Wednesday, January 01, 2014

2013: The Year We Realized We Were All Carrying Telescreens In Our Pockets (and We Continue

The Snowden papers were the biggest new story of 2013. Also the biggest tech story and ed tech story. I haven't blogged about Snowden because the scope of the whole thing is overwhelming, and it seemed like just letting it sink in over time was the better approach (it probably was). I still won't necessarily be blogging more on privacy issues, as I don't feel like I have anything distinctive to contribute on the subject.

The legal and technological response to the Snowden revelations is going to take years. It has to be made an issue in the 2014 and 2016 elections. This is just getting rolling, folks.

I'm part of the problem here though, because 2013 was the year I internally shifted to "hair on fire" mode on climate change, both from the perspective of what science trickles down to me, what I see on the news and what I feel against my skin. Yet I still don't think of it first as the "big story." I do think that 2014 is a good year to start asking education reformers if they believe climate change is a greater threat to the USA than international competitiveness. The current debate is obviously deadlocked; we need a new angle entirely.

See how hard it is to stay on point with climate change? It seems overwhelming but we have to not give up on the planet...

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