Digital Age Education and the Economic Transformation of Regions By Educators

Our culture is currently facing up to the consequences of the shift of thought and problem solving to a new base in digital literacy and digital skills. These are not just abstract thoughts. They form the basis of the emerging knowledge economy. Such development has serious long term implications for any country. Regions of a country die and grow based on their actual and potential capacity for jobs which in turns effects the capacity of a region's educational systems to meet new challenges. What is the impact of the changing economic situation for our region? How is this region responding to such threats and opportunities? What implications does this have for any region's educators educational systems? As an example of its importance for a region, consider the situation at the western end of the state of North Carolina, or WNC and the possible value of the digital age. This region is typical of the economic history of many regions across the country and around the world.

Why is a Digital Economy Important?

During the past ten years, the region of Western North Carolina has continued to suffer from a significant and accelerating loss of jobs. Most of the lost positions were manufacturing jobs that were part of the remaining companies of the industrial age. From the long term perspective of history, this is not anything new.

In the late 1800's 246x228 of water wheel over river basin mapthe ability of people to live of the natural resources of the land grew more difficult. (Image credits: LOC & NOAA.) Game animals were greatly reduced in number, and the land was seldom quality farming land. At the same time, the force of the mountain rivers and streams had attracted a rush of thousands of businesses up and down the mountain chain whose water wheels and gears (see picture on the left) used the stream's energy to drive the machines of the industrial age. The products were lumber and textiles and other goods. The wealth this generated was used to build even more manufacturing operations in the 1900's whose power source changed to coal and electrical power. Eventually mining played out, the forests were cleared of their major timber value and then the lower costs of international settings began to 157x256 image of brain over networkattract away many manufacturing operations. In the last ten years, either computers, robots and/or cheaper labor elsewhere have increasingly taken over the assisting labor of the region's human hands.

Now with the turn of the millennium new sources of employment must once again be found. In this new economy the brain replaces the variations on the water wheel as a generator of energy and products. The Internet wires offer new opportunities for distribution and interaction in contrast to the transportation network of rivers, roads and airports.  Much as the power of streams and rivers were once improved with dams and channels to magnify the energy of water, today more powerful Internet streams can be brought to a region that expand on a new kind of energy, the interactive energy of people and information. As in the picture on the right (Image credits: Warriors of the Net; CCIC brain.), the mental energy of interactive minds creates a web of the many streams and rivers of the Internet (see picture on the right) through which problems are found and solved. On the banks of this digital river, new economy and new culture is forming.

How Does the Internet Work?

In general, how does this transportation system for ideas work? It is important to see the complete 12:40 minute movie titled Warriors of the Net movie, both for reasons of its content and to experience what is involved in moving the most costly form of information product, a video or movie over the Internet. (This will raise issues that will be further discussed in considering the meaning and needs of bandwidth.) Use this link to start the process of  downloading the movie from the network. If using a low speed Internet connection, this could take a long time to download; the smaller "good quality" version of the video is 73 MB in size. If a high speed connection is readily available at a school, business or university, one of those high-speed links would be the preferred site for downloading and viewing. Use a headphone if the computer used does not have speakers.

The "net" is not just one stream of information but an enormous set of interlinked streams, a complex network of networks. To better understand the net, geographers have developed many different types of maps to help with comprehension of what the net has been and what it is becoming. (see picture on left, Click above picture for more. Copyright - Martin Dodge, 2004. Creative Commons License). Because this spatial perspective is so useful, the net is also referred to as cyberspace. For more information on cyberspace maps, visit http://www.cybergeography.org/ or search for cyberspace maps.

This information that builds on the banks of our Internet streams (e.g., web pages, books, video and more) is not just of the solutions themselves, but also of the procedures by which the solutions are found. Information provides the building blocks for the key product of the net. The key product of this network is knowledge. 

Just as streams of water were used in prior centuries, the Internet stream not only helps create the products but is in turn used to deliver the goods. Information is sent in sets of packets and a device called the router makes the best choice for each packet at each branch of the net to get the data packet its destination. If trains were managed like Internet data, the train would broken apart into individual train cars as the train left the station and each car would be sent on its own best path and then all cars would be reassembled at the train station destination.

