Can We Fix It?  Yes We Can! - Educational & Technological Revolution

The Corning Glass videos reminded me of the unbelievability of the 1987 Macintosh commercial that predicts an iPad, with voice recognition assistant.  While there are those who think that the reality of totally interlinked computer glass and invisible wearable computer sensor inputs and outputs is something far into the future, you only have to go back to 1983, just over thirty years into the past to see how fast things are changing.  In 1983, it had been ten years since a cellular phone was invented, and the FCC would finally approve them for consumer use in September of that year, and three months earlier, in June, Steve Jobs gave a speech at a conference about the future of computing, that was spot on for the next thirty years.  At one point he asks if anyone owns any type of personal computer and you can tell by the laughing response it is a couple or none, because he then asks who has used one or seen one.  This was a speech given just over thirty years ago and he mentions several technologies that we now use every day, the iPad (computer in a book), computers in every home (which sounded insane because practically no one, even at a future tech conference owned one), Google street view, Siri, mobile computing, and the App store.  It is an hour-long recording, but would be interesting listening during all the holiday driving to come.   

Quite frankly, the Corning Glass commercial almost seems more believable in comparison.  Some of the glass technologies in the video already exist, they are just not fully automated and networked, some are not yet commercially available or affordable.  And somehow, we must educate the generation that will make them a reality with a student to computer ratio of eight to one, large portions of the internet filtered out, and flat textbooks written in 2010.  The coming change for education seems almost insurmountable with the current system and might conceivably take a dramatic failure to finally make the changes necessary to stay relevant and meet the education needs of the future. 

If you are from the Midwest, you might know that Joplin, MO schools were completely wiped out in 2011, they lost buildings and materials and basically had to start from scratch.  Wisely, the school board and district leaders took the time to re-imagine what education looks like and three years later after surviving in temporary housings, finally opened the Franklin Technology Center Complex and the high school.  I heard the superintendent speak at a technology conference about the changes and planning for a totally different future during that reconstruction time and it while it was a hard transition, it seemed like Joplin might be the place for forward thinking educators to flex their know-how and really push the envelope of education.  I would be curious to take a peek now and see if their trajectory has taken them forward, or stalled in the bindings of the past. 

When technology and changing education are discussed, it is often about one-to-one tech programs, flexible scheduling, online schooling, and flipped classrooms.  While each of these things are elements of technology, they are all still rooted in a traditional construct of get the information, practice the information.  If the challenges presented to students do not focus more on creative problem solving without restrictions and collaboration and with other students, teachers, professionals, and community contributors, the creativity needed to bring the advancements of our possible future to fruition may indeed be the stuff of dreams.  The next Steve Jobs, is not sitting somewhere in a cubicle working in obscurity, she or he is sitting in a classroom somewhere trying to solve the problems of the world armed only with a piece of notebook paper, posting content online under the table typing with his thumbs.  So before you take the phone away, ask yourself, what can he teach me?  Where can that technology be used to enhance learning rather than distract?  Am I relevant to the jobs and problems these students will encounter when they graduate?  You have all probably heard that we are preparing students for jobs that do not yet exist, but teachers have been doing this for years.  You do not have to know the job they will have to give them the best possible chance at success, we prepare engineers every day for their career, and most teachers could not design a plane or satellite.  Not knowing exactly what their job will be should not hold us back from giving them the communication, collaboration, and creativity needed to meet any challenge, or serve as an excuse to not be relevant.

I am excited for the changes that will come in my long lifetime, I can hardly fathom the things I will one day learn from my grandchildren, should I ever have any.  Staying current with technology is not easy, but it does get easier.  The more flexible you become, the more technology you adopt, the easier the next step becomes.  It is why our youth today are so adaptable, in their short lives technology has changed dramatically and they are more comfortable with the constant “upgrades” than those from a time of slower change.  They are not afraid of the technological differences, they embrace them and bring them to each other to share. Weinberger tells us as leaders we must approach these differences openly.  The speed of technology and generation changes is increasing exponentially, so if leaders are not willing to put in the time to learn new things and stay on top of the changing landscape, they will quickly find themselves replaced by those who are willing to always adapt.  Being a lifetime learner is an important quality in a leader and whether that learning is from others, from institutions, or from your own explorations, you must always seek out new worlds and new civilizations and boldly go …