Come for a ride in my Trabant

Students across Victoria will be rejoicing in the fact that they have a long weekend. Teachers however, will be turning up to work to experience the wonder of the 'Ultranet', for most it will be their first look.
The Ultranet is a fantastic idea, it was even better 6 or so years ago when work first started on it. The dream was for the Ultranet to do all of the amazing things Web 2.0 was offering teachers, but to put it into a safer environment for the students. What eventuated was the online equivalent of communist cars.

The communist leaders could see that transport was a good thing, it was obvious, but sadly not everyone could access this means of getting from one place to another. "We will build them a car" they said, and they set about doing so. What eventuated were the distinctive communist cars such as pictured to the left. These machines were not good. They were poorly engineered death traps. In fact, during the war enemies of Germany considered the cars driven by the Nazi's as allies as they killed so many of their drivers. To say that these cars were not as good as others which could be purchased around the world is quite an understatement, they did however, intermittently, transport people which was of course the core business of the car.

So too, the Ultranet does provide some of the core functions of the wider Web 2.0 toolbox, if you are lucky enough to be online while it is not in the shop with techies looking under its bonnet. The tools are there, they're just more cumbersome to use. In a Web 2.0 car you adjust the seat back an inch by lifting the lever and lightly pushing back until in position. In the Ultranet car you undo the bolts, take the seat out, drill new holes in the supports and then screw the seat back in. Firstly however you'll have to run down to the hardware store to get new bolts as the holes are now a different size. But in the end, you are sitting where you want to be.

It is only early in the production of this model however, and first runs always have some bugs (Did anyone else have the terrible first model Holden VN?). The concern for me is not the current issues. The concern for me is that the automobile industry is innovating at great pace; hybrids, electic cars, fuel saving technologies, emmission controls. So too are the techno geniuses at google and the like. Web tools are already far ahead of the functionality of the Ultranet and moving forward. My greatest concern is how big will the gap get?