Lightning in a Bottle

And yet another interesting technology option popped up in web articles today. HP has announced the development of the “memory spot”, a tiny wireless memory chip that can be place on virtually anything. Only around one or two millimeters on a side, the chip is embedded on a small adhesive circle about the size of a paper punch. The prototype holds 512k, but in production they expect to increase that by at least three or four times. In quantities, they hope to get the cost down to around a dollar.

This is not simply a memory chip - it also has a processor. It’s really a tiny little computer. To put this in perspective, when I started in computers in 1982, an Apple ][e computer cost around $2,000. It had only 48k of memory! Adjusting for inflation, that Apple would cost $4,000 today. This tiny computer that HP has developed will cost 1/4000 of that, yet have more than ten times the memory storage.

And, as I said, it is wireless. What can you do with it? Imagine sending a picture of the beloved granddaughter playing soccer to Grandma and Grandpa, and in the corner is a small circle. They place their wireless reader over the dot, and in moments they hear the voice of their grandchild describing kicking her first goal. Or dots in textbooks that download video files to a handheld computer, or data files for experiments into a graphing calculator. A student-created guidebook of the local beach has audio files describing the sea life you can find at low tide.

That’s what we are imagining today. In fact, the question What can we do with it? will be answered again and again with innovative ideas we can’t even yet imagine. It’s our kids that will get to do that - and it would sure be cool if they were offered the chance develop those new ideas in school.

Infoworld has a great article on using browser-based productivy applications. (In other words, replacements for programs like Word or Excel that are run off the web and through Internet Explorer, Firefox, or whatever web browser you happen to use.) Many are free, and can do most of what the programs you currently use can do.

In addition to the advantage of not needing to install the software on your computer, many of the web-based applications have collaboration features, so that multiple people can share and edit the same documents.

The article found that there are many options available, and gives a pretty good overview of the ups and downs of working this way. The end opinion seems to be that there are a lot of possibilities in this approach, but it’s not quite ready for prime time yet. Knowing how much pressure already exists on the bandwidth in many school districts, I would think this is still and “out there” solution for a lot of schools, but it’s not that long until virtually everyone will have the network access to make this work.

As a science teacher and ed tech person, I’ve always been enthused about the use of technology in teaching science. More to the point, I’ve been excited about kids using technology to do science. After all, real scientists do!

Still, I haven’t seen as much activity in this area as I would like. Part of it is that science-oriented peripherals (Digital microscopes, probeware, etc.) are specialized and somewhat expensive. Part of it is also that integrating these tools is more complicated than, say, adding word processing to writing instruction or web-based research tools to a social studies class. Science data-collecting equipment and software is more complex, and managing a lab-based instructional environment is even more complex. (And I suppose a big part of it has been that science isn’t on the accountability chart. Yet. But it’s coming!)

That’s why I was pleased to read about the Sand Diego School District’s grant project. The press release hasn’t got a lot of detail, but what I see I like. In particular, there is a real emphasis on teacher training and the development of professional learning communities. That’s going to help regardless of whether or not technology is put to use. (It also sounds a lot like our No Limit math and technology grant. Great minds think alike!) I hope to track down more information as to the kind of technology and activities they have been using so far, and what they see using in the future. I’ll post what I find here. (via TechLearning.

I’m trying to decide if I should be worried or excited about the impact of this year’s 10th-grade WASL on technology use in schools. On the one hand, finding out that almost half of our students don’t make the standard for math would seem like a great opportunity to direct people to research-proven technology tools that can help kids learn more effectively. (The best are listed at the Metiri “Technology Solutions that Work” webpage. This is a for-fee site with login required, but has been licensed for Washington state educators. Contact your district technology director for access. If he or she doesn’t know how, send them to your local ETSC director.) Particularly with the significant financial resources that are being directed to students that didn’t pass, it would be possible to invest in some of these systems, equipment, and methods without needing to dip into already-stretched budgets.

Unfortunately, I don’t expect to see that happening. Part of it is that the people who will be making the decisions on how to address this challenge are probably largely unaware of the technology options available. (This is natural, as we still seem to have a significant divide between the Curriculum and Ed Tech cultures in many of the schools. That in itself is a long discussion.) Another part is that many people under pressure will stick with what seems like the safest choice, which is also natural. In many places, will probably mean more extensive, intensive application of the current curriculum and teaching techniques.

