Friday, April 11, 2008
The affordable "digital pencils"
Thirty years after I first took my first personal computers from Commodore (the PET), Radio Shack (TRS-80) and Apple (the Apple II) into my elementary classrooms in Wisconsin, we are almost there, finally close to realizing the dream of a new public school curriculum built on the metaphorical digital pencil (e.g., affordable, networked, every child has one in the classroom, personal computer). For example of price movement in the right direction, see EB's simple MIMD prototype to the left or explore Gillette's excellent chart comparing the current leading low cost laptop computers, which does not include the Elonex One (100 UK), Northec Gecko ($300 and up), or the more than 25 new Intel Atom processor devices ($250-$350) coming soon.
It took the recent threat of Nicholas Negroponte's $100 XO laptop vision for the computer industry to "get religion" on the topic of functional ubiquitous child-priced computers. The industry then shifted close to panic this January as Mary Lou Jepsen (past CTO for Negroponte's XO project, now head of Pixel Qi) promised a $75 device in large quantities by 2010. She can deliver and they know it. Though fearful of cannibalizing older product genres, the current hegemony of digital power is wisely recognizing self-interest in the creation of an entirely new product category. New low-power, cheaper chips seem to be announced almost daily from the chip foundries like Intel, who are hopeful of a new computer-rush.
This hopefulness is generating a bit of interesting spin-master product placement fantasy. Educators be alert! The labels of $100 laptop or OLPC or XO have been awkward, so new terms are emerging, including "Handheld-size MIDs,--short for Mobile Internet Devices and Netbooks" (Crothers, 2008). Intel and other major corporations would like to sell the concept to schools that though the inexpensive devices will have cheaper and slower CPUs, the cheap MIDs and Netbooks will be at least great information delivery devices, Net readers if you will. Embedded in their pitch is the impression that the larger more expensive software applications and computers will still be needed to do the real work, the creative composition of the world. How protective of the status quo sales of expensive laptops and so belatedly Web 1.0. Whoa - did they sleep through all the million news stories on Web 2.0 over the last three years? Do they have any idea how big the set of online applications has become which is competing with desktop applications? Since dirt cheap laptops are heading into the market, doesn't IBM look brilliantly prescient having sold their personal computer line to Lenovo in China years back?
Shades of the time-share terminals of the 1970's, the hardest computing is getting done on the networked server, not on the laptop. The creative compositional/editing work from text to photo to music to video is increasingly getting done on IBM's "big iron" mainframe style computer with the web browser serving as the operating system for the computer as remote terminal. This transition gained huge momentum with the text blogging movement, a technique that I am using now to enter text into an input box on a web page for this editorial. That is, we increasingly don't have to have expensive software such as the Microsoft Office apps or Adobe Premiere which require expensive high speed laptops and desktops in order to do compositional work. Also we don't have to have a printer. All we generally may need is a web browser to reach composition tools and the Net to publish the creations.
There is a further and much greater educational affront than failing to develop computers priced for every child to have in schools. This is the corporate computing concept undergirding "netbooks" marketing to schools that classrooms are information delivery vehicles ("open brain, pour in information, now even faster and cheaper with a Netbook!"). Want to compose something? Buy the more expensive technology." Such "worst practice" models should be stamped out where ever they rear up. Especially in a democracy, literacy should mean both reading and composition, the capacity to understand AND create what goes on a page (cellulose OR digital). To a certain degree, a cheap Netbook or MID will do both just fine, thank you, and with a browser to reach online applications, can do so at a level appropriate for K-12 to introduce the full range of 21st century online composition/editing: text, photo/drawing, animation, audio, video, 3D, and electronics.
Moore's law and other trends will eventually make the cheap $75 computer as powerful as today's expensive laptops. So, watch carefully for new sightings of the products noted above and others that might emerge. Post your comments and finds here. Good news - within the next two years, public education will be able to fully enter and embrace the 21st century and its new literacy requirements and in large measure, obliterate the cause of the digital divide. If legislatures finance appropriately, public schools can do the rest. Are we ready?
Monday, March 10, 2008
21st Century Literacy
If a quick definition of literacy is the capacity to both understand and create what goes on a page, then to determine current literacy needs we must be able to compare what happens on paper pages with what happens in 21st century communication on Web pages. Is the digital palette on the left a sufficient summary of the major forms of composition on the web? Of the elements on this palette, how are these Web forms being combined and integrated with the historical precedents of literacy? By what strategies will public education incorporate these forms into public school curriculum for all students?
