Obsolete & Emerging Technologies at River Springs Charter School

PART 1 (15 min)
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PART 2 - Future Speculations (6 min)

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Addressing the Global Digital Divide

Retrieved from
http://wiki.uiowa.edu/display/edtech/Page+2+-+Who+is+affected+by+Digital+Divide


As a leader in educational technology, what can you do to help make emerging technologies valuable to others, while maintaining gender, cultural, and socioeconomic sensitivity?

One can see from the global illustration that Africa, Asia, and South America are behind other continents in technology. We also have a digital divide in the US. In 2002, only 9% of families with the income of 30,000s had access to the internet where students could complete homework assignments. According to a Dr. David Thornburg 2009 vodcast, there is only 25% penetration of computers in US.

The key to successful implementation of technology and closing the digital gap has to be training, application guidance (instruction), and technical support. According to Soloway (2009), the newer the technology, the greater the support that is needed, which can be very costly and is usually not provided in the educational environment. A classic example is Linux, a free operating system that is not well supported and therefore, not well adapted either.

Globally, introducing technologies into cultures with little technology requires sensitivity and planning upfront to evaluate best applications of the technology for that culture and to provide necessary training. Even if one has good intentions, ignoring cultural issues can be detrimental to the progress of an area.

Soloway (2009) also makes the point in his audio cast that the cell phone may be the key to leveling the playing field, with billions of cell phones in use and the cost constantly going down.

It becomes a viscous cycle when economics makes advances in technology prohibitive, as illustrated by the following diagram (retrieved from http://mccartermobile-21cq.blogspot.com/2010/06/digital-divide.html)

Red Queens and Increasing Returns

• When you decided to obtain a DVD for your science fiction assignment in Module 4, where did you go to find a movie based on a Philip K. Dick book? Did you rent or purchase a DVD, or did you view it digitally on your computer using Netflix or a similar vendor of video on demand?

Netflix does not have Minority Report with Instant Viewing privileges (yet) so I could have ordered it for delivery from Netflix (takes about 2-3 days) or I would have rented it at a Red Box for $1. However, I chose Minority Report because it is one of my favorites and I had already purchased a DVD copy when it was released in 2002.

• Is the current competition between DVDs and video on demand an example of increasing returns or Red Queens? Justify your response with sound reasoning and specific examples.

At first I thought video on demand was passing DVDs and eventually making them obsolete. However, the price is still higher for video on demand that it is for Netflix or for Red Box rental of DVDs. The video on demand (home.vod.com) that was posted online offered a 1000 minutes subscription for $86. That equates to about 9 videos averaging $10 each. I can rent the DVD at Red Box for $1 each. So now I am thinking they are Red Queens until video streaming becomes less costly or free. If that happens, then these would not be considered to be equivalent technologies that are constantly being updated, and DVDs would be replaced by video on demand, which meets the 4 main criteria (Anderson, 2004 TedTalk) as the price comes down, market share increases, displaces DVDs, and is becoming ubiquitous. As economics favors the free or less costly video on demand, we would see increasing returns to the exclusion or obsolescence of DVDs. It would be the case of a cheaper product. The DVDs will be left behind and replaced. Moore’s law predicts this will probably happen in the near future as technology exponentially grows.
Here is the link to the Anderson 2004 TedTalk:http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/chris_anderson_of_wired_on_tech_s_long_tail.html


• Where do you think DVDs and video on demand are on the four criteria of McLuhan’s tetrad?

Video on Demand may eventually replace and make obsolete DVDs (if it becomes ubiquitous and the price goes close to free) which replaced and made obsolete the VHS.

Disruptive Technologies - Second Life

• How is Second Life a disruptive technology? Second Life (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b72CvvMuD6Q) came on the scene fast and furious and is exponentially growing. Phillip Rosedale in his 2008 TedTalk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b72CvvMuD6Q) predicts it will soon replace the web in volume, with over 20,000 computers linked in 2008 in its infancy stages.

• What technology or innovation did it displace? Second Life, according to Phillip Rosedale, may be displacing the basic function of the internet because not only does it help with organizing, creating, and exchanging information; it provides a social context for experiencing and interacting with the information and other avatars as well as provides depth of learning and memory with the symbols and graphics that are used along with text and experiences.

• How many years do you think Second Life has left before another emerging technology or disruptive technology replaces it? Definitely nothing in the next five years, according to the 2011 Horizon Report (http://www.educause.edu/Resources/2011HorizonReport/223122). It is difficult to predict disruptive technologies; they can come at any time without warning.


