Tech Disruptions

Our New Home in The Blogosphere

Join us, folks, at our new blog site: http://blogs.districtadministration.com/going_mobile

Don’t leave home without it- Your Cellphone

 
Elliot: Freud thought we were motivated by sex.
Cathie: Ahhh, excuse me, do you know where you are?
Elliot: Yeah, We are writing a blog posting about technology.
Cathie: Phew, I was thinking you were back on your therapist’s couch.
Elliot: Nah, I gave that up…
Cathie… after 16 years of therapy.
Elliot: I thought that was long enough.
Cathie: Now that we have cleared that up, what has Freud to do with technology?
Elliot: I was getting there but…
Cathie: … so get there.
Elliot: Maslow, on the other hand, felt that people were motivated by needs and he developed a hierarchy of needs.
Cathie (with a look of horror):  You’re not going to share with us YOUR needs, are you?
Elliot: Ha ha. But Maslow said we must satisfy our lower level needs before we can focus on satisfying our higher level needs.
Cathie: Oh gosh, kids might read this column – please be careful.
Elliot (laughing): I posit that, as this floor mat reminds the person leaving their domicile, your cellphone ranks up there with money and keys as core items.

Cathie: Amazing!
Elliot: Thank you, I thought that was pretty brilliant.
Cathie: No, not you, you big goof, but an amazing coincidence. Yesterday I was reading in USA Today about a device that enables cellphones to accept credit cards and the following quote appeared:

"In America, people do not leave their home without
keys, their cellphone and their wallet…"

Elliot: And here is another coincidence!  I am working with North American Bancard, a local Michigan company, that is about to launch a device that enables smartphones to accept credit cards! Besides the cool factor, NAB’s product is revolutionary –  quite literally, everyone can accept credit cards instead of cash for payment.
Cathie:  Goodbye cash, absolutely – but for how long will credit cards be around? There was just an article in the New York Times that commented: “…no one knows how long plastic cards will reign. They may eventually be rendered obsolete by technologies that will transform consumers’ cellphones into virtual wallets…”
Elliot: Who needs keys? Your codes are in your cellphone. Beam and Open!
Cathie: Who needs a wallet? All those papers and photos you cram into your wallet….
Elliot.. all digital, all on my cellphone.
Cathie: Let’s make sure we have better security first.
Elliot: Yeah, there is a 100% probability that I will lose my cellphone…
Cathie (with a knowing smile creeping across her face): I must concur…

Newsweek Sees Google and Apple Inventing the Future of Computing

Elliot: We made the cover of the Rolling Stone!
Cathie: How could I have missed that – our pictures are on the cover of the Rolling Stone?
Elliot: Not exactly...
Cathie: Hmmm... Did our pictures make it to the cover of a magazine?
Elliot: Not exactly…
Cathie: Is the magazine that our pictures are not on, the Rolling Stone?
Elliot: Not exactly...
Cathie: Ok, so, what are you talking about... you rented an off brand car?
Elliot (genuinely laughing): Ha ha, ho, ho… but, hey, that was pretty funny … No, the cover of Newsweek is about mobile computing!!! Metaphorically we made the cover of the Rolling Stone.
Cathie (rolls her eyes): Ahhh, metaphorically, eh... who talks like that?
Elliot: I am a professor; I like to use big words…
Cathie:… that you need me to define for you..
Elliot: … one of these days, Alice…
Cathie: It is cool, now that I see Newsweek’s cover...
Elliot: The cover talks about the Future of Computing..
Cathie: ... and only mentions Google and Apple. What about that little software company in Redmond?
Elliot: And the largest seller of computers that hires and fires CEO’s like no tomorrow?
Cathie: The Newsweek cover speaks more to who isn’t included than to who is!
Elliot: That’s a great twitter feed – I will use it. Thank you!
Cathie: A quote from your buddy, Alan Kay, comes to mind: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
Elliot: Great quote! YUP! And Apple and Google aren’t sitting around waiting for mobile to happen – they are making mobile happen.
Cathie: While Microsoft just announced their Windows Phone 7 operating system on October 11, 2010...
Elliot: …  and the actual Windows Phone 7 won’t be available until November. How could Microsoft have missed the boat on mobile so badly? Microsoft is a great company.
Cathie: Remember, Bill Gates said that Microsoft missed the Internet…
Elliot: Yes, yes… and on December 7, 1995…
Cathie: ….Pearl Harbor Day, just in case everyone doesn’t recognize the date…
Elliot: …. They announced publically that Microsoft missed the Internet but effective immediately, they are now an Internet company. And son-of-a-gun, Gates turned 17,000 Microsoft employees around and Microsoft did indeed become an Internet company.  History will note that Gates is truly an amazing individual, for many reasons.
Cathie: Wow – that is quite high praise!
Elliot: Gates deserves it – even though I think the Gates Foundation’s focus on merit pay for teachers is totally wrong-headed and…
Cathie: … Stay focused, Elliot, stay focused….
Elliot: I was ramping up there for a tirade…
Cathie (smiles knowingly): … I saw the signs, loud and clear!
Elliot: So now the question is this: can Microsoft re-insert itself as a meaningful player in the mobile space.
Cathie: … but Newsweek talked about the “Future of Computing” – not just about the “mobile space.”
Elliot: Typical, muckraking hyperbole…
Cathie: … maybe, but maybe not…. Maybe mobile IS the future of computing?
Elliot: Ahhh, a lovely point!!
Cathie: Blog readers… what do YOU think? Is mobile the Future of Computing?