Dave Thornburg had an interesting response to this approach. He said “If the medicine you are giving the patient makes them sick, why would you think that giving them more would make them better?” I know that’s a glib metaphor and can be easily argued against (the problem might be that the patient is sick not because of the medicine, but not enough medicine, etc.), but the bottom line is that we have to be willing to look at new options. For many of our students, the current classroom model isn’t working. I hope in at least a few places we can take this challenge and use it to encourage more innovative approaches to helping our kids, rather than pulling back.

We had a great discussion at our regional Tech Forum yesterday on the topic of one-to-one computing. We had a panel representing three nearby districts that are in various stages of implementation. Jim Golubich and David Watson came from Shoreline, which has introduced a middle-school program this year with all students receiving iBooks; Dennis McClellan shared a program from Kent with a 100 student school-within-a-school using HP Tablets, also just starting this year; and John Newsom from the Lakeside school, a private 5-12 school with all students using PC laptops, which has been ongoing for two years.

I didn’t moblog the discussion (I was facilitating, and I’m not that capable), but out of an hour and a quarter, here were the things that I was most intrigued with:

• Contrary to what I’ve read in other sources, they have a lot of problems with damage to the computers. There have been few (if any) instances of theft, but the computers are constantly in need of repair. Some kids broke their loaners before they could get their original computer back from repair.
• Because of the issue above, they all recommend that you pay for whatever service contract the vendor offers that covers accidental damage. It will quickly pay for itself.
• Teachers are catching on fairly quickly on how to take advantage of the equipment.
• Battery life is reduced (and hard drive lifespan as well) if students use their computers as MP3 players. That keeps the hard drives going constantly.
• Dennis felt that the Tablet PC interface and the use of OneNote were very compelling in a classroom setting. Some students are using the recording function to do things like submit recordings of musical instrument practice or foreign language exercises.
• John found that screen breakage was much less of an issue after switching to 12-inch screens. The torque on larger screens is just too high for the kind of use that teenagers put them through.
• The theoretical possibility of replacing textbooks with digital media has not yet taken place. The price of digital equivalents (if available) is still quite high, and curriculum departments are not quite ready to make that transition.

There was consensus that the one-to-one programs were appearing to have a significant positive impact on the learning environments at each school. There was also consensus that the programs are very expensive, and that none of the laptops being used at any of the schools were truly ready for the kind of use and abuse that students will put them through. In the long term, the value of these programs will be in helping to prepare for more widespread implementation when we have access to portable technologies that are robust enough to withstand the school environment and inexpensive enough to be widely adopted.

Thanks Jim, David, Dennis and John for a great discussion!

On a related note, ASCD Smartbrief today pointed to an article on the move to digital replacements for books, papers and pencils in Australia. Despite the experiences of our local folks discussed above, down under there seems to be a bit more activity in this area. I particularly liked this quote:

Jenny Fergusson, the director of the Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre, puts it like this: “Textbooks are the one-way transmission of a uniform version of knowledge. Digital learning is the construction of knowledge from multiple sources.

“Culturally, this is a very confronting idea. With textbooks you had a manageable version of reality and a sense that you could understand the world. Now the overwhelming volume of information is a problem.”

Overwhelming for everyone - and if it’s overwhelming for the adults in the system, how do we help the kids?

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.

The $100 OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project headed by Nicholas Negroponte is having a ripple effect. For instance, it’s a pretty good sign as to how seriously the project is being taken by Microsoft that Bill Gates felt the need to disparage the project and suggest Microsoft is working on alternatives using cell phones.

The newest indication of the impact of this project is that Intel CEO Paul Otellini showed off a new $400 laptop they are developing called the Edu-Wise. The announcement was in Brazil (a hotbed of open source software and a partner in the OLPC project), so the only news article online about it right now is from S?o Paulo, and can be viewed in translated form here through Google. It’s projected to be available in 2007. Otellini is quite up front that the device is in direct response to the OLPC project. While it’s still just a proposal, it’s just more proof that access to inexpensive portable computing appropriate to schools is a matter of when, not if. We have to shake off the mindset of computers and expensive being inseparable. Our long-term challenge is not in how to afford computers; it’s how to change education to take full advantage of them.