• What are the social benefits of Second Life, and what might be the social implications of virtual worlds in your industry? Social implications in education are bringing the international world together in so many different aspects: from economics to language learning and practicing, to scientific collaboration. My special interest is in adapting second life to problem-solving case studies like we see in the Harvard developed “River City Project” (http://muve.gse.harvard.edu/rivercityproject/view/rc_videos.html) where teams collaborate to solve multifaceted complex community problems, using skills in math, science, history, ecology, and psychology.

Rhymes of History & Forces Behind Emerging Technologies

According to Dr. David Thornburg (2009 vodcast), rhymes in history are a powerful force in the emergence of technologies. While technologies may undergo several evolutionary stages, they may also reflect or rekindle past impacts of ancient, historical technologies in their intended usage.

Tablets are a great example of a rekindled past where writings were etched in stone tablets for portability to meet communication needs of society. We have seen much iteration of tablets, especially in the past ten years, and most have come and gone. However, today’s iPads and Zooms are so powerful, it appears they may replace hauling laptops to meetings and trying to find power. Here’s a promo video by Motorola showing Egyptian stone tablets with hieroglyphic writings.
Tablet evolution presented by Motorola, posted Dec 19, 2010:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quI2I8wLPdc

In the following articles on the history of the recently developing tablets, one of the first tablets dates back to Alan Kay’s DynaBook, although there were others less famous, in the 1960’s. However, the author points out those components were in the making back in 1888, most likely with the Elisha Gray teleautograph.
A Short History of the Tablet Computer, Jan 15, 2010:
http://www.osnews.com/story/22739/A_Short_History_of_the_Tablet_Computer
The inside track on Apple's tablet: a history of tablet computing; Jan 15, 2010
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/01/15/the_inside_track_on_apples_tablet_a_history_of_tablet_computing.html

In the following TED presentation by Kevin Kelly, he analyzes the past 5,000 days of the web and predicts the radical changes for the next 5,000 days of the web.
Kevin Kelly ( http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/
kevin_kelly_on_the_next_5_000_days_of_the_web.html). In his 2007 TED presentation,

Kevin Kelly predicted three major trends for the web:

Embodiment: every device screen is a window into the ONE machine that connects everyone and everything to the web. All technologies are merging and becoming unified into one voice, one large organism.
What does this rekindle from our past? I would relate this to a nomadic tribal nation that moved together and functioned together as a unit for survival.

Restructuring & Co-dependency: the internet of the web will not only improve, but will look very different with more personalization and connections, contributing to the unity of the web. What does this rekindle from our past? This rekindles the individual connections that were created for the first time when the telephone was invented.

References:

Kelly, K. (2007, December). The next 5,000 days of the Web [Speech]. Speech delivered at the EG 2007 Conference, Los Angeles. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/
kevin_kelly_on_the_next_5_000_days_of_the_web.html

Thornburg, D. (2009). Rhymes of history. (Vodcst). Emerging and future technology DVD produced by Laureate Education, Inc. Baltimore.

McLuhan's Tetrad for the Telephone

Cluster with Gutenberg Printing, Telegraph, Radio, and Cell Phones in the area of Retrieve

Emerging K12 Technologies

Emerging technologies for K12
Cloud computing is an emerging technology in K-12 environment. It was predicted by the Horizon K12 2010 report last spring as emerging within the year along with collaborative technologies http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2010-Horizon-Report-K12.pdf. (HorizonK12 2011 is due to be published next month). Some of the advantages are higher reliability, excess storage, and lower costs. Our school is planning on implementing this summer so we will have much larger bandwidth for our students at our 8 schools. Currently, YouTube and related sites have been blocked at all our schools. Our teachers are frustrated since there are so many educational videos, especially in YouTube Teacher that they cannot instantly access in their classrooms. Cloud computing will allow us to continue moving in the direction of 1:1 computers in the classroom and well as access to more free resources for our teachers. The Eli 7 report “Seven things you should know about cloud computing” http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EST0902.pdf raised concerns about “privacy, security, data integrity, intellectual property management, audit trails…”

One solution to this is to develop private cloud or a hybrid cloud, where IT would have more control over security issues.

Here are simplified diagrams of cloud computing from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing




Hybrid version:



Tags: cloud computing, hybrid clouds, K12 emerging technologies, Horizon report K12 2010