't in software or hardware alone, but how people use it.

The true promise of the Technological Age isn't just in the things that we build, but how we use those things as tools to help our quality of life.

References

Rasmussen, J. (1997). Risk Management in a Dynamic Society". Safety Science22, p 183 - 213. As cited in Vicente 2004.

Smith, A. (1759). The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Indianapolis, Ind. Liberty Fund, 1984. As cited in Vicente (2004).

Vicente, K. (2004). The Human Factor. Vintage, Random House. Toronto.