Best Laid Plans

Best Laid Plans

Chapter 10 of Sherden’s, The Best Laid Plans, outlines some forces which impact the socio-technical plan of student-centric learning both in positive and negative ways. Student-centric learning requires “Thinking through the Maze” which is the title of that chapter.

There could be negative unintended consequences primarily caused by the social mechanisms that complicate the process of thinking through decisions in advance. This is always the issue in the education sector. Sherden (2011) refers to complex social systems which contain many unpredictable elements (p.165) including people, organizations, and intuitions that interact in ways that make prediction nearly impossible. Teachers and students may not adapt to changes in their new learning environment which defeats the best intentions of student-centric learning. Complexity of social systems associated with learning has created challenges in developing the right theories to predict the correct outcomes of new initiatives. Education sector has always struggled with this.

Social intervention (p. 169) has a positive effect on student-centric learning because when our classrooms become undesirable for students we are forced to interfere with it. Sherden (2011) outlines how social intervention has accomplished good results in public health, civil rights, fair voting, highway systems, and many other public services to make our world a better place to live. Why it can’t do the same for education? In other words, student-centric learning is influenced and has to be driven by social intervention to fulfill our need for interfering with the current methods of teaching in public schools that are holistic and more for the convenience of teachers, not students.

References 

Sherden, W. A. (2011). Best Laid Plans: The Tyranny of Unintended Consequences and How to Avoid Them. Praeger, CA. ISBN-13: 978-0313385315

Teletransportation

Make your own photo slideshow at Animoto.

I have always been amazed by Teletransportation of a material object to a new location by decomposing its molecular structure into atomic elements, transmitting those elements through the cosmos and rebuilding them in the new venue... without loss.

Third Wave

Alvin Toffler has named the Information Age "Third Wave" society.  He had previously characterized the transition in developed countries from Agricultural to Industrial Age society as the “Second Wave”. In the Third Wave, Toffler had predicted broad social transformations missed in the earlier waves of agricultural and industrial revolution. The Third Wave began in 1955 and it’s therefore complete. Now it’s the best time to analyze and validate what Toffler has stated. 

In the third wave, Toffler had predicted that our work will be demassified. This means our work environment becomes less uniform or centralized as we shift employment from the larger factories to smaller plants and eventually homes. The phrase “telecommuting” is the first thing that comes to mind with this prediction. Toffler had also predicted a trend toward increased specialization, increased involvement of human in reengineering their own evolution through eugenics, and break up of larger nations into smaller countries due to race, languages, or other driving forces. Lastly, Toffler had predicted increased interest in religion and clustering of minority parties in temporary basis to gain control of government.

William Sherden in his 1998 book called “The Fortune Sellers” claims that with few exceptions Toffler’s predictions are dead wrong. I have to disagree with this view. A lot of Toffler’s predictions are actually right. It’s true that economies of scale in manufacturing still exist in companies like GE, Philips, Cisco, and HP. What drives this trend is the need to take advantage of high-cost technologies in larger production plants. But there has been and increasing demand in telecommuting due to higher cost of Real Estate and other offices related expenditures. Other factors which influence telecommuting are related to new tools and technologies for home offices. Remote employees can use email and teleconferencing solutions such as WebEx (or Goto Meeting) to do their work from home almost as efficiently as they if are in the office. Telecommuting has been growing due to these technological and other forces including traffic and geographically disbursed workforce. This is a workforce that reaches beyond the restrictions of a traditional office environment. These are the business realities that multinational corporations in many countries are facing today to support and sustain recruitment of the right talent. Toffler’s prediction of telecommuting is therefore more correct than dead wrong!

The split up of former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia to 15+ new countries is an interesting trend. Since the gulf war, there has been lots of ethnical violence in Iraq and pressure to split to 3 regions. The Kurds in the north want to form a nation of their own while the Shiats in the south want to merge with the neighboring countries. This is an unfortunate trend that larger nations such as china or India may also get into right after USSR. But William Sherden again claims that voluntarily confederation of the European States is a major trend in the opposite direction. The European Union (EU) was meant to an economic and political union of 27 member states which are located primarily in Europe. But the EU has had more setbacks than success. The failure of EU’s currency (Euro) is now recognized as an experiment that has almost failed. Martin Feldstein in his famous article called “The Failure of Euro” calls this failure “not an accident or the result of bureaucratic mismanagement but rather the inevitable consequence of imposing a single currency on a very heterogeneous group of countries”. The forces of race, religion, language, and culture outlined in Toffler’s book have indeed driven larger nations to split into smaller countries. This is another prediction of Toffler that has actually been more correct that being dead wrong.

