By: Taban Khajehnassiri
The article was an editorial of WWN March 04, 2000. Sometimes, we think others know what we know or what we do have in our minds about something, and that's why we do not try to educate others - people we have daily contacts with - about what we know. ...
I strongly believe that those in Iran who are using the Internet should pay
much more attention to what they are using and the educational side of the
new media they have under their fingertips in the age of computers and
communications. The Information Technology has been pacing so fast and
progressing so rapidly in the world, and inevitably we should take advantage
of it if we want to pace with the world, but at the same time, the message
is clear that we have to pace with this widespread media which has been
facilitated people-to-people connections as well as information exchanges
throughout the world much more rapidly and intellectually.
Sometimes, we think others know what we know or what we do have in our minds
about something, and that's why we do not try to educate others - people we
have daily contacts with - about what we know. Mostly we find it a bad
manner in the society to talk about our findings and knowledge. Sometimes,
we think what we know is something really valuable and our own property, so
we do not show any interest to loose is easily and spread it out to the
general public, because we consider it as missing some of our future
opportunities.
On the other hand, it sounds that people around the world or let me say
first here in our country, our fellow Iranian people would not like to ask
any (further if they do) technical questions about the required know-how of
something technologically new. Based on my own studies and surveys, even
educated individuals try to obtain their needed information only through
academic processes. And when they are finished with their academic studies,
soon they give up updating themselves and the whole idea of research. I have
heard them say 'The Internet is just for fun, you can receive lots of jokes
a day via the Internet, and it is all about the games and music and FUN!' -
Once again, personally, I believed that time can solve such problems as we
go ahead. There is a known saying in our own language that says 'Time can
solve anything!' But in reality, let us say in the time of rapid changes and
fast developments of new technologies, isn't it a must for us to act much
more faster? It has been said even as a key to success on the Internet that
'GIVING FIRST, BEFORE ASKING" - And sometimes, regarding our own traditional
culture and society as far as I can see, it seems to be a much more
difficult task, when we know we have poor educational programs about IT in
our mass media, schools and universities.
A posting of Mr George Pace from Pace Cyber Ventures at
(http://www.this-town.com) in the LED 775 brought me this feeling that I
have to write about 'Educating the General Public' - especially here in Iran
because we are new to the Net.
Givinig examples will make this clear here that we do need educational
programs to educate others in the general public about the Internet: Based
on my own surveys and studies, some of our Iranian people think that the
Internet is merely its E-mail service. I have heard it from executives that
'E-mail is just like a Fax, it is a machine and we can buy it from the
market!' and they continue to talk about it intelligently 'It is so
important for us to use it in our office, E-mail will soon knock down the
Fax Machine.' Although it is true that the communicational aspect of E-mail
is like a Fax, I believe people should be briefed that the power of e-mail
in sending and receiving large files in any kind or format, or in exploring
the WWW, or FTP sites mailing lists and newsgroups off-line has been missed
when we use the notion of Fax to define it. Even some university students
told me about the experiences they had with the Internet, I was shocked,
they said they had seen the Internet and worked with it', and I asked them
to let me know which sites they have visited during their connection, to my
surprise, they asked me immediately: "Is there any other site on the
Internet? Only we could visit the site of Hamshahri' - an Iranian
newspaper -"!! What could I say? These basic questions led me to web site
ThinkTaban.NOW - There I started a survey on around 100 Iranian net users
and I asked them some given questions about using the Internet from Home and
Office, and the services they use on-line, WWW, FTP, Telnet, E-mail ...
Again, surprisingly I found that it is really hard for them to talk about
it, because most of them thought that Internet is just their local BBS's or
the Intranet they use on the Lan of their companies. Some complained that
their direct managers did not grant them the permission to use the Internet
even in cases that they are software engineers, network officers!
George Pace from Pace Cyber Ventures says "Personally, I find the 'general
public' intrigued by the Internet, however a large portion of middle America
is clueless about the Internet, all the flashy bells and whistles etc. that
the higher end web sites have to offer mean absolutely nothing to them." He
continues to provide us with more examples in this regard as:
"Recently, I have participated in several shows for the general public to
promote my site and my business (web related) and am amazed at the lack of
web savvy the everyday person has in their arsenal of wisdom. Example, a
successful, well educated Property Broker came by my booth on a Saturday, to
my surprise, she showed back up Sunday only to explain that she typed in my
URL into the search box in Yahoo and my site did not come (BTW, the site was
listed) but instead, a search result with numerous offerings (1300+)
displayed and she was lost, she had absolutely no idea that you could enter
a URL into the browser command line. She had always "just clicked"
everything!"
"Another couple, whom claim to have been web users, asked me if I was AOL,
they assumed "the web", meaning the entire Internet is simply AOL " with all
the AOL stuff on it"....... I could not make this up, really." adds Pace in
his posting.
Back to Iran, let me write and give you another similar instance. A friend
of mine, returning from the United States, first had no idea about the
Internet when he was in Iran. I asked him about his own experience on the
Internet. He said, "when I was in the United States, I had a good access to
AOL, it was such a nice network, you know, the Internet was just a small
portion of AOL. Internet was nothing interesting, I used AOL for sending and
receiving e-mails, reading selection of news and reports on almost
anything." - I just briefed him that how the Internet cannot be considered
as a small division of AOL.
George Pace has conducted a survey in the United States and his findings can
show us that educating the general public is a must and a global issue at
the same time. He writes about his survey: "I surveyed 2,000 people one
particular weekend. 2,000 out of 2,000 would never buy anything online, use
a credit card online and would not recommend shopping online to their
friends and family. Surprisingly, most web users have seen banner ads on
sites but did not know you could "click on them". Most every person stated
in one form or another "I do not want marketers to harass me".
In some advertisement in our national and local newspapers or magazines we
have read: "Learn Using the Internet Only in One Hour!" Isn't that amazing?
I can talk about the greatness of the Internet for hours and hours, but how
can I teach someone to use the net properly. Yes, to earn some money in an
hour we can teach using the Internet just by saying "OK, we 'click here' to
dial up, then we 'click here' to load the browser, then type for instance
"www.yahoo.com" or "www.altavista.com" in the address field and now there
you are! in the Internet! That's all! What do you think about it?