[Thanks, Engadget!]

Kathy Sierra has another great blog entry today over at Creating Passionate Users. She starts off by sharing a discussion with her teenage daughter about MySpace, which leads to observations about what makes services like MySpace work. Part of it is what she refers to as lightning release cycles. Users constantly make suggestions for improvements, and the developers constantly upgrade the system, often daily. It’s come to be an expectation that the system will be in a constant state of change and growth.

Contrast that with schools for a minute. How often do we “upgrade” the textbooks? How often do we adjust the curriculum? The software environments that our kids are living in are in a continually evolving, but school probably looks pretty much the same as it did last year, or five years ago, or even twenty years ago. No wonder there is a sense of disconnect for many kids.

I suppose that the constant change may not be healthy. Kathy uses the term “code crack” to describe the need of the users for their latest dose of change. I certainly want more stability in school than we see in the software industry, but I would even more like to see an ability of schools to take on these new tools and put them to greater use.

This idea came up in a different manner in a podcast by Wesley Fryer yesterday. (It was an international discussion, but two northwesterners represented us well - Jeff Allen of Olympic ESD in Bremerton, and Mark Ahlness from Arbor Heights Elementary in Seattle.) One of his guests on the “Skypecast” was Ewan McIntosh, and he made a point that I really liked. Instead of following the lead of others in adopting new tools such as blogging or wikis, education should be taking the lead in developing new and creative uses of these tools. Yeah! That’s the attitude I want to see. I don’t want to sit around (or expect teachers to sit around) and wait for somebody from outside our profession to come and tell us which technologies we should be using and how we should be using them. Don’t get me wrong; I love and highly value the insights of outsiders (that’s why I linked to a blog from a software designer!), but I don’t want to give them the keys to the schoolhouse.

My son left on a band trip this afternoon. He spent the last two days packing and sorting, trying to make sure he had everything he needed.

About an hour before he was picked up to go to the airport, he was online chatting with his bandmates, and it turned out they had one whole chatroom going just on the topic of “What did you forget to pack?” As I looked over his shoulder, there were reminders flying back and forth about black socks, cellphone chargers, and other necessary elements of teenage life and band performances.

It was fun to watch how much this communication technology is integral to their school lives, even though the technology in question had nothing to do with school. Very often my son works on his homework projects with classmates using instant messaging. Sometimes it’s no more than checking what the assignment is, and sometimes it’s actually collaborating on team projects.

I wish we could stop being paranoid about messaging and similar technologies, and figure out how to harness their appeal and real power to the benefit of student learning. The district just passed a new bond, with a significant amount of money for technology. (The first ever!) I’m hoping we will see new communication tools in the district that will allow this kind of collaboration to take place within the school itself!

Microsoft and Intel have teamed with three different companies (so far) to roll out their new Ultra-Mobile PC, or UMPC. You can read articles about it here and here, or visit the Origami Project (Microsoft’s code name for it) website.

The devices all have 7-inch touch screens, and use the full version of Windows XP Tablet PC. They also incorporate a new set of software add-ons called Touch Pack that improve the touch interface, including an intriguing onscreen touch keyboard. (Unlike the standard Tablet PC, you can use your fingers or thumbs for touch input, rather than the official stylus.)

This is version 1.0 of the platform, but it sure looks promising to me as an education solution. The apparent price goal is in the $500 range, but these early-adopter models will be more like $1,000 and up. The battery life is too short, too (only around three hours or so). However, if they can get the cost down to the goal and increase the battery life, these could be great classroom devices.

There’s a marketing video that got loose on the Internet before Microsoft intended, and in one part about two-thirds of the way through, a young man is using the device in a wallet-like case, with an optional keyboard in the lower part of the case:

I have to admit it makes my little techie heart go pitty-pat. A much bigger screen than a PDA, but much more portable form factor than a laptop. I hope the product is successful enough to make the transition to classroom use, because education itself isn’t a big enough market to support it. And I hope Microsoft supports its use in classrooms, unlike their approach with Pocket PCs.