We had a fabulous parents weekend in Hanover, NH, where we spent time from Friday till Sunday afternoon. Listened to President Jim Yong Kim, a terrific speaker, who described some of the serious issues such as bringing binge drinking and sexual assaults and what the administration is doing to address these. He also discussed the 16 Habits of the Mind and how this will figure in the curriculum planning going forward. We also met with the parents/guardians of our son Varun’s roommates, which is always a lot of fun. One of Varun’s roommate is  William Kamkwamba, the kid from Malawi, who built a windmill to power his own home. Tom Rielly, who is a community director at the famous TED conferences, had a part to play in William coming to Dartmouth, so he joined us for dinner one night. We had a fantastic time and talked a lot about emerging technologies and Tom’s views on ubiquitous connectivity.

Tired after long nights on Friday and Saturday, we went to bed a little earlier than normal and were woken up by a phone call from our son Vivek who called us about Osama bin Laden’s death because I did not respond to his chat message. We got up to watch the President speak and see all the celebration on TV. Great news after ten years and amazing how the mission was carried out. I should share with you a tweet from GhostOsama which read “Well this sucks…I accidentally enabled location on my tweets.” On that note about ubiquity of connections…

We are so well connected these days, sort of. I still get annoyed that in the most advanced country like ours, we still have so many spots where connection is poor. Vermont and New Hampshire are a couple of examples where connectivity has a lot to desire. Of course, connectivity costs money. Sparse population in many of these areas simply does not transfer to profit and therefore the dream of ubiquitous connection goes by the wayside.

Everyone knows the debates about the pros and cons of the ubiquitous connectivity – primarily, we have become a generation who is highly distracted, constantly checking this and that on our handheld device; we are more interested in small snippets of information for a quick read than be interested in reading long texts, serious and reliable research; however, connectivity has increased global and local communication, access to information is instantaneous etc. etc. Above all, privacy is at stake. If you have a path to the network from wherever you are, someone knows where you are, at all times – something that you may not want them to know.

The most recent iPhone fiasco is an example of this type of privacy issue. There are no easy answers to this except choosing to not connect, at least until new privacy laws are enacted around what to collect and their appropriate use. Unfortunately, not being connected is fast becoming something on which you may not a choice. It is already the case that in order to get even the most basic things accomplished you need the internet (such as getting help from someone on the phone at the other end – they tell you umpteen time to go to the web and the phone number for help itself is available only on the web!).

It has been the case with all technologies – the rush to get new and exciting technologies out is so great that we neglect to think about all the implications. By the time we get to attending to issues and concerns, the society is on to the next greatest technologies.

I am sure many of you saw the discussion in the Faculty Staff Conference the question on how to turn off wireless in the classroom. This is again related to the topic at hand. We all rushed to provide wireless on campus, because everyone was asking for it – they had it in their homes, coffee shops and in many big cities, the community wireless and of course, the PDAs had connectivity wherever they went.

The availability of connectivity in the classroom means distraction and this interferes with the teaching and learning process (not in all cases, I should say). Berlin Fang, in an article titled “From Distraction to Engagement: Wireless Devices in the Classroom” published in EDUCUASE Quarterly in 2009, discusses this issue in detail.

We plan to have discussions on this topic with various community members and hope that we can find a compromise solution that is based on the fact that the College’s core mission is teaching and learning and not technology! We should always be creative about the use of technology to support this core mission, but not to put the technology ahead of the core mission.

I am sitting on an exercise ball in one of our bedrooms, connected to the wireless access point, while tweeting and updating my facebook posts. I love the ubiquitous connectivity!