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

VIDEO project: "Strategies to Ignite Student Learning"

VIDEO project: "Strategies to Ignite Student Learning"

YouTube 8842 MKent Video Url:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVPSrs6Ha5w

Static vs Dynamic Technologies Concept Map

Reflection:
Both f2f and online courses have a tendency to be teacher-directed, teacher-driven, and teacher information dumping grounds. I have been on a campaign for the past two years to bring our science teachers into an awareness and practice of inquiry science where they allow students to ask the questions, design experimental labs, do more collaboration in the process, and present their findings to their peers. The assessments and teachers strategies must change in these environments. As of today, I would estimate we are 80% on the static side and 20% of our strategies are dynamic. I would like to see this reverse, but need to take baby steps in making it happen. Experimental design and science projects have already been integrated in a three week full-time block of our high school science curriculum; we are continuing to add more robotics problem-solving teams each year; and currently, I am piloting a MUVE (the River City Project) in a middle school classroom along with continuing science teacher professional development in inquiry .