32nd Square

YouTube

2010-08-10T13:01:00.000-04:00

Blending Work and Home

2010-07-21T14:28:00.002-04:00

The new technologies I am using are making it harder and harder to separate my work life from my home life. Facebook now has both "spaces" in it-intermixed. Twitter also does, as does my email. My iPhone has apps on it that I use in both worlds and even some that blend both (like Foursquare, Files Lite, etc.). I text my kids with the same device I get texts for work. I don't dare let me sons borrow my iPhone for the access it has to other work related services. Certainly the communications/connections my mobile devices give me has REALLY changed my life. It is a remarkable period.

Scraper Bikes

2010-05-22T21:02:00.001-04:00

Scrapertown from California is a place. on Vimeo.

The Singularity Movie is Near

2010-04-05T09:17:00.000-04:00

http://www.singularity.com/themovie/index.php

Moore's Law and Faculty Certification for Online Teaching

2010-03-06T08:11:00.003-05:00

I've recently been "thrown into the fire" so to speak by being asked to teach faculty at my campus how to teach effectively online. A new policy that REQUIRES faculty be approved to do this got approved (the faculty were sleeping at the switch on this one if you ask me) and it appears no one knows what that REALLY means. So they asked me. A technologist, with a degree in Geography. Imagine the scene, if you can, as I try and explain to the deans how it has nothing to do with technology (the don't have any idea what Moore's Law is doing.) Fun fun.

Perhaps I should remind them that a recent New York Times article, cited Dr. Karen Swan pointing out that "two recent large scale studies have shown that online learning is more engaging and that students learn more online. One study, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education, did a meta-analysis of 51 reports on online instruction comparing student outcomes in online, blended and/or face-to-face environments. It found that students who took all or part of their classes online performed better, and that the effectiveness of online and blended instruction was broad across variations in students, types of programs and content areas."

Why do faculty, who already teach at my college, need additional certification to teach in a space proven to be more engaging for students? Beats me.

New Media, Moore's Law and My Office Space

2010-01-08T08:27:00.002-05:00

For almost six months now I've been gathering material for my New Media course. I can, with as much certainty as I can come up with about anything these day, say that I don't have enough disk space or office space (or brain space). Like never before in my career, prep-ing for this course feels nearly impossible. I've done all the normal things - emailed listservs for tips, tweeted about it, did the serious scholarship literature review, did the more useful Google/Bing searching, watched hundreds of YouTube, UStream, Hulu, videos. Read more blogs, wikis and web page "articles" than any one person should. Now I'm left with a hard drive full of annotated, highlighted and organized PDFs that I can't ever find the one I'm thinking about, printouts scattered all over my office in piles that have become mostly meaningless, outline notes for my course that look more like a massive oak tree in winter with its bifurcating limbs going every which direction, stacks of DVDs, CD, and mp3 files that I'm trying to decide on, hundreds of URL's all nicely tagged in Del.icio.us that seem to do nothing but divert me from what I REALLY need to do - FOCUS, four different "desk copies" of books that various parts of I'd love to use, etc., etc. Screw the digital revolution.

Technology's Attack on "Dirty Jobs"

2009-12-09T10:23:00.002-05:00

Mike Rowe's Ted TV talk found here is worth watching. He forces us to reflect on how technology, media and modern society is waging a war on, what he argues, is an important part of our culture - dirty jobs. IMHO he's got it right and this is well worth a watch. It is another way that technology is breaking our culture - and creating a new one that we don't know recognize. I like the many ideas he suggests we should consider. Things like humility in the face of our ignorance, reflection on our lives and what gives them value, and finally, what place do we want technology to have in our lives and what is the Faustian bargain in accepting it.

The Digital Facelift

2009-09-01T11:24:00.003-04:00

At the 2006 SUNY CIT Conference there was a session by a group of faculty from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). It was entitled, "Does Technology Imperil the Academy?". At this session, Steven Zucker, Beth Harris and Eric Feinblatt first introduced me to the idea that the "cloud" (Web 2.0, social networking tools, or whatever you want to call it) was going to change education is a way that was different from what previous technologies had done. That a dark cloud was gathering in the distance and the storm it was bringing to higher education could be more than a gentle breeze.

