In the Valentine article they write, “60 percent of jobs now require technological skills” (p298). I wonder what was counted as a technological skill to arrive at that number? Which skills are the most frequently required?

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While reading this article from the UK I wondered whether/how smaller countries will develop differently in their relationships with new information technologies?

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On p306 of Digital Generation? they thrust social practices into the limelight as the thing to really be concerned about. Also, as they say at the beginning, their study is geared toward public policy, and I wonder what public policy tools are there to affect social practices? Are there things the UK can do that the US can’t because of different political climates?

The essay ends with an appeal to change the way ICTs are introduced into the classroom, with an eye to making them “cool tools” – I don’t know about the UK, but is that sort of public policy likely in the US? I would love to see Bush appoint a commission to make computers seem cool. They could put the Pentagon in charge of the strategic communications.

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At the end of “Digital Generation?” there are only two endnotes. I can’t even figure out where endnote #1 emerges from the text, but it’s a dandy:

“All of which, of course, is to set aside the question of the immeasurably greater disparities operating at the global scale. See, for example, Holderness (1998) and Kitchin (1998)” (p313).

Could it be myopic if much more attention is given to divides within countries when those divides are dwarfed by those on a global scale? Or is it not so worth looking into the global frame because there’s no institutions in place ready/willing to do anything about it?