The quality of a stream of packets of information depends in part upon its speed. The quality of a network also depends the amount of data that is not lost in route; any data lost must then be retransmitted slowing the transmission and clogging the network for other packets of information. The jump between any two points in a message stream is called a "hop" and the hops are measured in ms or milliseconds, as in 290 milliseconds for the last hop below into Bangkok, Thailand. These Internet streams can be mapped between any two points in seconds For example, see the Visual Route Server map a path from Hong Kong to a server address such as paws.wcu.edu. There are many other visual and non-visual traceroute programs. (Click the image on the right for a larger version of this output from a Visual Route Server).

How fast is your access to the Internet stream from your home, classroom or office? There are many web sites that will analyze the signal to your computer and report your current speed. Try the Bandwidth Place site for a quick test of your personal computer workstation situations.

Understanding the nuances of speed is important to effective use of a network. People need basic knowledge of the facts. For example, we would laugh and or cringe at the thought of someone proposing to mix their jogging, skateboarding or bicycling activity in with the Interstate highway network; the speed differential is too great, and beside the critical problem of safety, these extremely slow users would make the transportation network ineffective for higher speed users in cars. People also want to know the range or variety of options. Knowing a fun and flexible way or a quick way to get somewhere and knowing about bikes, cars and planes makes a wide range of activity planning possible.

In the same way, knowledge is needed about what digital "vehicles" can go at what speeds and which are the fastest routes in order to plan intellectual activities from sending voice and text messages to moving animation and video. Different digital communication technologies operate at different speeds, and the higher speeds are constantly moving upward. The wireless speed of a handheld computer's infrared signal relatively slow, like a jogger's speed, so infrared software is generally not designed for use with Internet access. The minimum speed for a car on the Interstate is sometimes 45 miles per hour; its parallel in computing might be a cell phone's data services for sending text messages and browsing Internet web pages, a speed in the range of 9.6 to 14.4 kbps or kilobits per second. A high percentage of U.S. homes still use narrowband (telephone modems) with speeds up to 56 kbps for connecting their computer to the Internet, a speed like driving a winding mountain road. You'll get there just fine; but it takes a while. The equivalent to Interstate highway speeds in the United States is the concept of broadband, delivered through commonly available technologies including satellite, DSL and cable modems. DSL services that run on home telephone lines when available run from 384 kbps to 1.5 mbps (megabits per second). Satellite runs about 400 kbps; cable modems speed for the average owner might run at 250 kbps though the technology could run up to 52 mbps for premium services. Broadband does not have a universal global definition or defined speed range. It is clear through broadband comparison with other countries that others are establishing a much higher base for broadband speeds, for example Japan with 50 mbps and or South Korea at 20 mbps.

Institutions that must share their Internet bandwidth with dozens, hundreds or thousands of their institutions computers want bigger and bigger data pipes as their users increase their frequency of use and the range of the services they use. Public schools have been trying to meet the costs of reaching speeds called T1 lines or 1.5 mbps and often sharing divisions of a T1 line with other schools in a school district. Universities and colleges seek speeds in the range of several hundred megabits, with Internet2 speeds of 622 mbps (OC-12) being a common speed target. Businesses and corporations run this entire range depending on their needs and abilities to pay. The University of North Carolina System is moving to a standard of OC-48 or 2.4 gbps (gigabits per second) which might be thought of as jet plane service. The major systems that feed and interconnect these networks are known as backbone services and run at speeds of 10 -13 gbps (OC-256). These systems will need to constantly find new technology that takes them to higher levels to keep up with growing data traffic.

How important is bandwidth to you? It depends on the kind and quantity of information that needs to be moved across the network. Users of the Internet have some idea of how long it takes to open an email, a photograph or an animation. For example, without sufficient bandwidth, it would take a long time just to open your email or you might be unable to see and hear the Warriors of the Web movie that was noted above or if you can see the movie, you may have had to choose a very small size format that is more difficult to see and hear.

The faster the stream, the greater its capacity, and the greater the knowledge that can be produced and shared. Many testbed projects are underway to push the edges of Internet speed and applications. One such test system is National LambdaRail, a university-based and -owned system which contrasts with the university-corporate partnerships that manage Abilene and its sponsoring Internet2 Consortium (I2). In January of 2005, the I2 group announced a new global net speed record above 7 gbps (Friedman, 2005); it's near term goal is to reach 100 gigabit speed by the end of 2006. LambdaRail's longer term goals are to reach terabit speeds. These are the rocket-ship networks of cyberspace. Current users of the public Internet have only to look at the products of the Internet2 consortium (Houghton, 2004) to understand the future of higher speed communication.