Ever since then, I've read, watched and listened to everything I could find about the new "cloud" of software services and what people thought their impact on higher education would be. It has been a long and winding road (or a long strange trip if you like the Dead better.) Hardest along the way has been trying to articulate this gathering cloud. Today, I feel its cool breeze coming. I can see its clouds growing larger and darker, but I can't find the right words so others at my campus see it. Sure there are a few sympathetic ears, but for the most part no one is paying attention. As we start another strategic planning process for the campus, I struggle with how to get this issue on the radar of the strategic planning committees. (I hear your laughing.)

Hope springs eternal and my failures at being able to articulate this issue received an incredible spark from Gardner Campbell at Baylor University. Gardner, IMHO, masterfully articulates the issue first introduced to me years ago in this talk. I am so impressed with this talk that I am using it as the "text book" for my course on "Communicating Using Social Media" here at SUNY Oneonta. Watch this, it is well worth it.

I am not someone to jump at the next techno marvel that will "fix" education. I have studied the history of education and know from experience that "we have heard this before." This only makes me worry more deeply. I fear our experiences with failed promises that technology has too often produced will make us so skeptical as to ignore these clouds. We so do at our own peril.

What About Rite of Passage?

2009-08-17T07:21:00.002-04:00

I've lived and worked in higher education for 30 years now and I found THE IMPENDING DEMISE OF THE UNIVERSITY [6.4.09], By Don Tapscott interesting but missing something I think I see every summer orientation. As a parent of three boys (two in College now) and one to go next fall, one of the REAL things College is doing in our culture is providing a "rite of passage." It is the postmodern world's way of ceremonially moving young people into adulthood. All cultures have them, and don't be fooled, they are very powerful things. I agree technology is impacting education in ways we don't understand, but until another rite of passage comes along ,I don't think Higher Ed. is in trouble. What do you think?

Some Scientists Modify Views on Singulartiy

2009-07-26T19:27:00.003-04:00

Tom Mitchell, a professor of artificial intelligence and machine learning at Carnegie Mellon University, said the February meeting had changed his thinking. “I went in very optimistic about the future of A.I. and thinking that Bill Joy and Ray Kurzweil were far off in their predictions,” he said. But, he added, “The meeting made me want to be more outspoken about these issues and in particular be outspoken about the vast amounts of data collected about our personal lives.”

Read the entire story in the NY Times at:

Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man

Also check out the long list of reads and resources at the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence's page on ethics and technology.

Bb and NBC - Everyone is OK with this?

2009-07-17T15:07:00.004-04:00

Let's see now... Blackboard now owns the CMS market (except for those in the OpenSource world) and they (Bb) just partnered with NBC. NBC folks... are we paying attention? NBC News President Steve Capus was recently heard saying about this new partnership, "At NBC News, we have made a big commitment to working in the education space, and this project is the most substantial one yet. There is tremendous opportunity to combine our vast resources of information with an audience that is hungry for it in an environment they are comfortable consuming it. That, combined with the technology of iCue which dramatically alters how video, digital content and peer networking can be used to support student learning in a safe, engaging virtual environment, makes this an incredibly exciting project."

Given who owns NBC and what their motivation is, are we all really ok with this is education? Are we all ok with NBC's "vast resources of information?" I for one feel a bit uneasy. Can anyone tell me who NBC answers to and what their motivation is?

ANGEL and Bb Merge... Running Just as Fast as They Can

2009-05-07T07:40:00.002-04:00

Yesterday two major players in the Learning Management Systems game merged saying, "Now we have the opportunity to join these strengths together with our Project NG vision for a more flexible and engaging learning platform." Hmmm, I hope they can move much more quickly than they have been, or at least recognize what is REALLY going on and change to take advantage of the intermediaries that are rising from the haze of Moore's Law.

When I see an environment out of them that allows aggregation and flexibility I'll believe they are paying attention. Until then, they are just moving along incrementally giving in to the loudest voices (or largest customers) in education and this may be a bad idea given how much those of us in education are paying attention.

