“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.
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