Labels: comprehensive composition, literacy, multiliteracies, multimedia, multimodal
Friday, October 05, 2007
Serious questions-LinkedIn
The social networking site for professionals, LinkedIn, provides a great question/answer service, LinkedIn Answers, http://www.linkedin.com/answers/
And like many such sites, LinkedIn provides permanent links to a question. This is a key feature for building a web page of questions and tracking responses generated by an individual or by a team.
And like many such sites, LinkedIn provides permanent links to a question. This is a key feature for building a web page of questions and tracking responses generated by an individual or by a team.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Community Based Research (CBR)
The CBR Networking Initiative has created a wiki site with the goal of building an online handbook for those engaged in community based development and research, http://www.cbrwiki.org/.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Flatworld Processor
Entrepreneurship Mashups
Concept: given the host of web 2.0 composition tools and resources on the net, the potential exists to create entrepreneurship processors for composing a new business. Since the concept of "The World is Flat" is only marginally realized, aggregating mashups at higher levels accelerates the world's capacity to add value to its systems. Doing so makes the highway to flatworld more inclusive. The question is fairly straight forward. Given a set of steps or procedures for creating a new organization, whether business or non-profit, what web 2.0 etc. tools match each step? As there is no magic formula, there are many sequences that can work, just as there are many recipes for a good meal. Elegant recipes turn out great meals in the fewest possible steps. So, the challenge is on - to create the most elegant processor for startups and beyond. Let's coin a phrase:
The Flatworld Processor
- Define and name the entrepreneurship process.
- Attach Web 2.0 features to as many steps as possible.
- Attach the process to a social network.
Intel-MIT Mashup-in common software!
The XO (MIT's $100 laptop) and Classmate (the $200 laptop from Intel) were competitors. Now the mashup is on. XO is has set the lot size from 1 million to 250,000 at $176 each. Intel will apparently sell their model in any quantity at $200. The new goal is to design code so that programs developed for one will work on the other!
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
WWW idea processor
As the Web as idea processor gains acceptance, educational systems have an opportunity to engage the community in developing intellectual operating systems. At their core lies a concept at the heart of creativity and innovation. A question. How does one nourish and distribute a crop of interesting questions? What does the post-question processor look like? Use these question to guide further planning and organization.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
3D Leaps Forward
We work and play in a three dimensional world. We jump into 2 dimensional space for our textual and photographic information and most of our compositions. Creating in 3D used to mean sculpting rock, clay and other media. In digital environments, it also meant significant costs for software and hardware to create 3D images. A pair of programs have changed the cost to computer users, Google Earth and SketchUp. See samples of Google Earth at
www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2006/03/expecting_lots.html. See video tutorials of SketchUp at http://sketchup.google.com/tutorials.html
www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2006/03/expecting_lots.html. See video tutorials of SketchUp at http://sketchup.google.com/tutorials.html
Sunday, October 29, 2006
affordable digital literacy for the rest of us
Two major projects accelerating low cost digital literacy options are scheduled to hatch in January 2007. One is from a major computer maker and one is from a major open source team.
To track Apple's release of their chameleon like device which may play video, music, have keyboard and work with wi-fi and cell phone wireless, search Google news for iPhone. A version of it may go for free for a long term cellphone contract. http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&q=iphone&btnG=Search+News
To track OLPC's progress with the $100 laptop, skim Bender's weekly reports and archive at
http://laptop.media.mit.edu/laptopnews.nsf/latest/news?OpenDocument
To track Apple's release of their chameleon like device which may play video, music, have keyboard and work with wi-fi and cell phone wireless, search Google news for iPhone. A version of it may go for free for a long term cellphone contract. http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&q=iphone&btnG=Search+News
To track OLPC's progress with the $100 laptop, skim Bender's weekly reports and archive at
http://laptop.media.mit.edu/laptopnews.nsf/latest/news?OpenDocument
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Croquet and history of eTools Presentation
Alan Kay and colleague review the history of eThinking using 2d and 3d interfaces, show clips of pioneers from the 60's. During the last 25 minutes of this 58 minute videoclip they partner to demonstrate their new 3D operating system, Croquet. Date, Oct 10, 2003, at eTech Conference.
http://cf.mannby.com/blog/2006/08/squeak-and-croquet-demo-etech03.html
http://cf.mannby.com/blog/2006/08/squeak-and-croquet-demo-etech03.html
