The Potential of Technology in Education

I've been thinking about how we could use technology to radically improve education. This morning on Techmeme, I saw a couple articles on related topics, which prompted me to spill my thoughts... here goes:

It's well known that our public education system is far behind the technological advances we've had over the past couple decades. First and foremost, most students have a PC at home, and most of homes have internet access. This generation of students is well accustomed to online social networks like MySpace, and social media like YouTube. I'll assume from my own experience that students much prefer to spend their time on these things than on school work. In many ways, the traditional education method is outdated, and almost backwards in today's technological environment.

I just finished my final exams today, here at UCSC, and while studying for them I couldn't help but think about how technology could be so helpful... Imagine a system that knows everything that you need to know for a certain exam. It then gives you a quick quiz to assess your current knowledge, and proceeds to teach you what you don't understand yet. Something like that would make cramming for a test so much easier! (No more flipping through pages in the textbook, trying to find things, trying to skim chapters for some facts that might pop up on the exam...)

But such a system would not be limited to studying for final exams. The system I'm thinking of is a new paradigm of educational technology. Replacing human teachers with a computer. In today's crowded classrooms, curriculum is taught in a way that most of the students will be able to understand... not at all individualized, and we are rarely rewarded for doing the reading because we hear all the important points in lecture. This system would customize based on the student's learning styles... and also based on what the system already knows the student understands. This system could provide comparisons to previous concepts from different subjects, something that wouldn't be effective in a traditional classroom but highly effective for an individual learner.

But the teaching side is only one half of the solution. The other problem facing students today is a lack of motivation, or a lack of incentive. Most successful students in elementary school were so because they strived to please the teacher. In my case, I had no such interest, and consequently had a lot of trouble. I was more interested in learning things that I found direct benefit in. Like, simple electronics so I could make little vehicles... or chemicals that I could make explosions with. School was fun when I could work on projects like that, where I actually wanted to learn things so that I could do something. Unfortunately, most of my schoolwork was instead dry and tedious. I think technology will provide us with a solution to this problem as well...

Social Learning! Yes, we are social creatures. In every school across the country, students are writing papers on the same topics, but no one reads them except the teacher, quickly... and only because she has to. Let us interact with our work! Let us exchange ideas and be rewarded for it! I'm talking about a system where students submit their work publicly, and can reference each other's work and give feedback. Some educators have done this, but mainly on established blogging platforms. I'm talking about a centralized system (maybe built on a CMS like Drupal), that teachers would require their students to submit their homework on. It would provide a real incentive for students to work hard if they knew their peers might read it. If they got real feedback about their work. This system would not only provide a method for submitting assignments, but also collaborative editing, so students could peer-edit their papers... and also forums for discussion. Maybe collaborative white-boards and filesharing. Shared calendars and reminders. Collaborative lecture notes.

This magic system I've been talking about is a huge project, but I don't think the technology is beyond our capabilities today. However, whether this system will lead to a better or worse educational experience is debatable, but I think with certain controls put in place, Education 2.0 is going to change the world.

Solar Power and Electric Cars ...and Planes

After watching Jason Calacanis test-drive a Tesla Roadster last week, I've been thinking a lot about electric transportation. He said he's buying one of these awesome electric-powered sportscars for $110K, and is going to power it with the solar panels at his house. That brings him closer to being off the grid, and away from dependence on oil. Which is really, really cool.

So, naturally, I want one of these fancy Tesla Roadsters too. But not for another few years, when the prices will hopefully come down after they start mass-producing them. I want solar panels on my roof and to replace all the gas burning appliances in my house. I'll be able to do this after working at Google for some time. And then, once I have that all set up, I can save up for an Electric Sports Car.

Enough about me though, here's the big picture I've been thinking about: Oil and Gasoline is getting ever more expensive. Alternative energy is getting more efficient and cheaper. Eventually, solar electricity will be cheaper than gasoline, and everyone will start moving to plug-in electric vehicles at increased rates.

Instead of mining the earth for fossil fuels to power our dirty, polluting current methods of transportation, we'll be turning to alternative forms of transportation that are both cleaner, more environmentally responsible, easier, and cheaper. (cheaper being the most important factor for mass adoption)

But it's not only going to be cars. We'll start seeing electric trains, electric buses, electric taxis... and even electric airplanes. (see BBC article) Yes, I said airplanes... Imagine if it were easier, faster, and cheaper to get to work in a personal auto-piloting air-taxi. I said it here first. You live in San Francisco, for example, and you walk outside and hail an air taxi that's driving around with it's wings tucked in (folded up)... and it drives you (there's no driver of course) out of the city limits and takes off up into the air. This whole time you're on your laptop with WiMax, (or surely something cooler like a 3D computing system we don't know about yet). In 15 minutes you're touching down outside San Jose, and your air-taxi folds up its wings again and drives you to your office.

There's a lot more space in the air, and it doesn't cost anything to build roads up there. It might really not be all that far in the future. If you look at that BBC article, there's already an electric glider that you can buy, that has similar fuel efficiency to an electric car, and similar range. Soon, you may look up into the sky in suburbia and see little white planes whizzing around.

Oh, and of course you already know how solar-power is the future. How it's going to save our planet and all that. Like, when electricity is cheap enough, we can produce clean drinking water for the world's people. We can afford to recycle everything. Transportation will be cheap. Computing and the Internet will be ubiquitous. Oh, anyway, what I wanted to say, was that we don't have to wait for solar panels to get cheap enough (though there's some pretty cool new advancements)... there's some other really promising alternatives like this solution for harvesting wind power:

Here's the company that's making those. Put them up in the jetstream and we've got a free source of electricity. It's genious... using a blimp to keep it up.