How Can Regions Respond?

Culture and economy cluster towns and cities in regional bunches and hubs. Examining a single region in greater detail can serve as a model for studying problems faced in many regions of the country. The sparsely populated mountain region of Western North Carolina responded to this digital knowledge and the economic challenge by developing leadership teams.

These teams gathered the facts and suggested directions.

"In the past three years, the fifteen counties that comprise the 11th Congressional district of western North Carolina (WNC) have experienced a net loss of nearly 6,000 largely old line manufacturing jobs. This represents nearly 10% of all  manufacturing jobs in the district. In the early 1990s, WNC's per capita income was 4% below the per capita income of the North Carolina piedmont and the gap has now widened to 6%.[1]  The per capita income is vital to WNC because it undergirds the quality of life of our citizens. The trend in America, as well as in WNC, is for old line manufacturing jobs to move to third world countries. As we begin the 21st century, it is apparent that we are beginning a Third Industrial Revolution where knowledge is the basis of the creation of wealth." Strengthening Our People and the Economy Through Education and Research (Education and Research Consortium of the Western Carolinas)
"The world is in the midst of an information technology revolution that is reshaping our economic and cultural future. Just as rivers, railroads and highways were the lifeblood of  towns and cities in the past, so telecommunications is the valued medium of today's economy. The capacity of one's telecommunications infrastructure, often referred to as the widest bandwidth, is the key to education and economic development in the new knowledge-based economy."
"Because of the geography of our region, many of our rural communities are excluded from the high speed telecommunications needed to compete in the new economy. At the same time, these communities are attracting new skilled workers and businesses fleeing the gridlock of highly populated urban areas. As our region grows, there is a fear that much of Western North Carolina is at risk of being on the "wrong side of the digital divide." Narrowing the Digital Divide: The Unique Role of Community Colleges in Western North Carolina (The Western North Carolina Community Colleges Technology Group)
As jobs are lost and people leave the region the taxable income from the state and local political structures to support students, hire teachers and generally support schools, declines. Based on these concerns, new resources, both, organizations and new financing, was sought. Announcements have indicated that leaders in the region have seen the challenge and the opportunity and were acting to bring a new vision into reality.

ERC Brings High Speed Internet to WNC | January 21, 2002

Representative Charles Taylor
U.S. Congress, Contact Information.
"It is very exciting for me to be able to announce today that I have secured funding for the Education and Research Consortium of the Western Carolinas (ERC) -- which we founded four years ago with the presidents of several WNC universities -- to formulate a plan to make our region a major force in the realm of high technology. We will create a high-speed fiber optic network that will provide an Internet presence that is unprecedented in the Carolinas. The funding is part of a cooperative agreement between the Library of Congress (LOC) and the ERC. This agreement will provide money to fund the non-profit, regional fiber infrastructure required to bring affordable high-speed Internet access to schools, libraries, health care providers and businesses in the region.
The initial focus will be on providing a rural fiber optic distribution network. This distribution network will ensure that telecommunications service providers may offer advanced services and pricing at parity with urban areas.
Pending an engineering review, we believe the network will be comprised of over 800 miles of fiber optic cable, with over 200 fiber miles to be constructed. State-of-the-art electronic equipment will be utilized to light the fiber and will result in virtually unlimited bandwidth capacity for the region. A Tier 2 Internet Connection will be created, with a Tier 1 Internet Service Provider (ISP) operator providing lowest-cost wholesale services to local ISPs. Under this arrangement, connections will be deployed to two of the three megahubs that serve the Eastern United States (Washington, D.C. and Atlanta). The importance of a Tier 2 connection in terms of economic development cannot be overstated. This connectivity will place the region one hop from the Washington, D.C. and Atlanta megahubs, and two hops from Europe and South America. This type of connectivity is unprecedented in the Carolinas and will help attract global businesses to the region by offering reduced telecommunications costs for quality services."
In a press conference on May 6, 2003, Representative Taylor, Chancellor Bardo of WCU and other dignitaries announced that the golden spike had been driven, that the mega-pop or major point of presence for the Internet was operational in Asheville for the WNC region. The planning fund had led to appropriation of the $30 million dollars needed to establish the Tier 2 major hub and its wiring to the rest of the region. (For more details, see the Asheville Citizen Times story, Big expansion of information superhighway in WNC is nothing less than great news. Chancellor Bardo of Western Carolina University referred to it as a "seminal event in the history of Western North Carolina." The ERC site has a number of photos of the rack room and the people at the press conference.