David Sarokin in his famous non-scholarly article called “How the Specialization of Labor Can Lead to Increased Productivity” considers labor specialization as one of the key features of modern economic systems which has enabled manufacturing and other business operations to produce goods on a global scale and to increase productivity. Adam Smith in his classic economics text "Wealth of Nations" has helped our understanding of labor specialization as it relates to the technology-driven world in which we live. Sarokin insists that when workers perform special labor tasks it can lead to increased productivity and argues that the division of labor leads to a large increase in efficiency for two key reasons. First is the “allocation efficiency” which makes the best use of a particular worker's skill. A worker who is good with research can do a better job in Research and Development than one who is not. The second force relates to technical efficiency which arises from a division of labor by reducing the transition time between tasks. This transition is removed when the resources are focused and specialized on what they do. Because of these factors, there is an increasing trend for specialization that we can observe in many industries such as semiconductor, consumer electronics, education, biochemical, and biomedical engineering. This trend is yet another prediction of Toffler that has actually been correct.

References

Feldstein, M. (2012).  The failure of the euro. Foreign Affairs 91(1): 105-116.

Sherden, W. A. (1998). The fortune sellers: The big business of buying and selling predictions. New York, New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Smith, A., D. Stewart and M. Garnier (1825).  Wealth of Nations.

The Newspaper Industry

The future of newspapers industry and whether it can transform itself to make to the year 2020 was subject to an interesting case study and workshop conducted by the World Association of Newpapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) which is headquartered in Paris. Everyone knows about the declining revenues of most newspapers due to reduced advertising and distribution in modern times. The industry survived the first hit by the round-the-clock news channels on cable TV but started collapsing again when Internet took off. Many newspapers and magazines have either gone out of business or have had to reduce staff to stay in business in the industrial world. But the industry seems to be doing OK in the developing countries like India for the time being. How is the industry going to survive in the industrial world then? Here is the answer. WAN-IFRA’s goal is not only to promote freedom of press which has been under lots of pressure in USA by various lobbying groups over the past 4 decades but to help newspapers develop prosperously. Easier said than done.

In 2008, a firm hired by WAN-IFRA called Kairos selected a number of CEOs and COOs in the newspaper business across the globe asking them a range of questions, some general and most others industry-specific. Kairos collected the data and compiles 66 trends which they named uncertainties and conducted a scenario planning workshop to help stimulate the discussion among a larger group of participants. The group chose the following 8 issues as the most important ones for the newspaper industry in the coming decade:

1.      Newspaper models – Technology based ideas that could become key elements in newspaper models. Refer to author of this blog’s previous blogs on SixthSense Technology. Things are coming together!

2.      Multi-channel strategies – There will be less distinction between newspapers, TV, radio, and the Web. Refer again to author’s previous blogs on SixthSense Technology. Will there be a day that we can see our newspapers on the wall in the bathroom by snapping our fingers? I guess this is already being done at Bill Gate’s home. But he didn’t have to invent this one too.

3.      User-generated content – Thumps up Twitter!

 

4.      Shifting importance from channel to content – Everyone still considers content more important than how it gets distributed, thank god.

5.      Target market segmentation – What segment? This one is to be defined!

6.      More Mobile broadband – invasion of the body snatchers by more gadgets, oh boy.

7.      Simplifying your life – No comments.

8.      Audience fragmentation – I guess audience is already fragmented so go figure this one.

The process so far supports planning and innovation for change because it is collaborative least to say and it represents members of the newspaper industry from every county. Here is how the Kairos study becomes interesting. Four forces are identified to make an impact on the future of the newspapers: Mass audience, Targeted audience, disruptive media dominance (meaning Internet), and traditional media dominance. Now, there needs to be scenario planning to understand what the world of newspapers will look like under 4 different scenarios:

Kairos calls scenario 1, Disruptive media dominates + Targeted audience scenario, “For Your Eyes Only”, from the James Bond movie.

In this world, newspaper publishers repeatedly reduce staff and do organizational restructuring in their struggle to keep up with the more agile, faster moving digital media. It will be a challenge for them to recruit talented people in this world to support specific news for an audience who prefers RSS feeds and other forms of selected information.

The second scenario of Traditional media dominates + Targeted audience is unlikely but a possibility. The solution to this scenario is obviously digital printing which makes print on-demand versions of newspapers for specific audience who like to reach out for news than news reaching out to them. The audience for this one is mainly the new generation born on/after 1990’s. 

The third scenario, Traditional media dominates + Mass audience is what the old school newspaper prefers and what the traditional newspaper industry dreams. How likely is this one? Not very likely in my opinion. In this scenario, newspaper wins!

Here is the last scenario! The Disruptive media dominates + Mass audience. Here internet wins. This is the worst dream of old school newspaper industry. But now that the internet is closely linked to the physical world in so many ways, this is a very likely option. This scenario is based on another force not discussed earlier. By 2020, handheld device will be light, thin, and cheap. There goes the double digit profit margin of the mobile industry. Now they have to make the product lighter, thinner but reduce costs. Two forces which are in conflict but I am sure they’ll find a way to make this happen. We have seen PCs and laptops becoming smaller and cheaper every day in their own purely competitive markets. The same will happen to handheld devices and the new generation described earlier will perhaps read their newspapers online only!

A force missed by the Kairos study is the rising power of social media. In the future, it’s more likely to receive reliable user-based content through platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

References

Wade, W. (2012). Scenario planning: A field guide to the future. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. 

SixthSense technology

The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology by Pranav Mistry reveals new tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data! This includes a deep look at his SixthSense device and a new, paradigm-shifting paper called laptop. The potentials are numerous. This is perhaps the first and earliest paradigm shift of this century.