Anyway, cheers to a cleaner future. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Mobile Internet Will Save The World

I've been having visions of the future... the Global Village alive and well.

Background: I'm taking some classes that are teaching me how f***ed up the world really is. I mean like, how most of the rest of the world is starving or dying from disease. While I can't really make much difference by donating some food or money or time, I firmly believe that technology can save the world. And that you and I have the power to influence the way this story plays out. In some way, I feel that by just writing my predictions below, it will help them to become reality. And I want to know what you think about this.

Here's what I see right now: Mobile phones are getting cheaper. Mobile internet is becoming more popular. Social networks are mainstream. Social media is becoming mainstream. People are starting to distrust the corporate news media. People are starting to distrust the government. The internet is providing better and better entertainment for people. People are making better content for the internet. People are communicating in new and meaningful ways through the internet. Social networks are becoming local.

Here's what I see in the near future: Mobile phones will become available for free. Your mom will start blogging. You'll have video chats with people around the world about meaningful things. Your neighbors will be in your same social networks. And you'll really know what's going on in the world, and so will everyone else.

Some, or all, of these things might sound ridiculous to you. Let me explain... First, Google (and others) are placing a lot of bets on mobile advertising. Who's going to accept ads on their phones if they're not getting free service? I don't know Google's business plan yet, but they are launching their new phone platform (Android) this summer, with a whole bunch of phones from many manufacturers involved... there's a lot of potential for revolutionary change here. Expect mobile technology innovation to increase exponentially. Anyway, I'm hoping Google will decide to give out free phones and subsidize service through mobile ads.

Mobile internet. Apple's iPhone has shown us what mobile internet can look like... it's really put the internet into my pocket for sure. However, the iPhone is still very expensive, and lots of people are waiting before getting one for various reasons. Nonetheless, mobile internet is something more people are thinking about than ever before. And service providers know this, and data plan prices are coming down with competition. But think about the rest of the world, places where nobody can afford a computer but everyone has a mobile phone. Imagine them hopping on Twitter... on Flickr... on Digg... or YouTube.

Local Social Networks. Popular social networks thus far have been pretty removed from the physical world. You meet people online based on interests, but not because you were in the same vicinity. Imagine ad-hoc local chat rooms. Imagine neighborhood social networks. Imagine collaboration, like citizen journalism, coming from within these social networks. Imagine your phone setting up your cellphone to vibrate when someone you know is in your vicinity. It's happening, and it's going to change society in ways I can't begin to imagine.

Oh, and when I said your mom will start blogging... It's true. She just won't know it, or think of it that way. You'll be getting a stream of photos from her. She'll be writing updates to multiple friends at a time, no longer through email, but something else. And of course, it won't just be your mom. It's everyone else, too.


(Update:) I guess I didn't fully address the title of the post yet, "Mobile Internet Will Save The World". So many people are stuck, physically and socially, around the world, in poverty. They are well aware that life is better elsewhere, but can't do anything to "better themselves". Now give them the internet. They can now talk with anyone in the world, and make friends and business connections. You've heard of micro-loans? Imagine how much more likely you'd be to give a young entrepreneur some start-up capital if you could video-chat with them first, and they'd blog and twitter their progress. And then also, you've got the potential web developers and software engineers, that will naturally start wanting to write applications for these new devices. Social networks will spring up. People will get excited. Groups will organize and bring about massive change. But most importantly, the internet will enable people to educate themselves to a point where they can perform skilled, knowledge-work. And then, what's to stop them from making money? And that's how the mobile internet will save the world.

Ubiquity and Mobility

I'm typing on my iPhone again, and I'm thinking about the state of the mobile computing experience. I see one person in my class using a laptop, and there's a girl texting on her Blackberry and another on some flip phone. (It's a pretty boring class, IMO). But the thing I was thinking about, and wanted to mention, is the key difference between using a laptop versus a mobile phone in this context.

Even the most advanced phones have various disadvantages in comparison to the laptop... a smaller keyboard, or inability to run multiple applications simultaneously. Phones however have a potential advantage here, but it's not fully realized: the relative availability of radio signal - useful for various communication, as well as the less conspicuous form-factor.

I can't wait until using my phone is as fun - and as productive - as using my laptop. Because then, I could work anywhere, coveniently.

Chatting with a Robot

So, I'm talking to IMified, a bot/service that enables you to interact with multiple other web services through instant messaging protocols. So, you add the buddy "imified" in AOL Instant Messenger for example, and send the message "menu" to create an account and get options. It's quite nifty. You can interact with your Google Calendar, or your Remember the Milk to-do lists... or even your blog! In fact, that's where I'm typing this right now. I've set this up so that I can post to my blog from the IM Chat app that I've installed on my iPhone.

Anyway, I think chatting to bots, and through bots will become ever more common. Case-in-point: Twitter. I think of Twitter as some sort of next-generation communication platform, something unlike ever before. You can access and post to twitter from various interfaces including SMS, IM, web, and desktop applications... If you're using Twitter through IM, you're chatting with through the Twitter bot, with other people. Anyway, it's worth checking out. You can follow me here: http://twitter.com/Rex

Hello World

I think technology has the potential to fix a lot of what's wrong in our world today. Robots for manual labor and the Internet for communication of knowledge and ideas. But it's not there yet... I mean, our world is not the utopia I think it could be. It is up to us - you and me - to take it there. Care to come along for the ride? Please subscribe!

Cheers,
Rex