Building the information highway, as significant as it is, still adds just one leg to the economic stool. In order for the economy of a region or a country to benefit from this digital stream, it must know how to make and use the gears and wheels and related machines. This includes both having and knowing how to use many different kinds of computers and how to compose and communicate with a wide variety of different software programs. This computer literacy provides the stool with a second leg. This economy must next have the creativity to use these digital water wheels to create and invent new solutions to a new age, the age of knowledge, the information age. It is not that making things with hands or robots has become unimportant, but that making things with the mind has become more important. Can you see a problem that no one has shown you? Can you solve this problem you have never seen before using the electronic thinking tools, the power tools of the mind? Can you create a digital solution to the problem that will have value in the digital marketplace in your neighborhood or major city such as Atlanta or London, England? Can the citizens of a region e-think? If so, the stool will have the third leg that it needs to stand successful.

In North Carolina one organization in particular, the eNC Authority, has been given the legislative mandate to

"...to encourage all North Carolina citizens to use technology, especially the Internet, to improve their quality of life and their economic prospects."

eNC has also been given funding to distribute in the form of grants to encourage such developments. Staying current with the build-out of Internet infrastructure and  finding and following the activities their funding is encouraging will require visiting and studying information that can be found at e-NC.org. Though sufficient to fund various seed projects, this funding  has not been sufficient to actually build needed larger scale networks within the state.

More local and regional leadership must still build the local regional networks that will connect with the larger spheres of economic and social relationships. Such a development, WNC EdNet, is emerging to meet this need.

WNC EdNet

A portion of the schools in the more economically challenged counties of the WNC region created a consortium to radically expand their available bandwidth. The fiber ring will support some 62 schools in the WNC EdNet area. In 2005 a grant proposal was written and later funded by the Golden Leaf Foundation with over $2 million dollars to build a fiber ring over a 2 year period. On January 25, 2006 a new group was charged with developing educational activities for this network, known as the Technology Applications Committee (TAC), of which this author is a part.

Any region must also be able to see the bigger picture of which it is a part. For example, the WNC region is in turn in the center of a larger "great diamond" of economic geography which follows the rough diamond shape of the interstate and could easily be expanded into a larger interactive "great circle" of population and related economic activity. (See map on left; click for larger view.) Adding the population of the counties within the diamond area alone reaches a total of some 8 million people. This diamond ringing the population concentrations of three surrounding states encompasses the cities of Atlanta, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Asheville and Spartanburg. It includes a population density range from 3,000 people per square mile in Atlanta to 1-3 people per square mile in areas of the inner WNC. Part of the challenge for the TAC is to develop both the technical and economic knowledge to connect the entrepreneurial potential of the emerging fiber ring communities in the sparsely populated WNC with this greater circle of economic activity.

As digital communication can make geographic distance irrelevant, the opportunities in such connections are immense. As digital communication routinely leads to increases in all forms of interaction, the driving radius of about 2.5 hours from the center to the edge means that such a space can also often benefit from the highest form of bandwidth, face-to-face communication. Is there an optimal range to get the most effective benefit from the relationship between online interaction and corresponding face-to-face interaction? That question remains unanswered and would be greatly impacted by the quality of the regional  transportation system.

The "Last Mile" Problem

Major high-speed fiber "highways" may be available in a region, but without connections to the Internet traffic of an optical fiber line from schools, homes and offices, high-speed services have no impact. This is known as the "last mile" problem. The current "last mile" solutions have included DSL (digital subscriber line) from phone companies, cable modems from the Cable TV companies, satellite-dish services and towers with wireless broadband (a feature that does not yet work consistently in covering large areas of mountain terrain unless powered to melt ice). Many homes in rural and especially mountain regions are still beyond the reach of DSL and cable modems and no one is offering wireless tower services except in Asheville.

BPL (broadband over power lines) is the newest player on the high-speed Internet stage. In 2004, the FCC (Federal Communication Commission) approved build-out of a new technology called BPL that uses power lines. The same line that brings electricity into a home, school and business can now be used to carry computer data (Editor, 2004). By plugging in a BPL modem, every wall plug can be an Internet outlet. IEEE plans to finish the development of electrical engineering standards for such technology (IEEE P1675) in 2006. Because BPL holds the promise to deliver the rest of the Internet infrastructure that prior technologies have not been able to cover in rural areas, BPL holds the potential to have tremendous impact on remote rural areas, especially the mountain regions. Who would have thought that the rural electrification projects of the 1930's and 40's could hold the key to rural datafication in the year 2006 and beyond?

