May 27, 2008
May 18, 2008
A Prototype for Digital Education
In this recent article from the Pulpit, by Bob Cringely, (http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/) Bob discusses Education and Technology in his own inimitable way.
“Every generation disapproves of the one that follows and barely claims to understand the generation that follows that. It's the way we are, simply because we tend to see everything in the context of our own experience -- an experience that is changed by age, the times we grew up in, and yes by technology.”
“I'm from the Baby Boom generation and we, by our sheer numbers, have had an inordinate effect on what it means to be "perfect in every way." But our time is passing quickly just as technology explodes after 50 years of
Having set a nice foundation, Cringely then gets into the nitty-gritty of his analysis.
“Parents who are today in their 20s -- parents of the kids who go to school with my three sons ages 6, 3 and 1 -- grew up with personal computers, mobile phones and video games. More importantly, THEIR PARENTS did, too.”
“This new generation of parents lives in a digital world and has little patience with analog traditions. Where we (Baby Boomers) think of bricks and books they think of electrons and photons. Where we remember what time the library opens, they wonder why it should ever close. The world will shortly be more theirs than ours and they'll be calling the shots with the result that many aspects of life, including education, will change forever. This is inevitable and can't be halted.”
He’s got a point. Once the Baby Boomers leave the scene, as they are beginning to do, the entire notion of education is likely to change just as much as the notion of work is predicted to change.
“This emerging world will be very different in many ways. How many of these kids expect to someday earn a pension? Surveys show that few of them expect Social Security to even survive until their retirement -- if they can ever retire at all.”
“Where we went through a couple career changes they'll go through half a dozen or more in a life that will outlast ours by 20 years. Growing up is changing from becoming what you will be to becoming what you will be for a while, and that has a huge impact on the educational requirements placed on our society. If you expect to start your career over half a dozen times, how do you prepare for careers 2-6?”
Perhaps the more relevant question here is: Does anyone want to rely on a social security pension? One of the potential bonuses of changing jobs a half-dozen times is that many of those changes are likely to result in a “trading-up” situation, where a new position is accepted because it is more attractive than the previous position. This certainly isn’t the case for all workers, but knowledge workers stand to gain handsomely from the situation.
“It's easy for old farts like me to assume everybody will learn the way we did, but that's unlikely simply because the underlying assumptions are changing.”
“When I was a kid human labor was cheap and technology was expensive. Today technology is cheap and getting cheaper, while human labor is expensive and becoming more so. Yet our model of education technology is still so defined by that remembered Apple IIe in the corner of the classroom that is it difficult for many to imagine truly pervasive educational technology.”
“This is in large part because there is no way that Apple IIe or any PC is going to somehow expand to replace books and teachers and classrooms. For education, the personal computer is probably a dead end. It's not that we won't continue to have and use PCs in schools, but the market and intellectual momentum clearly lie elsewhere.”
“So forget about personal computers: the future of education probably lies with digital games.”
There’s no doubt that technology has yet to be “embraced” with zeal in education circles as it has been in other sectors, such as government and commerce. Perhaps it’s because those who make the decisions about curriculum (ie hold the purse strings) are Baby Boomers (or older), and really don’t understand the total potential of all the educational possibilities born of technology. Let’s not forget that many teachers are in the same boat as the administrators, technology-wise.
Digital games eh… hmm.
“I say "digital games" rather than "video games" or "PC games," or "handheld games," because the platform doesn't matter as much as the application. Whether it is a PC or Mac, xBox or PS3, PSP or Nintendo DS, gaming has done an excellent job of proving that the application is more important than the platform on which it runs.”
He’s right on point here; it’s the software, not the hardware, where the value lies.
“Stories came out this week from the NPD Group announcing that 72 percent of Americans play PC or video games with 58 percent of those played online. Those numbers -- which apparently don't include kids, by the way -- are HUGE and explain all by themselves much of what is happening to traditional mass media like TV, magazines and newspapers.”
“We're spending so much time playing games that we don't have as much time for those older pursuits. Only drive-time radio thrives and that's just because we don't have a practical model for playing games while driving.”
“Digital games are a bigger business than
Wow, that last point is persuasive in its own right, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that there is a correlation to education.
“Clearly the best instructional platform is one that already attracts users to spend countless hours in its mastery. At this point it is a relatively simple matter to bend some games to the will of education and training.”
“I am not saying schools will disappear. I AM saying that new modes of instruction will emerge and they will inevitably involve processing power and context. We took our kids to
And this is how it is likely to develop too, one application at a time. You begin with a podcast for museums, and you end up with a revolution in education.
“My vision for future digital education has a key difference from traditional 20th century education. A fundamental aspect of education has always been that it comes to abrupt and quite specific endpoints associated with various cultural rites of passage. We graduate. There is a first day of school and a last day of school. At some highly specific and anticipated moment we disconnect from the education mother ship and go off on our own, often never to return.”
“Why?”
“Well to make room in school for someone else, of course.”
“Why?”
“In my future model the "school" is only a PC/game machine/mobile phone/headset thingee that clues me in about everything around me and helps me learn what I need to know. Why would I ever give that up?”
“The truth is we won't. If we have more students, we just build more devices. Classrooms aren't absolutely necessary, nor will location even matter.”
Pervasive life-long learning, ubiquitous connectivity, commodity electronic devices, are we back in 1998? Certainly, ten years later, all of this is much more tangible, and indeed possible, whereas in 1998, it was still only a twinkle in Web 1.0’s eye.
May 3, 2008
May 1, 2008
The Open source 'Brotherhood'
In this recent article from Silicon.com, Martin Brampton discusses the open source software and the reality of the people who comprise the open source software community.
“We all know IT is inclined to favour the young. But people working on open source projects are much more dramatically grouped than IT as a whole. Studies over the past few years have shown that three-quarters of the participants were less than 30 years old. A clear majority were single and most had no children. But the most extreme characteristic was that almost all open source developers are male. In short, open source software is largely written by young men with no family ties.”
Finally, the truth is out.
“Open source projects can be split into at least three different business models. One is based on making software freely and openly available because it will enable the sale of related services - a model used by IBM and many others on numerous occasions.”
“Another is where commercial organisations see a need for software to exist but do not seek direct financial benefit from it. A prime example of this is Google's support for the development of the Firefox browser.”
“The third model is the host of projects that are wholly reliant on volunteers. Generally, only the largest of these achieve any significant income, and many do not seek any.”
Paradoxically,
“The whole thrust of the open software movement was originally based on an attempt to sustain the culture that existed in earlier days, when algorithms were freely published and code swapped between developers.
“Despite this background, which should be reinforced by the legal situation that entitles anyone to use parts of an open source work for non-commercial purposes, projects seem extremely reluctant to utilise the work of other groups, or to agree common standards”
"Unfortunately, this lack of co-operation, endemic in the general run of open source projects, is one of the factors that leads to inefficiency and waste. At the best of times, most projects fail, maybe in the region of 95 per cent. One reason for this is there are too many projects and too few volunteer developers. A more co-operative approach would utilise the available effort more effectively.”
Certainly
http://software.silicon.com/applications/0,39024653,39182126,00.htm?r=1
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