Speed of Assembly - Software

2009-05-06T15:21:00.002-04:00

Much is being made of "cloud computing" these days. I've read a number of papers and essays about it (see some references below). What strikes me about this recent meme is that for the first time (that I can remember anyway) software advances are now being talked about in the same way as hardware advances have been. Exponential growth in the tools to develop software, is lowering the cost and time to assemble applications. Because of this, we are starting to see a dramatic rise in the number of applications that are coming out and the applications are becoming more and more numerous and loosely fitting. See widgetbox.com and others. I believe this may give rise to the era of intermediaries and the "end of the middle" so to speak in support. (That's me!!)

References:

Armbrust, M., Fox, A., Griffith, R., Joseph, A., Katz, R., Konwinski, A., Lee, G., Patterson, D., Rabkin, A., Stoica, I., Zaharia, M., “Above the Clouds: A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing”, Available from: http://d1smfj0g31qzek.cloudfront.net/abovetheclouds.pdf. Feb. 2009.

Hayes, B., “Cloud Computing”, Communications of the ACM, July 2008, Vol. 51, No. 7, Available from: http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1364786

Katz, R., “The Tower and The Cloud. Higher Education in the Age of Cloud Computing”, EDUCAUSE, Available from: http://www.educause.edu/thetowerandthecloud. Feb. 2009.

Pence, H.E., “The Classroom in the Cloud” Powerpoint presentation, SUNY College at Oneonta, Spring 2009.

Schaffhauser, D., “Free Cloud Computing Environment Launches”, Campus Technology, Available from: http:// campustechnology.com/Articles/2009/04/15/Free-Cloud-Computing-Environment-Launches.aspx. April 2009.

Warner, B., “Building the Enterprise Corporate Cloud”, WaMu/Chase, Available from: http://tinyurl.com/cr9nca, 2009.

Rapture for the Geeks

2009-04-28T12:33:00.009-04:00

I recommend Richard Dooling's Rapture for the Geeks as a beach read this summer. He covers the theme of this blog much better than I ever could with a lot more wit too. I laughed out loud time and time again while reading it. You know Richard, you've got a bit of Kurt Vonnegut in you.

Oh BTW (I'm practicing for the Singularity) I put Emily's poem into this post using a text editor, not a word processor.

The brain is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will contain
With ease, and you beside.

The brain is deeper than the sea,
For, hold them, blue to blue,
The one the other will absorb,
As sponges, buckets do.

The brain is just the weight of God,
For, heft them, pound for pound,
And they will differ, if the do,
As syllable from sound.

- Emily Dickinson

I wonder if the machines of the future will have an Emily Dickinson poem to calm us whenever we get thinking about who is in control?

LOOK back on time with kindly eyes,
He doubtless did his best;
How softly sinks his trembling sun
In human nature’s west!

- Emily Dickinson

Richard, if you're out there and by chance reading this, I've finished your book. Do I have permission to give it to my friend to read without erasing my mind (although old age is slowly doing that - if this is good enough for you)?

Media Ethics

2009-04-24T11:06:00.001-04:00

Each semester I give a lecture to a Media Ethics class about how rapid technological change (Moore's Law) and our technocracy (a Postman idea) may be leading us to places we don't want to be. Having just given this lecture, and having just read Escape from the Zombie Food Court by Joe Bageant I find myself rethinking what today's media, armed with ever advancing technology, using the idea of spectacular "izing" every message, might be doing to us. It is a worrisome idea I have, but not a clear one. I'll keep reading and thinking and hopefully someday I'll have something to say about it that is useful.

The Flickering Mind

2009-04-10T21:39:00.003-04:00

The Flickering Mind: Saving Education from the False Promise of Technology by Todd Oppenheimer is an interesting piece of investigative reporting that all educational technologists should read. You might remember Oppenheimer from his The Computer Delusion published back in 97 in the Atlantic.