 

What do the trends in the economy of a region mean for teacher education?

There is a series of inter-related issues at work here. They begin with growing and attracting competitive minds and also building competitive digital networks, networks which consists of both wires and competitive computer technology that growing minds can use. These goals have become part of the mission of educational systems for the 21st century. This in turn impacts programs for the education of teachers.

Economies of a region grow when needed products or creations are new, unique or lower cost and when those products or creations can reach those who need them.  To the extent that the minds of a region can produce the new and unique or lower cost, the region can expand its economy. To the extent that our digital highways are competitive or better than surrounding regions, knowledge economy companies and businesses and the jobs they provide will be attracted to the area. "The digital revolution is driving today's economy. Information technology  accounts for a sixth of the total U.S. economy and is creating jobs five times faster than the rest of the economy. ...Entrepreneurs can  choose to live in small towns and rural communities and still engage in the global data-transmission marketplace. Yet, that dream is far from realized" (formerly Rural Internet Access Authority and now e-NC Authority).

The announcements from Representative Taylor's office have not had any immediate impact on the regional educational systems, but it will have significant long term consequences whose timeline is far from clear. However, schools are not standing idle. They too have redirected state funding and greatly expanded the speed of the Internet access to each school building; this process goes on. In time, the costs to the schools for such access will drop. Such improvements will impact business and education in major ways. When this digital engineering is completed, the effort by state, regional, and Chamber of Commerce economic planners to attract businesses to the region will become much easier. As new businesses arrive, the taxable income of counties increases and this improves the funding available to schools.

Another noticeable impact of completing this economic planning will be in the improvements in Internet access for PK-12 (preschool-kindergarten through twelfth grade). PK-12 institutions have lagged far behind the high-speed, high bandwidth resources of higher education and competitive businesses. Not only will new Internet speeds in our region significantly expand the capacity of the current high speed networks for higher education, but the implication is that PK-12 schools will be brought up to this new Internet level as well, bringing communities and economic development along with it. As the schools learn to use the Internet and to create and support knowledge economy thinking and problem solving, graduates of the educational system in turn expand the economic value of the companies and businesses in the region. This is very significant.

There are other initiatives that are underway and making progress, which in turn raise new questions. The eNC Authority that will distribute funding and guide its use in the region. Will teachers be aware of its initiatives and help create grant proposals that will advance this work? Towns and cities have been experimenting with wireless hotspots providing free wireless Internet access in downtown business districts. Will they collaborate with school districts to help put wireless computer technology in the hands of needy families? The Department of Public Instruction has also been examining initiatives in this area. Schools Districts throughout the state filed updates for their technology plans in the fall of 2002. Will school districts in the WNC region continually re-examine their five year technology plans in light of updates to Internet2 development and other innovations and to make the most of this unprecedented opportunity as a model for the rest of the state? Regional telecommunication companies continue to roll out access to high speed service . Among those users logging on to the Internet, over 70% are using broadband in some counties (Donaldson, 2004). What timeline is possible for broadband service to the poorer and underserved parts of the region?

The "Last Desk" Problem

Unfortunately, there is one initiative that is missing, an initiative to solve the problem of student access at school and in many cases at home as well. The problem of reaching the last desktops to have Internet access is as much a national issue as region and state. The solution is as known as the problem, but the funding to solve it has not appeared. In a digital culture, every student needs as much regular hourly access to a computer as to paper technologies. Though great progress has been made in getting hardware and software, the wheels and gears of the digital age, into classrooms for minds to use them, the effort is still far short of the goal. The current digital classroom strategy is based on incrementalism. In this theory, putting some computer technology in the classroom will encourage the teacher to provide a little bit of computer experience for the students. Adding more, one more increment, will yield more digital classroom activity. Imagine, if you will, charging schools to teach reading and writing in order to improve minds and economic capacity and then providing one piece of paper and one pencil per classroom and no large chalkboard for the whole class to see the teacher's writing. How long can you maintain a teaching focus on what one can do with one pencil and piece of paper with a classroom of twenty or so active children? Wouldn't providing just a second or even fifth pencil be missing the point?

