Technology in the White House

During all the pre-inauguration hoopla one thing, which caught my attention was that Barack Obama was going to have to give up his Blackberry. Apparently all presidential correspondence has to be archived for future generations. Also, there was apparently some worry over what might be intercepted by hackers. I liked the fact that Mr. Barack was unwilling to give up his e-mail opportunities to communicate with family and friends. When asked by CNN's John King whether he would have to give up his device

Obama responded. “….I think we're going to be able to hang onto one of these. Now, my working assumption, and this is not new, is that everything I write on e-mail could end up being on CNN. So I make sure that — I think before I press ‘send.’”

It makes me think this is the lesson we're trying to teach our students. Think before you post something on Facebook, think before you e-mail something, think before you publish something on the Internet. What a wonderful role model Mr. Obama will be for today's generation.

Web 2.0 technologies give us the chance to create, to share, and to connect around the world. According to Tina Brown, during the presidential campaign the web savvy Mr. Obama could:

deploy his web army to distribute his leaflets, raise his funds and sell his policies, he could speak directly to them whenever he hit a snag.

Here is a world leader who wants to be able to connect with friends and former co-workers who can give him immediate feedback on his decisions and new ideas. Isn't this what we're trying to teach our students?

Mr. Obama's whole election campaign was widely debated using blogs and other tools. My Dad had me take him on a tour of Mr. Obama's blog and explain why a tool like this was useful and powerful. It is a new way of thinking for older, and even not so old generations. Is it second nature to our students? I'm not sure it is yet, not for all of them, but the possibilities are there and they are endless.