Why it’s so hard to plan
I was sorting through some boxes and came across some old newspapers used for packing material. I couldn’t resist taking a look to see how old they were and what interesting information they may contain. (No, I’m not the most efficient box-sorter. Yes, I’m easily distracted.)
It turned out I had the business section of the Seattle Times from February 22, 1981. What caught my eye was this advertisement for computer systems. Look at these beefy machines! The top of the line computer has an 80 million character hard disk, for only $14,800!
Adjusting for inflation, this system cost the equivalent of $32,990 in today’s dollars. Coincidentally, that is almost the exact amount on a quote I received a couple of days ago for 16 laptop computers. This is way more than simply getting sixteen computers today for the price of one 25 years ago. The hard drive on each single laptop stores 750 times the memory of this old machine, and each one holds over 19,000 times more RAM.
That means that for roughly the same level of spending, I can buy 12,000 times more hard drive capacity and 304,000 times more RAM. On top of it, the newer computers use technologies unheard of back then - wireless networking, DVD burners, and a huge amount of software built in.
That’s one human generation for all that change. It has happened in the lifetime of the newest teachers just starting in their classrooms. This level of technological change will undoubtedly continue into the future. This means the power of computers will grow at such a pace that we literally can’t understand yet what we will be able to do with them, and that the cost of entry-level computers will drop even further. For instance, there is far more computing capacity in the average cell phone than in that old computer system - and they give those away for free!
So, how do you plan for a future that is, truly speaking, unimaginable? The biggest factor in the successful use of technology is changed educational practice. We may not know exactly what the future holds, but we can start creating now the active, student-centered learning environments that will be fully prepared to use technology when - not if - it gets to be cheaper than purchasing textbooks. The best part is that this is the best way to teach anyway, technology or not.