Observe and keep track of developments

Keep a history

As John Ralston Saul notes, memory is "perhaps the first quality that differentiates us from the marketplace and from inanimate machines,"⁶⁵ There are people among us, aboriginal people in particular, who value memory more than those who are planning only for the future and deny what the past may teach, Their respect for memory and for collective memory is also a respect for learning. Even on a functional level, our experience loses its value if it and the lessons learned are displaced from memory by the next new phase that comes along.

On quite a basic level, those with direct experience of previous educational technologies can bring their memories of those experiences to bear on current trends. For example, those who remember when community access television (CATV) was proclaimed to be the basis of citizen participation can recognize similar claims for the Internet and apply some of the lessons of CATV, such as the impact of corporate ownership and increasing monopolization on opportunities for genuine citizen direction of community television. ⁶⁶

For those with even longer memories, or an interest in the history of technology, there are historical examples of broader citizen participation in radio⁶⁷ and community broadcast uses of the telephone⁶⁸ . The stories of how these choices were eliminated by commercial monopoly interests and political decisions may offer a cautionary lesson for those who believe the Internet will inevitably lead to democratization of communication and information sharing.

Consider appropriate risk assessment strategies

Dale Spender has noted that women are more likely than men to assess risks before taking action, and suggests that although risk aversion may make women less adventurous about technology, it is "a positive advantage in our technological society", and notes that "this risk assessment factor is the quality factor, it is precisely what we have left out of our decision making processes in the technological context," Spender suggests that the picture of western technology might be very different if decision makers had asked these basic questions:

• What is it for?
• Do we need it?
• Can we afford it?
• Who will clean up the mess afterwards?⁶⁹

Maintain a "reality check" file

Assess language, statements, claims, evidence, data against other information that is available from other sources. Analyze how information is gathered, and how statistical information is changed and interpreted, for example in the transfer from Statistics Canada reports to a newspaper article. Examine the statements of policy makers, decision makers and politicians, for the basis on which statements are made.

For example, if a report states that "there are now 50% more women users of the Internet than there were 2 years ago," first of all, find out what that means. How many are there now; how many were there two years ago? What proportion of the whole Internet user population does that represent? How are "users" defined - are they those who have Internet accounts, whether or not they use them regularly, are they people who are on line every day, every week. every month? Where are the users - in urban or rural areas, in schools and colleges or in the community? Secondly, determine how that statement tallies with other available information, for example reports from Internet providers on the gender breakdown of their subscribers and their usage patterns. Unchallenged statements can continue to be repeated until they have the force of a truism, on which decisions are made.