When most educators in the nation and region look up from their teacher desks, the classroom scene in the graphic to the left  is the digital setting that they see, one computer with Internet access and no permanent room installation to project what that computer can display so that the whole classroom can see it. The red zone areas are where teachers generally place themselves and key resources in order to manage the significant activities of the classroom. Computers are often not one of the important tools of the classroom, in spite of being the most expensive single teaching technology in the room. Consequently the PC in the green circle is marginalized on the right side of the room, placed away from the red zone areas. The computer lab down the hallway provides just a couple periods per week of every student having access. Projection systems, if available in the building, must be shared with large numbers of teachers.

The problem stems from a failure to heed one of the fundamental dynamics of a teaching classroom combined with the well-intentioned political need to assure parents that computer technology is equally available to all. Classroom educational systems operate on critical mass, not on incrementalism. Reaching sufficient critical mass for the use of an instructional resource means sufficient supply or design of that resource in order to engage an entire class at a time. Until a critical mass of computer technology is available to the teacher, beginning with at least a projection system in each classroom, the incremental investment of digital resources for instructional purposes in classrooms  is largely wasted. One or two computers in every classroom sit idle most of each day except for teacher administrative needs and intermittent use by a single student. In general, the largely unrecognized policy of digital classroom incrementalism should be judged a failure. Limited funding implies that access to the last desktop will remain a major issue for some time.

If the goal is to have a real impact on students, state policies would be far better served by bringing one school at a time or one grade level at a time up to critical mass than to so evenly distribute scarce resources that few can effectively use what little they have. The digital divide between the adult frame of reference about digital applications and the world of public education is immense. For the many state educational systems in budget crisis, following the direction of a few lead states in providing laptop computers to every student at certain grade levels is beyond reach.

The one bright hope on the horizon for solving the problem of access (and equity) is the handheld computer and wireless networking technology. Such down-sized technology falls in the $100 range and less, including the examples of personal digital assistants from the $99 Treo 650 by Palm to the ongoing MIT development of their $100 downscaled laptop. Wireless networking is critical in that school classrooms require great flexibility in arrangement and tight economies of space. There is no room in the standard classroom for legions of telecommunication wires and power plugs at every desk. Even the acquisition of these resources will require significant outlays of funding. Educators should be in the lead of the needed lobbying efforts that will take time to bear fruit. These rapidly falling prices and rapidly increasing features of computer technology and wireless network access are an important element of the digital technology scene that deserves greater educational attention.

In short, significantly increasing the size and speed of our "digital rivers" is important to reaching the competitive capacity that can use the full range of computer technology to communicate and compose. This in turn raises the expectation that educators are preparing themselves, students and their communities to seek out the possibilities and opportunities of such activity. This expectation includes the ability to develop web sites and incorporate a full range of expression in a variety of digital media (multimedia or unimedia), online group activity and problem solving. However, there is an important note of caution in building things faster than minds are prepared to use them. No matter how good the hardware, software and computer networks become, unless competitive minds are present and capable of creative and critical work, there will be no growth. Government leaders are providing the networking infrastructure. Problems of full time access to computers and their software will eventually be solved. Leadership for growing the minds of a region falls to the educators of the region and the activities that they bring to the classrooms across its towns and cities. As resources become available, will educators have the digital knowledge to lead?

Further activities will expand your power to participate and to help others better participate in the economic and educational efforts that are underway. Important questions remain. Are educational systems heading in the right direction? By what designs and social structures can educational and business systems link their efforts in building a region's knowledge economy? Is the accent within the curriculum and testing of our educational systems preparing minds for the creative and critical thinking needed to produce new knowledge and new products or for minds that concentrate on knowing facts and figures? Which adds the most value to a region's economic vitality? What computer based tools work best in magnifying needed creative and critical thinking and how can they be used? 

