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0-9763858-0-5
$25.00
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192pp. 7.69 x 9.44
B&W illustrations
Technology, Science
Summer
2005
KnowledgeContext, publisher
Quality Books Inc, distributor
Amazon, retailer
Advance Praise
“Fish don't
notice water and most of society doesn't think about technology. But
technology grows ever more powerful, and blindly accepting or rejecting
it grows ever more dangerous. The critical thinking process described by
Aznar opens a door to understanding through which every citizen in our
country should walk.”
Karl Pister
Chancellor Emeritus
University of California at Santa Cruz
----------
“Technology
infuses everything we do. Like a gathering storm, it has become the
fastest moving, most powerful new element of our natural world. Like any
force of nature, it is something we should study well, to chart a course
to a better future, a course that takes care of our loved ones along the
way. Only a lifelong learner can be a good captain in our technological
world, and this scintillating, optimistic book will help you get your
sea legs. Read Technology Challenged, consider its advice,
and rejoice. This is a wondrous time to be alive.”
John Smart
President
Acceleration Studies Foundation
----------
“As a professor at a university surrounded by passionate
technology users, I found Aznar's book inspiring. I have adopted it for
use in the Technology Innovation course.”
Raymond Blackwood
University of Advancing Technology
www.uat.edu
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“Technology
Challenged is a passionate and personal voyage of discovery into
today's complicated world of technology. Here educators and parents can
find a simple road map to understanding technology and find a new
approach to get across technology’s culture and wisdom to children of
all ages.”
Dom Lindars
Senior Director
Oracle Corporation
----------
“Having tracked technology on surprising pathways to its
secret dumping grounds in the slums of China and India, I have witnessed
both sides of the technology coin — the glory as well as the horror. Our
very survival as a species requires that we fully appreciate both
possibilities. Anyone concerned about the life and death relationship
between our planet's future and technology, should read Technology
Challenged.”
Jim Puckett
Coordinator
Basel Action Network
----------
“...Technology Challenged [is] an
interesting and pertinent account of the issues behind the concept of
technological literacy. It provides a very readable explanation of
the central issues of how technology impacts on us and what we as humans
should know and be able to do in relation to the ever expanding role of
technology that permeates our lives.”
Robert Wicklein
Professor, College of Education
University of Georgia
----------
“The goal of
a Library Media Teacher is to make sure that students have the necessary
tools that lead to Information Literacy. I would recommend
Technology Challenged as a guide in this endeavor.
Hopefully, the next generation will lead us on a path of balance that
embraces the assets of technology while protecting our environment.
Information leads to understanding and power!”
Sylvia Ellefsen
Library Media Teacher
Westlake School
Santa Cruz, California
----------
“Aznar tackles the important issue of how we, as a
society, evaluate our technology. With the power to feed the world or to
destroy it, technology is worth thinking about.”
Cathy Barlow
Dean, Watson School of Education
University of North Carolina at
Wilmington
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Technology Challenged is being
adopted as a textbook by:
Becker College
University of Advancing Technology
University of California / COSMOS
University of Georgia
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syllabus
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Technology Challenged
Understanding Our Creations & Choosing Our Future
Written by Miguel F. Aznar
Why to Buy:
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Enhances technological literacy.
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Gives a simple strategy for understanding and
evaluating any technology
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Makes sense of rapid change by revealing the
underlying patterns in technology's history and future
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Connects to a middle school curriculum on
critical thinking, helping parents and teachers support the learning process
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Empowers readers to identify and choose
technology that is good for them, their community, and our civilization
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Supports the philanthropic activities of
KnowledgeContext, a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit corporation through a
portion of the profits from sale of this book.
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Tells many interesting stories.
About the Book Topic:
Technology has transformed our world from the
first stone tools through development of agriculture, writing, printing,
global transportation, global communication, computing, genetic engineering,
and much more. When we used the same technology as our parents and
their parents, we needed no more than to know how to operate a few objects.
Today, technology's generations pass more quickly than human generations.
Further, our choices in education, career, politics, and health are
predicated on rapidly changing technology. How do we understand enough
about our creations that we can make informed choices? How can we
choose our individual and collective future?
Book Description:
Stories from the Hawaiian Bobtail squid's use of
bacteria to simulate moonlight to an Australian aboriginal tribe's
mythology-based evaluation of axes and canoes illustrate a nine-step
strategy for understanding and evaluating any technology. By painting
a big picture view of technology, this book offers context, an antidote to
information overload. From that perspective, it reveals the simple
patterns underlying all technology, allowing us to see what does not change
in a technological world of rapid change.
Audience:
Author Information:
Miguel F. Aznar is Executive Director of
KnowledgeContext. He is passionate about teaching how to understand and
evaluate technology. Mr. Aznar discovered this calling after studying
electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California
at Berkeley and working as a software engineer (NASA, Amdahl) and management
consultant (Ernst & Young, AT&T). He speaks publicly on this issue of
technological literacy at conferences and on the media.
Comparative Titles:
None directly comparable, but concepts from the
following books are integrated into a more accessible and useful form:
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Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond,
Norton & Company, 1999, ISBN 0393317552, $14.95 (evolution of technology)
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Connections, James Burke, Little, Brown
and Company, 1987, ISBN 0316116726, $23.95 (challenges of predicting
technology)
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The Pinball Effect, James Burke, Little, Brown
and Company, 1996, ISBN 0316116025, $23.95 (patterns of change in
technology)
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Beyond Engineering: How Society Shapes
Technology, Robert Pool, Oxford University Press, 1997, ISBN 0195107721,
$30.00 (roles played in changing technology)
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Age of Spiritual Machines, Ray Kurzweil,
Viking, 1999, ISBN 0670882178, $25.95 (how technology changes)
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Non-Zero: The Logic of Human Destiny,
Robert Wright, Pantheon, 2000, ISBN 0679442529, $27.50 (where technology
comes from)
Contact:
Miguel
F. Aznar
KnowledgeContext
800
Brommer Street, Suite 28
Santa
Cruz, CA 95062
(831)
465-6513
aznar@knowledgecontext.org
Table of Contents:
(click on the links below to read the book in HTML format)
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Concordance

The 99 most commonly appearing words are
sized proportionally to frequency of occurrence:
(click on the graphic above to go to
Amazon's concordance page, which hyperlinks each word to an online
version of the book) |
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