Tech Disruptions

What would Yogi Say: WWYS not WSWG

Elliot: As Yogi Berra once said, “You can hear a lot by just listening,” I listened to my undergraduate students in class today.

Cathie: He didn’t say that. He did say “You can observe a lot by just watching.”

Elliot: Picky, Picky, Picky.

Cathie: <exasperated sign goes here>... Ok, go on…  What did Yogi hear?

Elliot: The kids said that they use Facebook for everything – email, IM, calendaring, image management, playing games, etc. etc. etc. Some of them don’t even have an email account outside of Facebook!

Cathie: And, I understand that with the “Facebook Connect”, users of Facebook can log directly into other websites without having to enter login information. For example, from within Facebook, you can connect to CNN’s The Forum, Citysearch, Govit, Techcrunch, etc.

Cathie: Do you have any idea how many students use Facebook or how much time per day  -they spend on Facebook?

Elliot: Based on what they tell me, I would estimate 90% of the students use Facebook on a daily basis and the minimum amount of time is about 30 minutes… with a typical amount of time being 60 minutes PER DAY!!

Cathie: So for these students, the Internet is Facebook – Facebook is the Internet.

Elliot:  Right! In olden times, the Internet was AOL. Even today, my wife Judy accesses the Internet and her email via AOL.

Cathie: AOL is to the older generation what Facebook is the current generation.

Elliot: “Older generation?” Isn’t there a better way to say that? How about baby boomers.

Cathie: But AOL/Internet was only a pale first pass at what the Facebook/Internet is.

Elliot: When is Dell going to come out with a Facebook computer? Heck, when is Facebook going to come out with a Facebook netbook?

Cathie: What might Yogi say about Facebook?

Elliot: You can log onto the Internet by being on Facebook?

Cathie: that’s a 2 star at best, Elliot.

Elliot: Ok, readers, it’s your turn. What would Yogi say about Facebook????  

"Disrupting Class" Keynote at CoSN

Cathie: What did you think of the provocative keynote we heard at CoSN by Mark Horn, co-author with Clayton Christensen of the recent best-seller “Disrupting Class” ?

Elliot: Provocative is a nice way of putting it; the dread from the educators in the room was palpable! If Horn is right, teachers would lose their jobs, en masse.

Cathie: Slow down and tell me what you mean. And easy on the doom and gloom – we have enough of that already.

Elliot: “Let’s start at the very beginning; that’s a very good place to start.”

Cathie: And now you are quoting the Sound of Music; spare me, please.

Elliot: At least I didn’t sing the line! Horn and Christensen’s central thesis, in a nutshell, is this: America’s current educational institution, with its 1 teacher to 30 students’ organization can’t provide learners with low-cost, highly-individualized support; but, online, computer-based learning can provide just such economical, individualized instruction. Online is a disrupting force in Horn and Christensen’s terms.

Cathie: And the kicker is historically a “disrupted” institution can’t change itself; rather, another institution arises to provide the new services. Mini-computers disrupted mainframe computers; Prime, Data General, DEC, etc. put CDC, Honeywell, etc. out of business.

Elliot: Personal computers disrupted mini-computers and the likes of Apple and Dell put Prime, Data General, DEC, and other companies like that out of business.  CDC and Honeywell couldn’t make mini-computers; Prime, Data General and DEC couldn’t make personal computers.

Cathie: And now the cellphone computers, made by HTC and Nokia, among others are threatening to put Apple and Dell out of business.

Elliot: GM, Chrysler, and Ford were disrupted by Honda and Toyota, and Honda and Toyota are now being disrupted by KIA and Hyundai.  Christensen, in his original work, the Innovator’s Dilemma, has identified a seemingly inexorable process that is applicable to all types of technologies.

Cathie: If America’s educational institutions are going to be disrupted by online education companies, can our current institutions change themselves to provide economical, highly individualized instruction, or must they perish and be replaced by other institutions?

Elliot: As I said, the dread in the room was palpable. It’s not clear that parents, superintendents, teachers, and unions are willing to make the hard decisions that are necessary in order for the current institutions to adapt to the new demands.

Cathie:  So, I hope this blog doesn’t frighten our readers; why would they want to come back and read our next post?

Elliot: I WILL start singing; that will fix things.

Cathie: You big goof. 

Hey You, Get Onto My Cloud

Cathie: How many times have I told you that your head is in the clouds?

Elliot: How many blades of grass are there? How many different snowflakes?

 

Cathie: See what I mean!!

 

Elliot: But FINALLY it is ok to be in the clouds!! At the recent CoSN Conference in Austin, the talk about virtualization and cloud computing was BIG TIME.

 

Cathie: We know that, but let’s see if we can explain those ideas since they have significant economic and pedagogic importance. But we’ll need to bring the discussion down to earth…

 

Elliot: And out of the clouds?

 

Cathie: You aren’t as slow as you look.

 

Elliot: Ha ha ha…. Here goes.  In practical terms, if a district has older PCs that are still physically functional but are slower than molasses, virtualization can extend the life of those devices thereby saving considerable dollars.

 

Cathie: Via virtualization services of a company like ClassLink, those outdated PC’s actually do their computing on a server in the computer center; in effect, those older PC’s are being used as screens and keyboards.