There are quite a few amazing technology innovations in the SixthSense technology. You can take a picture of a site or building by moving your fingers without having a camera with you! The palm of your hand becomes a calculator. You can use the digits that appear on your palm to dial a phone number too. The pads on your finger can enable you analyze the objects you’re holding. This one is useful for those who are blind.  You look at a magazine and then view the TV programs which describe it right on the paper you are holding. You can take a book from your library or buy one at the bookstore to view all the books on the web that are related or similar to that book right on its and on its cover page. When you hold the weather page of a magazine in your hands the online data about the next few days forecast could appear on the map you are looking at. When you fly, you can look at your boarding pass and the latest flight information from the web will appear on it. As soon as you shake hands with someone, you can tell their names, occupations, etc. on their shirts, of course if they’re willing to share.  This technology will affect that way we interact with people! 

The forces which affect this vision involve our increasing demand for accessing information from the web. The physical world gets into the digital world without all the rituals we go through to interact with computers! There are simply too many gadgets and equipment that we have to carry on with ourselves, such as smart phones and tablets, to access information these days. A major force that drives this technology involves excessive gadgets and hand-held devices we move around with ourselves

This technology aims at leveraging our knowledge about everyday objects and how we should use them to help us with our interactions with the digital world. Rather than using the keyboard and mouse, why can’t we use the objects around us such as sticky notes, our hands, etc. to interact with data?

In all experiments, a part of the “physical” world is brought in the digital world. This new technology vision enables us to take your digital world anywhere with us.

During the Q&A session, Mistry said he is planning to open-source the software behind SixthSense so its possibilities could become available to all programmers.

References

Ted Talks Video “Craig Venture: On the verge of synthetic life” retrieved from

http://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potential_of_sixthsense_technology.html

Gesture-based learning

The vision for a key trend in learning named “gesture-based computing” has benefited from a modified Delphi process that has been refined over years to select this particular topic among 5 other technology trends. This new discovery method affected the results in a positive way. An assembly of the advisory board with a wide range of backgrounds, nationalities, and interests, and relevant expertise always leads to discovery of new tools, technologies, and other opportunities for the education sector that is known to have the organizational culture to support these kinds of processes. In this case, the work began with a systematic review of the literature, press clippings, reports, essays, and other materials related to emerging technologies. Members then had to comment on the material and content to identify those worth investigating and later added more ideas to the list. This collaborative process kept the potential relevance to teaching, learning, and creative inquiry in higher education. RSS feeds from dozens of relevant publications kept the initiatives current.  

Gesture-based computing enables users to learn by doing an activity or exercise and facilitates the convergence of a user’s thoughts with their own movements. Large multi-touch displays support collaborative work, allowing multiple users to interact with content simultaneously. This platform moves the computer interface such as Graphic User Interface (GUI) from a mouse and keyboard concept to the motions of the body, facial expressions, and voice recognition via different input devices. The platform interacts with computational devices in a far more intuitive and personified fashion. The technology involves touch screens on monitors and smartphones and it also includes gesture and voice interpretation tools of the gaming systems such as Xbox Kinect and Nintendo Wii as well as virtual assistants. Gesture-based computing platform is useful in countries that have many languages, such as India. A natural interface like this removes the language barriers for learning. Who knows? Maybe one day a teacher with a superior efficacy in South Korea can teach students in United States!

There are at least two forces that impact the trend and the technology. One is the increasing demand toward student-centric learning environments. This modality allows and enables students to have input to their own learning goals and determine resources in order to actively produce their own knowledge and not rely on the teacher as a transponder of knowledge but this interaction should aim to maintain the school standards and curriculum. This approach has implications for curriculum design, course content, and interactivity of courses. The goal is to put students’ needs first, in contrast to teacher-centered learning. Use of tablets for example in this area can be focused on each student's needs, abilities, interests, and learning styles, placing the teacher as a facilitator of learning in this kind of environment. Student-centric method has to help acknowledge student voice as central to the learning experience for every learner, and it must differ from other learning methodologies. This may require the teacher to change their role as the source of information, and rather encourage students to develop the skills to become active, responsible participants in their own learning. The teacher has to view the student as an intellectual contributor to knowledge and take a partnership with students to construct knowledge.

The second factor that affects the gesture-based learning involves technology and its convergence with this platform. An interesting development is the convergence of gesture-sensing technology with voice recognition, allowing, just as it does in human conversation, for both gesture and voice to communicate the user’s intentions to devices. This convergence has resulted in another convergence for television and other devices to make the TV appliance “smart” television. These areas of convergence are new and subject to future enhancements.

Innovation is the development of new values through solutions that meet those needs in value adding ways. This is accomplished through more effective mind maps, products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are readily available to markets, governments, and society. Innovation differs from invention in that innovation refers to the use of a novel idea or method, whereas invention refers more directly to the creation of the idea or method itself. Innovation differs from improvement in that innovation refers to the notion of doing something different rather than doing the same thing better. Now that we understand innovation, how can one innovate?