Whether you think this work is an unfair witch hunt or a well done piece of reporting to me is not the main point. With the pressures on education to "fix what is broken" and the ever present temptations new technologies bring, Oppenheimer revels many of the failed attempts education has had with the latest technology.

Over 30 years I have deployed technology in an educational setting and done a lot of advising local schools districts. I now find myself at a point in life where I am reflecting on my life's work. Page after page of this book echos my experiences and frustrations with spending huge sums of money on the latest gadget and having little or nothing to show for it. Critics of this work need to be held to the same standards they hold Oppenheimer to. Find examples where technology deployment has REALLY improved education and articulate them. Honestly, I can't find many such cases in my career.

Love or hate this book, read it and take it to heart.

Moore's Law Marches On

2009-01-22T09:44:00.003-05:00

After reading these two articles:

http://www.physorg.com/news151762245.html

http://www.physorg.com/news151762245.html

I am pushed further to the "Moore's Law is alive and well" side of the argument about whether we are seeing an end to exponential growth or not. If these two techniques (basically creating single atom wide semi-conductors that allow electronics to flow with almost no resistance, thus near the speed of light with little heat generation) reach production quickly, we are on the verge of a new generation of electronics that will be much smaller, much faster, and need a lot less battery or power. Can't wait!!

Poetry Helps as Pace Accelerates

2008-10-09T11:50:00.001-04:00

"All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace"
by Richard Brautigans

I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.

I like to think
(right now please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.

I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.

First Published
San Francisco: The Communication Company, 1967.
8.5" x 11" mimeographed broadside with hand-lettered title and imprint (Communication Company). All else type-written.
Reprinted here with permission.

Google Making Us Stupid

2008-10-03T22:14:00.003-04:00

In his article in the Atlantic Monthly entitled Is Google Making Us Stupid, Nicholas Carr talks honestly about his own concerns on how the act of reading may be changing. I think what Carr is seeing, is what others like Harry Pence call burrowing or browsing. Honestly, the exponential growth in published papers, blogs, wikis, etc. has forced all of us to skim more than read deeply. I know I do. Anyone concerned about education should read Carr's article and think about what students need to know to be successful. Do they need content or do the need connectivity? If you think the latter, then shouldn't we be teaching them how to use the connectivity tools of today (and tomorrow?) Are we? What do you think?

You can also listen to NPR's program on this at:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91543814

Moore's Law and 35nm

2008-09-18T12:40:00.002-04:00

At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, the chip maker's Justin Rattner and Michael Garner talk about materials and processes that will be used in the next 40 years to increase chip performance and advance production. You can watch the video here.

Of course it is in Intel's best interest to believe this - but it still seems probable.

Twitter, Delicious, Bush's Memex and The Construction of Truth

2008-05-31T11:46:00.005-04:00

As I've delved into Twitter, Wiki's and social bookmarking sites like Delicious more and more over the past two years, it was important that W. Gardner Campbell give me perspective on these tools by reminding me of Vannevar Bush's "As We May Think" and his vision of the Memex. In his outstanding keynote at SUNY CIT 2008 in Batavia, NY, Campbell reminded me of how Bush's vision (along with Alan Kay's Dynabook) may now be, at least in hardware and software, a reality. Bush's thoughts just after WWII are eerily on target as I wade through my Twitter updates, delicious bookmarks and Second Life worlds. What is "necessary and certain" Truth (capital T) and how do we come to know it? My recent study of Steve L. Goldman's Science Wars lecture series has me serious thinking about how we come to know things and how these social networking technologies may be changing them.

Peter Thiel Speaks on PayPal the World and Bill Joy

2008-05-06T15:53:00.002-04:00

"One of the things that’s very misleading about acceleration and exponential growth is that it’s slow at first and then it’s fast, and so the future happens more slowly than people expect and then it happens more quickly." Peter Thiel in a May 2008 interview by Reason Magazine.

Take a look at the Peter Thiel interview linked to above done by Ronald Bailey, Science Correspondent for Reason Magazine. Thiel talks a bit about things like PayPal and why Bill Joy's got it wrong in his Wired interview, "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us". More importantly for me is Thiel's description of exponential growth and singularity where he makes the important observation (IMHO) quoted above.

