Hazards and rewards of predicting

This morning's newspaper had the traditional sets of predictions for the coming year. Always fun to read, but always dangerous to believe. Prognosticators are too rarely held to account. But when they are, it can be very interesting.

One of the earliest technology scolds I can remember reading was Clifford Stoll. His books, The Cuckoo's Egg (1989) and Silicon Snake Oil (1995) as well as High Tech Heretic (1999), informed and influenced my thinking about the Internet and the role it should play in education and in society.

So when I ran across Chris Meadow's The hazards of being skeptical: Clifford Stoll on the Internet in 1995 (Teleread, December 19, 2013), I was fascinated by just how wrong Stoll was in his predictions. Among those bad guesses (direct quotes):

Then there’s cyberbusiness. We’re promised instant catalog shopping—just point and click for great deals. We’ll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obsolete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet—which there isn’t—the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.

How about electronic publishing? Try reading a book on disc. At best, it’s an unpleasant chore: the myopic glow of a clunky computer replaces the friendly pages of a book. And you can’t tote that laptop to the beach. Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we’ll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Internet. Uh, sure.

What’s missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact. Discount the fawning techno-burble about virtual communities. Computers and networks isolate us from one another. A network chat line is a limp substitute for meeting friends over coffee.*

Amazon, the Kindle, and Facebook - all game changers not yet a twinkle in their creators' eyes back in '95. (OK, Amazon was founded in '94.) Mr. Stoll, how could a smart guy like you have gotten it so wrong?

I published my first writings about the Internet in about 1995 as well so I thought that I ought to go back and take a look before feeling too smug. These are the earliest publications/talks I could find: Why Minnesota’s Children Need Internet Access, text of talk given at TIES meeting, 1994; Captured by the Web: K-12 Schools and the World Wide Web MultiMedia Schools Mar/Apr 1995; and The Mankato Schools' Internet Project, Internet Research, Winter 1995.

So how did I do?

School Internet activities including keypals and joint problem solving between international classrooms will give our students early and varied experiences working with people who have far different cultures and beliefs - the same folks they’ll be working with in an international economy.

Our schools must give students practice solving the kinds of problems they’ll find at work using the kinds of resources they’ll have as adults. Try to remember the last time you used a textbook or lecture to get problem-solving information. Students need practice using real-life tools like the Internet.

Regardless of whether one regards the government as the problem or the solution, access to it and the information it generates is vital if a citizen is to fully participate in the democratic process.

We see a wide-area school district network which allows e-mail, file transfer, and information access as essential to effective staff communication and site-based decision-making. We predict long-term cost savings as a result of the network.

A school district’s Web server can help students, parents, and the public easily access current activity schedules, staff directories, lunch menus, and policies. Not far down the road, teacher created Web pages will be used to help students access class assignments and handouts. The possibilities are exciting. The “blueprint” of Mankato Public School’s Web site only hints at the amount of information which a district can make available to its students, staff and public - everything from policies and lunch menus to job openings and athletic schedules.

The Web can also be an exciting way for students to share their work with others. Creative writing and art, results of student research, and the products of other classroom activities can be displayed on a district’s Web server for other students to examine and react to. Each Mankato school Web site will have a space for a virtual open-house which parents and community members can have access to all year long. Students in teacher preparation programs have ready access to student work for practice evaluating. 

I needed this reminder that perhaps it's better to be optimistic than skeptical when making predictions. I gave a very hesitant approval to spend $1500 on a pair of Google Glass for trial in our district just before holiday break. They've been in the hands of my two young technology integration specialists while school's been out and I am sure they'll come back in January with some amazing ideas how teachers and students can use this tool.**

My prediction? Wearable technologies will be an integral part of first life outside of school with education to follow in its usual foot-draggin' way. Devices that are transparent for the user, as indispensable (and remarkable) as shoes and socks and smartphones, will indeed be game changers. 

But my sense is that it will not be the hardware, but the software that links data and physical objects to create an amazing world of augmented reality that will really be game changer. The ability to look at a person, place, or thing and become omniscient - wow! Look at the book and see a list of other books you'd also like; look at a place and learn its place in history; look at a student and know her ability levels, learning styles, and any special needs. (Or look at your brother-in-law and know exactly how much money he owes you.)

Amazon and Facebook were the "killer apps" of the Internet. I can't wait to see what those are for Glass.

OK, that's my brave (or not so brave) prediction. Hold me accountable for it in 2034.

*Go back, read all of Meadow's article.
** I want them for the mundane reason that I'd like to work with some students in creating a guide for their use that addresses digital citizenship both in school and out.

Comments

[Miguel Guhlin]

You were more progressive than I, Doug, in regards to Google Glass. I didn't approve a purchase for the reason that when schools don't have enough desktops with non-obsolete OSs and wireless infrastructure, why spend precious funding on gadgets like Google Glass?

Undoubtedly, I'll be wrong some way or another in making that decision. A little extravagance can go a long way....

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Miguel,

It won't be the first, or probably the last, foolish thing I've purchased for the district. What made me go with this purchase, however, is the enthusiasm of a couple of my tech integrationists for the device. What did Henry Ford say? If you think a think will work...

Happy new year, mi amigo!

Doug