Technology Futures

A large German study of computer use in schools found that computers were overused in the early grades, and not used well enough in higher grades, like high school.

The study also found that students who spent too much time on the computer had LOWER reading and math scores. This does not surprise me, as it is entirely too easy to waste time, mostly on the Web, and parents and teachers have been too quick to assume that any time on the computer is good time.

I've had many opportunities to observe K12 technology use for a decade, and I continue to see two big problems.

• First, as I noted above, there is this almost religious assumption that kids can use computers and technology better than the adults supervising them. This is utter nonsense. They are kids, and they need guidance and direction in their work activities. Teachers, parents, and school administrators are abrogating their responsibilities when they repeat things like, "Kids know a lot more about computers than we do." Kids may be more facile manipulating the interface, but it does not mean they have learned anything meaningful, like how to add, subtract, or write a grammatically correct sentence. It also does not mean they know how computers and the internet works, although I run into adults all the time who also make this grossly incorrect assumption.
• Second, I have yet to find a school that has a thoughtful and meaningful definition for what I call "technological competency." I've written about this before--our schools teach our kids to do use Word and PowerPoint. These skills-directed curriculums reward the wrong things and teach the wrong things. The ability to use PowerPoint says NOTHING about your competency to stand up in front of a group and give a thoughtful and informed talk using presentation software. There are lots of software that can be used to make presentations. Some products are better than PowerPoint. Our kids need to learn how to give a talk, which is very different than knowing which buttons to click to put a heading on a page.

Computer use in the schools is a big mess. Teachers don't get adequate training, they don't have the right equipment in the classroom (e.g. an LCD projector), they lack adequate tech support, and they don't have, most of the time, appropriate teaching materials.

I see too many parents who simply count the number of computers in the school and make the incorrect assumption that if there is a computer in the classroom, their kids are getting the appropriate instruction. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The final tragedy is that our schools are sucking huge amounts of our tax dollars for technology that is either not used at all or used in inappropriate ways. It's an outrage.

According to a CNet article, BellSouth plans to provide higher capacity broadband to most of its customer base in the next five years.

Video is driving the plans. The cable companies have not only captured about 75% of the broadband market, compared to the phone companies' paltry 15%, but the cable companies can offer the fabled triple play--voice, data, and video.

The phone companies are terrified. VoIP is sapping traditional landline customers all over the country, and most of those VoIP users are getting that service over cable broadband, not DSL broadband. So the telephone companies want to offer the same thing--voice, data, and video--but their weak point is the 100 year old design of the telephone infrastructure. Most phone users in this country are still getting their dial tone the way Alexander Graham Bell designed it, but those copper cables won't haul video all the way from phone company video head ends. So BellSouth has decided to go with fiber to the node (i.e. fiber to the neighborhood), and deliver the first mile (last mile) connection over copper.

This may sound like great news, but most communities are still stuck with the same two monopoly service providers they had twenty years ago; that's not choice, and two oligarchies aren't likely to drive prices down. Continuing to overbuild private networks does not level the playing field and will not attract real competition.

It's not being covered much in the news, but you can be sure that the demonstrations against the stolen election in Ukraine is being organized in large part via the Internet.

Over the long term (fifty years from now), the real impact of the Internet, looking back, may be the changes it has brought to politics and nations. Short of cutting off Internet access entirely, it is no longer possible for dictators, despots, and thugs to keep people from learning what is going on in the rest of the world. Nor can they keep their own people from passing the truth from one to another. If the only thing the Internet does is help spread freedom and democracy, that's enough.

It is being widely reported that Internet shopping over the Thanksgiving weekend jumped dramatically, especially on Thanksgiving Day. Apparently, while everyone was waiting for the turkey to cook, twice as many people as last year went online to do a little shopping. Friday also saw a big increase (about 50% more).

The big loser was Walmart, which did not see the big increases expected. Other stores, like Target, apparently did better. There are all sorts of theories explaining various aspects of the holiday shopping--that Target offers a nicer shopping environment and better quality, that Walmart shoppers bought from Walmart.com instead of going to the store, and so on. All the explanations probably have some truth to them.

I'm more interested in the implications for smaller and rural communities. One interesting fact is that half of broadband users were apparently shopping online, by one estimate. That's a big number, and I think the reason is that you really need (and want) broadband for online shopping. Browsing an online catalog by dialup is painful. You might as well get in the car and drive to the shopping center.

For rural communities, affordable broadband and the willingness to shop online means people living in these towns and regions have much the same shopping alternatives available to them as people in the suburbs and big cities. But you have to have the affordable broadband.

It also means that small towns and communities may want to think differently about their approach to retail. In many of the towns and regions in which I work, there is much worry and discussion about the lack of retail. Maybe this is not the problem we think it is--if your residents have affordable broadband. It may be that money spent on retail initiatives might be better directed at quality of life issues that will attract entrepreneurs and businesspeople to the community, who know they can shop online, and instead want a Main Street that supports small businesspeople (lawyers, accountants, copy services, coffee shops, good restaurants, etc.). Finally, the change agent is affordable broadband. Instead of putting new street lamps on Main Street with the hope of reviving retail stores there, invest in a public broadband infrastructure that will bring broadband providers to town--thereby letting people shop online.