As with past cultural changes, the new age of knowledge will require new models of education and business practice that support the creation and export of knowledge objects (Bereiter, 2002), the reorganization of communities of practice (Peters, 2003; Toffler, 1984; Toffler, 1991) and restructured thinking about economic planning (Florida, 2002). Can teachers learn to take economic advantage of their professional specialty in knowledge development and digital composition and communication to provide leadership in developing knowledge products? This would require educators to not only learn more about entrepreneurship and basic business formation but to further the sparse curriculum development and sparser educational practices in this area. Can educators use their summer breaks to create the kind of wealth, skill and community status that dramatically raises their income and reverses the teacher shortage? Could they then pass this economic knowledge on to their students and other community members? Much could be gained by exploring such possibilities. Children and teenagers have not been a force in the economy since the agricultural age, and the passing of the child labor laws in the industrial age. Yet without formal help even young teenagers have emerged that have used their digital knowledge to earn hourly income many times the minimum wage. As such activity is revived can it be done without the industrial age abuses that led to laws excluding children and a large portion of teenagers? Step by step, many answers to these questions will become clearer in the time ahead ahead.

What Trends Indicate the Cultural Importance of Digital Knowledge

One term might summarize the overall trends of digital development, skyrocketing. This begins with the long term trend of accelerating global participation, reported to have exceeded 1 billion users in 2005, up from only 45 million in 1995. Whereas reaching 1 billion took over 20 years, surpassing the two billion Internet user mark is expected in six years, by 2011 (Computer Industry Almanac, 2006).

The bandwidth or fiber capacity to carry this immense Internet traffic has been growing just as rapidly. At the same time the power of computers has been engaged in doubling, currently every 18 months, cutting the cost of computing in half in the same period. Building on this geometric doubling trend of hardware has led to a equally rapid increase in the number of those using the Web. See chart on right of the global growth of web users, eTForecasts (2006).

Some half dozen such digital trends (Houghton, 1996-2006) are key to understanding the current fourth age of educational computing (Houghton, 1996-2006). Three more will be mentioned here. The exponential growth trends follow from Metcalf's Law that the value of a network increases with the square of those participating (N2)  and Reed's Law that the number and value of group-forming options grows exponentially (2N). Combined, these trends encourage the complications of what I will term Toffler's Law (1970, 1981, 1994), that increasing change causes a corresponding though temporary increase in bursts of resistance, yet combined with these positive forces has and is transforming culture. That is, the degree of human and computer interactivity and the resources available online have in turn caused an exponential increase in the impact of the Web, the importance computer literacy, the value of knowledge objects and how to teach their development and the need for school classrooms to have one-to-one computer technology in order to prepare students to address these developments head on.

These forces in turn create the giant cultural shifts in intellectual and economic needs that educators must heed and address in their vision statements and planning. When huge waves of change shift work and thought around the globe, even inland mountain ranges must be watchful of the crashing impact of tsunamis of change.

Technical and Conceptual Bibliographies

Technical Bibliography

Given the importance of digital development, here are some web sites that explain and provide information about the expanding nature of the Internet and Internet2 developments.

Internet 2

ERC (Education and Research Consortium of the Western Carolinas)

Rural Internet Access Authority

BPL

Bandwidth Knowledge

Conceptual Bibliography

Bereiter, Carl (2002). Education and Mind in the Knowledge Age. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. On February 23, 2004, full-text available at http://www.observetory.com/carlbereiter/

Donaldson, Jeff (July, 2004). CONNECTIVITY - Is the region on the right cyber road? WNC Tech Journal. http://www.wnctechjournal.com/modules.php?name=News&file=categories&op=newindex&catid=13

Florida, Richard (2002). The Rise of the Creative Class. New York: Basic Books.

Houghton, R. S. (1996-2006). The Four Ages of Thinking: the History of Educational Computing. Available at http://ceap.wcu.edu/houghton/EDELCompEduc/Ch1/thinking_tech_4stages_history.html

Houghton, R. S. (1996-2006). Seven Major Trends of the Fourth Age of Computing that Impact Educational  Planning. Available at http://ceap.wcu.edu/houghton/EDELCompEduc/Ch1/technology_trends.html

Peters, Tom (2003). Re-imagine! DK Publishing.

Toffler, Alvin (1970). Future Shock. New York: Bantam.

Toffler, Alvin (1984). The Third Wave. Bantam.

Toffler, Alvin (1991). Powershift : Knowledge, Wealth, and Power at the Edge of the 21st Century. Bantam.

 


Credits: Water wheel: Library of Congress Image call number: LC-H823-1677-003;    NOAA map: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/serfc/ahps/RVFGA.htm;    CCIC brain. http://www.ccic.gov/pubs/blue00/hecc.html

Original 2001; Updated February 13, 2006  |  Course: Chapter Two - Computers in Education | Page Author: Robert Houghton