To understand

1
Objectives for Chapter

• To understand
• History of information technologies in the public
  sector
• The potential and pitfalls of information
  technologies for communicating with public sector
  employees and clients

2
What is an information technology?

• a device that has a catalytic role
• helps a person communicate with other people,
• remains unchanged itself.
• The importance is in a helping role to develop
  other things.

3
Examples of How I Want You to Think After Taking
This Class

• I used in the reading an old example to keep us
  away from Internet technologies.
• Veteran teacher retiring
• A more recent example
• Introducing Keith Sullivan
• Dalhousie Professor
• Four children
• Marc
• Laura

4
Lets Move Through the Information Technologies

• The Spoken and Written Word
• Printing Press
• Pictures
• Telephone
• Radio
• Television and streaming video (Moving Pictures
  and Sound)
• Computers and the Internet
• An Honorary Mention Electricity

5
Important IT 1 The spoken and written word

• In our early history, the spoken word was the
  most powerful
• Today, the same?
• Are other ITs changing this emphasis toward more
  communication through writing and pictures?
• http//www.qp.gov.ab.ca/index.cfm
• Alberta E-bookmark Keep up with the law!

6
Important IT 1 The spoken and written word

• Is it important for a public administrator in
  Alberta to be proficient in the spoken word and
  the use of the alphabet?
• Do you know of any programs to help with the
  spoken word?

7
Important IT 2 Duplicating the Written Word

• Printing Press, copiers, web pages
• Is there a tension between providing information
  to the general public and the desire of central
  authorities to limit the spread of information
  for the purpose of controlling power?

8
Important IT 3 Pictures

• Are important for communication
• Almost common sense conclusion
• But do public administrators use the
  communication power of the picture well?
• Alberta auto insurance reform overview on the left

9
Important IT 4 Telephone

• Demands human attention.
• No other media as intimate as the telephone
• Most dramatic recent metamorphosis is liberation
  from being place bound
• IP telephony
• cost savings as main motivator for implementing
• http//www.cisco.com/ca/ipdemo/
• How is the Government of Alberta using
  telephones?
• Where is the Government going with the use of the
  telephone?

10
Important IT 4 Telephone

• New York Mayor's Office to Combat Domestic
  Violence
• http//www.nyc.gov/html/ocdv/html/news/donate_phon
  e.shtml

11
Important IT 5 Radio

• Extends the natural communication of speaking and
  hearing
• Resurrected on the internet.
• The USA President George W. Bush is using weekly
  radio broadcasts to present his message to the
  American people http//www.whitehouse.gov/news/rad
  io/
• Ken Radio at http//www.kenradio.com/
• Mikes Radio Alberta http//www.mikesradioworld.co
  m/ca_ab.html

12
Important IT 6 Moving Pictures and Sound
(Television and streaming video)

• The fastest growing segment of IT
• Examples
• CPAC Television
• Legislation broadcasts
• Promotions Tourism Opening of Projects
• New York City Television

13
Important IT 7 Computers and the Internet

• Their importance is staggering.
• Is it the most effective information media duo of
  all time?
• users are both consumers and producers of
  information.

14
Important IT 8 Electricity (An Honorary Mention)

• An essential pre-condition needed for most IT
  inventions.
• Allows the extension of the working and leisure
  day
• Increases productivity and increases literacy
• Using existing medium voltage power lines to
  transport digital data.
• Its unreliability has motivated the development
  of server farms

15
The Pressure for Technologies to Change

• Cybernetics
• control or regulation of mechanisms in human and
  machine systems, including computers
• Anthropotropic theory
• Humans continue to push media to be more human
  like

16
The Pressure for Technologies to Change

• Speaking to a computer
• Dragon Naturally Speaking
• Must be small with many functions in one device
• Dell Axim
• What do you have with you?

17
Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies

• Technology Trigger
• Peak of Inflated Expectations
• Trough of disillusionment
• Slope of Enlightenment
• Plateau of Productivity

18
Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies Gartner
19
Unintended Consequences.

• Often the invention is developed for one purpose
• Over time is used for another purpose,
• Often becoming more important than the original
  purpose intended by the inventor,
• Any other examples?

20
Soft and Dependent Information Technologies.

• Soft
• less deterministic effects on human behaviour
  than other technologies.
• difficult to predict future effects.
• Due to dependence on other developments,
• compatibility with other technologies,
• attitudes of the users based on past experiences,
  culture and morals.

21
New Technologies provide New Ethical Challenges

• Radio
• The "payola" investigations
• The audio cassette tape combined with radio
• VCR combined with television
• provided perfect combinations for stealing music
  and movies

• Are modern version of this problem via computer
  technology more serious?
• Napster, Kazaa and other peer-to-peer sites
• Mr. MIRC

22
Information Technology and Worker Power Shifts

• Main frame computer programmer and data entry era
  
• Computer specialists were powerful
• Personal computer but still highly specialized
  user era
• Secretaries and computer trouble shooters were
  powerful
• Personal computer, self-contained era
• Those who know how to relate technologies to the
  job are powerful

23
The Effect of Information Technology on History
and Education

• Recorded in history
• not because they occurred first
• but happened first after the invention of some
  technology, like the printing press.
• E.g. Columbuss voyage overshadowed the earlier
  voyages by the Vikings to LAnse Aux Meadows in
  Newfoundland.