New York Times Magazine’s Special Issue on Educational Technology: Our Rejoinder

Elliot: Our letter to the New York Times Magazine about their Education Issue was not accepted for publication.
Cathie: Are you surprised?
Elliot: No; I am hurt.
Cathie: You are too thin-skinned. It wasn’t personal.
Elliot: Yes it was.
Cathie: Let’s see: we lambasted them and said that the issue was backward looking. Tell me, why would they be rushing to publish our diatribe?
Elliot: Because they realized we were right and they wanted to set the record straight.
Cathie: You are delusional.
Elliot: No, just an ivory-towered professor.
Cathie: That too.
Elliot: How about we let our blog readers review our letter – and let them decide the merit of our argument?
Cathie: Delusional and a glutton for punishment. Sure, why not.
Elliot: So, here is the background: On Sunday, September 19, 2010, the New York Times Magazine published about 11 articles about educational technology. Out of the 18,628 words, the words ‘mobile’ or ‘cellphone’ appeared 13 times, almost all in a 435 word sidebar about the use of cellphones in the classroom. Incensed…
Cathie: … Elliot, you are taking it personal again…
Elliot:…. Cathie and I wrote a critique of their special issue.  The unpublished letter is reproduced in its glorious entirety, below:

Letter to the Editor: New York Times Magazine

While the NYT Magazine’s Education Issue of 9/19/2010 did an excellent job of describing 20th century education,
it avoided the real question that concerns how we educate our 21st century mobile generation: which is mightier,
the pen or the Blackberry?   For as John Dewey observed: "Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself."
For our 21st century children, essentially 100% of “life itself” outside the classroom is spent using mobile technologies,
according to recent Kaiser Family and Pew Foundation reports. But in the vast majority of America’s classrooms we ban those
mobile technologies in favor of boredom-inducing tools of the 18th century.  In contrast, where administrators and teachers
have their students use their 21st century mobile technologies inside school for curricular activities,
those classrooms report seeing dramatic increases in standardized test scores!  Perhaps there is a
second NYT Magazine Education Issue coming out soon that examines 21st century education?

Sincerely,
Cathleen Norris, Regents Professor, University of North Texas, Denton, TX 76203
Elliot Soloway, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Cathie: The final version, presented above, we submitted went through 5 hours of drafts! And, our publicist, Paul Bigham, lent his hand to the letter. 
Elliot: … thank you, Paul, for your counsel and your words!
Cathie: The letter’s tone can only be described as “sweet” by comparison to the first draft Elliot gave to me!
Elliot: They deserved it!
Cathie: Yes, Elliot, Yes. , But since they didn’t publish it, no one will know. Maybe next time you will try to be more constructive….
Elliot: GRRR… you are right; Paul was right. The letter should have been kinder and gentler…. But I just couldn’t be nice in the face of their drivel!
Cathie: Relax; remember your blood pressure! And fear not, there will be other opportunities to respond as the forces of old, small thinking are ever present…
Elliot: … and in the majority…
Cathie: Now HUSH! I am losing my patience… and do have the loudest voice, presently. But, as techies we are ever optimistic that right thinking will prevail.
Elliot: <with right arm extended above his head and hand in a fist> YES!!!

Apple and Mobile Trump Everything, but Not in That Order

Elliot: While we were sleeping, Apple’s iOS “Nearly Surpasses Nintendo as Most Popular Gaming Platform”
Cathie: “while we were sleeping…” – that’s the introductory line from Thomas Friedman’s now classic "The World is Flat"
Elliot: Yup. TF used it well. By and large most of us didn’t’ realize that the earth had become flat…
Cathie: …because of the all the networking cable that was laid during the Internet boom…
Elliot:… that became economically viable to use because of the Internet bust!
Cathie: After the bust, TF points out that the networking companies sold their networks at 10 cents on the dollar. And, bingo, at that lower price point, companies figured out thecost of international communications was now virtually zero.
Elliot: And call centers sprung up since labor costs were lower in places like India and China…
Cathie: … And Skype could offer free and very low-cost international calling. Because of the Internet…
Elliot: … and the economics of boom and bust…
Cathie: …the earth was now flat; everyone was connected at virtually no cost!
Elliot: TF tells such a good story…
Cathie: .. but you only read chapter 1 of his book!
Elliot:… shhh, shhhh… it was too thick; heck, chapter 1 tells the whole story, anyhow.
Cathie: OY! You will need to return your Intellectuals’ Boy Scout Merit Badge when people realize that you only read the first sentence.
Elliot: …That’s because you read the rest and tell me what it says. What’s wrong with that? Anyway, about the other conquest Apple has made-- they beat Walmart-- Apple sells more music than Walmart!
Cathie: But  Apple make computers?
Elliot: Ha ha ha…. They started out making computers, now they are an entertainment company! Well, the first sentence of the article says it all: “Apple's iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch have surpassed Sony PSP as a gaming platform in the United States and have almost caught up with Nintendo's DS.”
Cathie: And did you see where they are predicting that iPads are killing notebook sales and that iPads will outsell Mac laptops, in particular?!
Elliot: Mobility, ease-of-use, …
Cathie: .. and fun to use!!!!!
Elliot: … trumps everything.
Cathie: End of Story!
Elliot: But ….
Cathie: You’re not listening: END OF STORY.
Elliot: <smiling bemusedly> ohhhhhhh....kaaaaaaay.