Manuel Castells

 For the first time, entire planet in a capitalist system  Global economy based on ‘core activities’: finance, tech, communication, networks of producers of goods and services  Global economy is informational: core activities rely on knowledge & information

“A network is a set of interrelated units that depend on each other for the performance of their common task”  A new economic actor: the network enterprise ◦ Constituted around the business project ◦ Flexible & adaptable ◦ Adjusts to demand, technology, process & product ◦ Needs high-speed transportation and communication ◦ Emergence of flexible work: temp, freelance, etc.

 Firms must manage contradiction between value of labor and transient workers  Workers need to acquire and update specialized knowledge  Labor unions’ changing role from firm-based representation to political representation  Individualization of work and its sustainability

4 changes in education:  Quantity: ◦ Explosion in number of computers ◦ Disparities in student/computer ratios and effectiveness ◦ 1996: 98% of all schools had a computer ◦ 2009: 97% of PS classrooms had a computer ◦ Internet access: 64%  93%

 Quality: ◦ Positive effects overall ◦ But: influence of context (school, teacher training, family influence…)  Organization: the knowledge-creating school ◦ Teaching & learning based on creating skills ◦ Technology may extend student autonomy and free up teachers’ time for research ◦ Schools intra- and interconnected to share knowledge

 Purpose: Schools must teach the use of technology to help students find information, and… “…generate specific knowledge in an endless process of redefinition of skills, depending on the tasks to be performed and the context of the performance.”

 Internet diffusion: ◦ 1998: million users worldwide ◦ 2011: 2.1 billion  Deep implications for social movements  Difficulty of censoring information  Internet as extension of existing communities, which are increasingly based on affinity rather than space.

 Increasing income polarization  Extreme poverty  Social exclusion  Widespread increase of inequality in countries and worldwide  Current framing of ICT’s within capitalism a major factor in rising inequality

 Flexibility & global reach  Education, information, science & technology critical but uneven  Networked/individualized economy increases people’s isolation  Widespread feminization of poverty  Gender & racial discrimination, digital divide  Crisis of the welfare state

 Space of places and space of flows: “there is, at the same time, spatial concentration and decentralization of activities and human settlements.”  Global city as composite of bits of urban centers where flows are enabled

 Timeless time: ◦ Electronic circuits allow for light-speed communication, compression of time ◦ De-sequencing: clock time was more ordered. Timeless time breaks predictable patterns (in careers, biological cycles, etc.) and allows for endless recombining.

“There is a dramatic gap between our technological over-development and our social underdevelopment” “After conquering the power of life or death over our own species, we may well follow our death wish”

 Examples of developments analyzed by Castells – how have things changed since 1999?  How do Castells’ timeless time and space of flows inform educators’ and technologists’ practices?  What to make of the knowledge-creating school? Is it a desirable/likely direction?