Shift to the Future

I remember in the early 1980's working as a programmer for a Fisheries & Oceans research station writing code on VAX 11780 mini-computers and being amazed that people could use my programs on their terminals anywhere in the building and get this, at the same time!  Those were the days where we would plan and prepare for a couple of months prior to executing a Fortran compiler upgrade.  New VMS operating system upgrades might occur every couple years.  We’re talking slooow innovation cycles. Fast forward to 2019 and it’s a whole different world.  I was watching a recorded session recently about Microsoft’s Azure Cognitive services.  I’ll share one example.  Let’s say someone, maybe your boss who has privileged access to important systems, accidentally deletes a core database containing 100’s of thousands of invoice records and it turns out the backup has never worked.  Seriously, this happens.  Fortunately, there was a practice of saving PDF c...

I continue to marvel at how much our world has changed since I was in school over 30 years ago.  I remember Physics 12 classes where the teacher would dim (turn off) the lights, fire up the reel to reel projector, and we’d sit back, relax, and enjoy a scintillating monotonic black and white moving picture film of some guy describing velocity, acceleration, and friction by moving an object down an inclined plain.  Okay, I often fell asleep… it was just too overwhelmingly exciting…  There was one computer in the school, actually the entire District, and it was in my Math class.  It wasn’t wireless.  Education was completely paper based, chalk board, and lecture oriented.  I learned, I became successful, I continue to learn.  I suspect that many of you reading this are also products of the old non-technology education world and are also successful in your chosen field.  Seems the old system worked pretty good.  So why is it those of us engaged i...

With my recent job change where I now commute 48km each way through a complex labyrinth of roads and traffic, I have lots of time (45-50 minutes in the morning, 75-105 minutes after work) to reflect on the state of our transportation system.  Along the way there are seven cities, one bridge, and approximately 40 lights to navigate.  Traffic stops, goes, slows, speeds up, weaves (no signaling), merges, people cut each other off, some talk on phones, some day dream, some get sleepy, etc.  It’s a rats nest of dangerous weapons driven by people, many who shouldn’t be driving, just waiting to have an accident!  Let’s imagine together what could be done to change this up… There are some fundamental changes required to create intelligent roadways.  Electronic nodes could be installed, perhaps as nanopaint, and applied to the sides, lanes, and center of roads, starting with the freeways, highways, and major commuting routes.  Additionally, the cell phone networks...

As I am out visiting schools, participating in District meetings, or other contexts, I often find myself either presenting or in conversations about my vision for technology and learning.  I recently wrote and presented a set of strategies to focus our efforts in implementing technology at the VSB .  We need to sustainably invest in three areas: Infrastructure (computing, storage, and network), Equity (tools/devices for students and staff, technical support), and Learning & Work Systems. My aim is that infrastructure becomes a utility type service that we don’t really need to talk about in the future.  Rather it is funded like electricity where there’s always enough and it’s always on.  Behind the scenes we replace and upgrade every five years or so taking advantage of Moore’s law where we get more (speed, capacity) for less cost.  Infrastructure is the “oxygen” of a learning ecosystem and is an essential component for technology powered learning and work....

I can’t believe how fast this past year has gone by.  It’s almost like we’re in a time warp or something.  I suspect technology has something to do with that.  Things change so quickly now, it’s really hard to keep up.  I wonder what 2013 has in store for us?  Will there be new gadgets that blow our minds?  Will there be breakthroughs in robotics where more work is performed by machines?  How might learning and teaching be changed by technology? I was watching a TV piece on the food channel today about how those chocolate oranges are made, assembled, packaged, and shipped.  I had no idea how automated the process is.  It’s quite amazing or perhaps alarming, how machines have taken on more work that not too many years ago, required human beings.  Now in factories of all sorts, the humans are really serving the machines, not the other way around.  I’ve written previously about automation and it’s looming impact on us.  Automat...

A few years ago I led a learning team with seven K-5 teachers who came together to do some action research around the use of SMART boards in their classrooms.  Through that year I learned a lot about what’s possible and how challenging it is to effectively incorporate a foreign technology into pedagogy.  Often making technology choices requires a good compass to show them the way.  Learning teams have been a successful structure for our teachers in doing this.  Being a firm believer there’s always more to learn, I decided to participate in a workshop last week with about 20 teachers learning about SMART boards and in particular the Notebook software.  The workshop facilitator, Sasha Zekulin , was brilliant.  She really brought to life the capabilities and possibilities, light-bulbs were going off for many of the teachers. We live in exciting times don’t we.  Every week there seems to be some new technology invented and put on the market.  Educa...

Last week my wife Shelley and I headed over to Nanaimo and to Gold River on Vancouver Island for a few days to visit family and to get reacquainted with the amazing ocean beaches.  To get there we rode on the BC Ferries.  Interestingly the Ferries have recently added wireless Internet access so you can connect while on the open ocean.  Most large airports now provide Internet access and increasingly access is also available while flying. We visited Newcastle Island located in the Nanaimo harbour.  It is a 10 minute little ferry ride over from Nanaimo.  We practically had the island to ourselves.  It was a beautiful sunny day and we circumnavigated the 8km route around the island enjoying fresh ocean air.  We captured great nature pictures and parked ourselves for a few hours on a beach where we could read books and watch float planes coming and going.  Shelley made some cool beach art like this one… Even while on the island, “away fro...

It is quite profound how over the past 10 years the importance of “the network” has increased.  It used to be that you could happily get a lot of work done or communicate with others, offline or disconnected.  In schools if the network was slow or didn’t work, the teacher had a backup plan.  Often the network wasn’t critical to a lesson the teacher designed.  Today things are rather different… In our School District (Coquitlam, BC) our success in infusing the use of technology for learning, teaching, and administration has now hit the wall so to speak.  The network is our Achilles Heel!  I wrote about this last year in reference to a visit to a Digital Immersion 9 classroom .  Enrolment was forecasted to decline for this innovative school program where all students were expected to bring, rent, or borrow a laptop to use in this class.  I also referred to a consultative process I initiated around Digital Tools and Social Responsibility to uncove...

I remember when I was growing up sneakily watching TV shows or listening to music my parents didn’t approve of - good thing my mom doesn’t use the Internet, she won’t see this, I’m safe :-).  That’s about as complicated “digital tools” were back in the day.  Fast forward to today and it’s a whole different world with the Internet, devices of all shapes, sizes, and capabilities, in the hands of most kids.  The opportunity for kids to misuse digital tools is huge.  Who’s going to guide them? I wrote a post back in March, Digital Natives Need Infrastructure , where I talked about one of our schools’ (Riverside Secondary) experiences with students using digital tools and the impact on the network.  When kids are bringing their personally owned devices (PODs) and you have a philosophy of openness (no blocking), things get interesting.  My post Learning with a class set of ipod touches tries to contemplate possible learning benefits and difficulties.  Dav...

Five years ago our School District embarked on a project to provide a class set of laptops to a students in each of four K-5 (elementary) schools and the year after expanded to include five 6-8 (middle) schools.  Our focus was on improving the writing process. I know, this is nothing new now as many schools around the world have run similar initiatives.  But we wanted to learn for ourselves how providing this technology in a one 2 one format to students could impact their learning, specifically writing.  We did not undertake a formal research project but rather through anecdotal feedback from teachers, parents, and students we now believe that all students can benefit from this type of access. At the beginning of each school year we require parents and their students who are in a one2one classroom to come to a one hour evening meeting to learn about this program.  2009 10 one 2 one fall startup meetings View more presentations from Brian Kuhn . A key message ...