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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SPAN class=TopStory>Person of the Year - you!</SPAN>
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>Jean Lowrie-Chin
Monday, January 08, 2007
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=80 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Jean Lowrie-Chin</SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>As the cryptic Tatler loves to say, who would have thunk it? There I was, "Person of the Year", on the cover of Time magazine. Well, actually, if you looked, you would have seen yourself too, because TIme mounted a foil mirror on their cover so the reader could see her/himself.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Time reporter Lev Grossman explains (story at www.time.com): "for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing. Time's Person of the Year for 2006 is you."
He is referring to the use of the Internet by ordinary people to share their knowledge, their talent, their dreams with the world. We get unpasteurised information from a soldier on duty in Iraq, a middle- aged record-breaking book reviewer, a young Pakistani photographer, the whistle-blower who ousted Tom Foley, using YouTube, Flickr, and their own blogs (web logs).<P class=StoryText align=justify>Here in Jamaica, youngsters were logging on Whaddat.com developed nearly 10 years ago by maverick Immaculate students led by Quizz of RE-TV fame, while Xavier Murphy's Jamaicans.com has been linking the diaspora and winning awards.<P class=StoryText align=justify>We have alternately praised and grumbled about the internet. With Google and Wikipedia, we have a veritable library at our fingertips, but it does get annoying when youngsters seem to be more interested in communicating with their ever-expanding list of friends on MSN, Microsoft's instant messenger service, than with the people sitting in the same room.<P class=StoryText align=justify>As a longtime businessperson who started out with an inherited manual typewriter, I have seen first-hand the unfolding of technology, and the realisation of what Bill Gates describes as 'business at the speed of thought". Now, working from abroad, I can read documents forwarded from my office via my BlackBerry, a hand-held device that combines cell-phone with many features of my laptop. As I wait at the airport, I can log on to www.jamaicaobserver.com and read the news.<P class=StoryText align=justify>But such devices will be wasted if the population is not properly educated. We see people with fancy cell phones who don't know that they can be useful databases, diaries and alarm clocks. We see the most atrocious English on the internet, and cringe to think of the comments about our educational system in Jamaica.<P class=StoryText align=justify>I have to say that I don't envy today's educators. Back when I did my stint in the classroom at Calabar, the youngsters did not have cell phones, video games or ipods, and it was relatively easy to help them to develop a habit of reading. Parents have also been seduced by these various electronic devices, and the time we should be taking to monitor our children's Internet behaviour is spent looking at our own monitors. The same thing may be happening with some teachers. Research is showing millions of hours lost on the job to employees who are surfing the web and taking personal calls on their cell phones.<P class=StoryText align=justify>So while the world is striding ahead, communicating, managing time, reaching out to the less fortunate, making lucrative trade deals, using our own reggae music to promote themselves on YouTube and elsewhere, we could become the lazy consumer rather than the busy producer.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Reports are that porn and gambling
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>Jean Lowrie-Chin
Monday, January 08, 2007
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=80 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Jean Lowrie-Chin</SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>As the cryptic Tatler loves to say, who would have thunk it? There I was, "Person of the Year", on the cover of Time magazine. Well, actually, if you looked, you would have seen yourself too, because TIme mounted a foil mirror on their cover so the reader could see her/himself.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Time reporter Lev Grossman explains (story at www.time.com): "for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing. Time's Person of the Year for 2006 is you." He is referring to the use of the Internet by ordinary people to share their knowledge, their talent, their dreams with the world. We get unpasteurised information from a soldier on duty in Iraq, a middle- aged record-breaking book reviewer, a young Pakistani photographer, the whistle-blower who ousted Tom Foley, using YouTube, Flickr, and their own blogs (web logs).<P class=StoryText align=justify>Here in Jamaica, youngsters were logging on Whaddat.com developed nearly 10 years ago by maverick Immaculate students led by Quizz of RE-TV fame, while Xavier Murphy's Jamaicans.com has been linking the diaspora and winning awards.<P class=StoryText align=justify>We have alternately praised and grumbled about the internet. With Google and Wikipedia, we have a veritable library at our fingertips, but it does get annoying when youngsters seem to be more interested in communicating with their ever-expanding list of friends on MSN, Microsoft's instant messenger service, than with the people sitting in the same room.<P class=StoryText align=justify>As a longtime businessperson who started out with an inherited manual typewriter, I have seen first-hand the unfolding of technology, and the realisation of what Bill Gates describes as 'business at the speed of thought". Now, working from abroad, I can read documents forwarded from my office via my BlackBerry, a hand-held device that combines cell-phone with many features of my laptop. As I wait at the airport, I can log on to www.jamaicaobserver.com and read the news.<P class=StoryText align=justify>But such devices will be wasted if the population is not properly educated. We see people with fancy cell phones who don't know that they can be useful databases, diaries and alarm clocks. We see the most atrocious English on the internet, and cringe to think of the comments about our educational system in Jamaica.<P class=StoryText align=justify>I have to say that I don't envy today's educators. Back when I did my stint in the classroom at Calabar, the youngsters did not have cell phones, video games or ipods, and it was relatively easy to help them to develop a habit of reading. Parents have also been seduced by these various electronic devices, and the time we should be taking to monitor our children's Internet behaviour is spent looking at our own monitors. The same thing may be happening with some teachers. Research is showing millions of hours lost on the job to employees who are surfing the web and taking personal calls on their cell phones.<P class=StoryText align=justify>So while the world is striding ahead, communicating, managing time, reaching out to the less fortunate, making lucrative trade deals, using our own reggae music to promote themselves on YouTube and elsewhere, we could become the lazy consumer rather than the busy producer.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Reports are that porn and gambling