 

Elliot: And, via cloud computing services of a company like Stoneware, the storing of files is handled by that big server in the computing center, too.

 

Cathie: For all intents and purposes, school administrators can see cloud computing and virtualization as the same sort of concept – a way to save money while still providing extensive computing services to schools.

 

Elliot: We need to do a full Tech Disruptions essay on those two ideas.

 

Cathie: Put it on the list.

 

Elliot: And store it in the cloud!

 

Cathie: Your head is still in the cloud….

It’s Just Like Shoes

Elliot: Reporting from CoSN in Austin (March 12-13, 2009). At a session yesterday, Mark Weston from Dell articulated a vision for where 1:1 is going in K12. He talked about using low-cost netbooks and older personal computers, past their prime, accessing the latest and greatest educational software “in the cloud.”

 

Cathie: Yes, it’s just like shoes.

 

Elliot: My turn to say: ahhh, how’s that?

 

Cathie: We used to call it “timesharing.” We had a low cost, screen plus keyboard  we called a dumb terminal that had a hard-wired connection to a big timesharing computer located in the computer center. While it looked like we were computing on the local terminal, all the heavy-lifting was actually done on the timesharing computer.

 

Elliot: And when the network connection between the dumb terminal and the timesharing machine went down…

 

Cathie: …which was all the time….

 

Elliot: .. you could hear the yelling from all the offices.

 

Cathie: But things are different now; the network connection is reliable. And if you believe that I have a bridge I would like to sell you.

 

Elliot: Oh ye of little faith! Between the cable wireline guys and the telco wireless guys, someone will provide a reliable connection to the server in the cloud.

 

Cathie: I am glad you called them “guys.” We who are not guys know how reliable “guys” really are.

 

Elliot: Argh!

 

Cathie: You make it too easy, Elliot; sorry.

 

Elliot: No,  you are not sorry, but in any case.. With the dramatic rise in the role of netbooks in the hardware mix, cloud computing is almost really here.

 

Cathie: For schools, then, all they need is low-cost, dumb terminals – netbooks, or even older, outdated personal computers can at least access the web – and a server supported by that reliable network. The TCO of netbooks is quite low compared to PC’s and extracting extra years of life from outdated computers is a win for a district. The economics of cloud computing are really pretty compelling.

 

Elliot: and the shoes?

 

Cathie: Computer solutions are just like shoes. The old ideas that are good, like timesharing, always manage to come back. That’s why I always keep good shoes; they always come back in style again!

 

Elliot: Ahhh…. I never would have made that analogy.

 

Cathie: That’s because your square shoes are always out of style.

 

Elliot: Very funny; ha ha. Thank you, Cathie.

eBooks are HAPPENING - Finally!! Maybe??

Elliot: eBooks to the left of me, eBooks to the right of me… eBooks are happening!

 

Cathie: Elliot, are you referring to the flurry of eBook announcements from Amazon and Sony?

 

Elliot: Indeed I am! The eBook is one of those technologies that has been hanging around and hanging around, but not going anywhere. Maybe the time has come for eBooks to cross the chasm and be acceptable to the mainstream?

 

Cathie: As I’m sure you remember, I bought my first eBook about 5 years ago for my Sony Clie so I could roundly critique it in my human-computer interaction class – and I haven’t stopped reading eBooks since. eBooks are convenient to buy, carry, and read. I buy 10 at a time, and read them on planes, waiting in the dentist’s office, curled up on the couch – everywhere! I am particularly adept at sleepreading – but unlike a paper book that closes when it inevitably falls and I lose my place, my eBook reader always remembers where I stopped reading.

 

Elliot: Blog readers out there… who among you are eBook lovers, like Cathie? Who is reading this blog on a Kindle?

 

Cathie: Amazon just announced their Kindle 2, a sleek, lightweight device for reading eBooks. Amazon makes it totally easy to buy eBooks – using the Sprint cellular network, under the covers so to speak, to log into Amazon, select the book you want, and download it.

 

Elliot: And now Amazon says that it has a Kindle eBook reader for the iPhone. And the really sweet thing is this: automatic bookmarks. Stop reading a book on your iPhone on the plane; pick up your Kindle at home and it knows where you stopped reading. Very cool.

 

Cathie: Not to be outdone, did you see that Sony is selling their eBook reader – which, like the Kindle, has pluses and minuses – with 100 free books. That is a great incentive to go with the Sony reader.

 

Elliot: I think we need to do a full Tech Disruptions column on eBooks; folks, what do you think?

Another State Fights the Future!

E: They’re banning books in the Heartland!

 

C: Say what?

 

E: Iowa, following the lead of Pennsylvania, is looking to ban cellphones in K12. DA has an article about a legislator in Iowa who is contributing to the intellectual growth of Iowa’s children by proposing that cellphones be banned from school.

 

C: We need to keep a tally – states banning cellphones vs states embracing cellphones in K12.  Is there a correlation between effective schools, economic growth, etc. and banning cellphones?

 

E: You bloggsters out there… add your opinion to the Iowa discussion.

 

C: Careful Elliot! YOU may be accused of being an outside agitator!

 

E: Add it to the list of complaints. WE will take the risk!