Bits The Size of Atoms (or smaller)

2008-04-25T10:31:00.003-04:00

"The end point of Moore's Law (which holds that computers get faster by a factor of two every year and a half or so) is a computer so powerful that it uses individual atoms to store bits of information: one atom, one bit. If we were able to work at subatomic scales and store bits on electrons or quarks, we might go further. But let's stick with what we know we can do.

If current rates of miniaturization persist, your PC will store one bit on one atom sometime around 2050. But it's natural to ask whether we can, in fact, achieve a bit-to-atom correspondence. Remarkably, prototype computers that store bits on individual atoms already exist in the laboratory. These computers are called quantum computers, because they store and process information at scales where the laws of quantum mechanics hold sway."

Loyd, Seth, Riding D-Wave, Technology Review Inc., May/June 2008, accessed on web at: http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20590/ on April 25, 2008.

A read of this article makes one aware that there is still plenty we don't know and are not sure of, but the fact that so much money and interest are generated by this approach suggests one way or another we will get there. The question is how soon?

Moore's Law and the End of Democracy

2008-04-01T10:01:00.002-04:00

Cass Sunstein's book republic.com, from Princeton University Press is a good read about information technologies role in the fragmentation and extremism in society. If you are interested in the idea that technologies enable the filtering of information at the individual level, thus allowing us to only be exposed to those ideas we like, which in turn leads to fragmentation and extremism then pick yourself up a copy and read it. Good book!!

To me, Sunstein supports Neil Postman's notion that technology is destroying our culture's defenses.

Moore's Law and Scholarship

2008-02-26T09:59:00.003-05:00

I lifted this text from the web site Create Change

In the age of the Internet, the ways you share and use academic research results are changing rapidly, fundamentally, irreversibly. There‚s great potential in change. After all, faster and wider sharing of journal articles, research data, simulations, syntheses, analyses, and other findings fuels the advance of knowledge. It's a two-way street - sharing research benefits you and others. But will the promise of digital scholarship be fully realized? How will yesterday‚s norms adapt to tomorrow's possibilities?

The age of "digital scholarship" is slowly taking shape and the explosion in publishing seems at odds with the nature of research and the scientific method. History tells us that most research and science ultimately proves to be wrong. With the explosion of published research that is then used to justify future claims, aren't we moving forward (rapidly) using ideas as the foundation for new ideas that will ultimately been shown false?

We are learning and dealing with the pros and cons of technology changing and moving forward rapidly - but do we know anything at all about the pros and cons of scholarship accelerating? What happens when scholarship accelerates? For example, the NSF reports the U.S. scientific publication rate in major peer reviewed journals has flattened out (see NSF report). Perhaps so, but who cares about "major peer reviewed journals" any longer? Hasn't much of this "publishing" gone to the Internet?

It doesn't take much looking at YouTube for example to see how much scholarship has moved there. Take a look at this and ask what does it mean that we are doing this type of research so quickly - without reflective pause. Without asking about the Faustian bargan?

Transcending Moore's Law

2008-02-18T10:08:00.003-05:00

Back on Sept. 27, 2004 KurzweilAI.net published an article by Steve Jurvetson entitled Transcending Moore's Law with Molecular Electronics and Nanotechnology. The article is a great overview of Moore's Law and the impact it will have on the fields of computing, biotechnology, and molecular engineering. There are some nice graphics to help those new to this idea conceptualize it. Curiously this article's intended audience is Venture Capitalists (people with money looking to invest it). If VCs are getting into the action, and they sure seem to be, these fields will begin to expand and advance rapidly.

I particularly like the section on Molecular Electronics (starting on page 7) where Jurvetson gives examples of size, power, cost, etc. changes that molecular electronics will bring.

His discussion of Nanotechnology is also excellent (starting on page 9). Here is one of my favorite passages about nanoscale things from this article:

Nanotechnology is more than a linear improvement with scale; everything changes.
Quantum entanglement, tunneling, ballistic transport, frictionless rotation of superfluids, and several other phenomena have been regarded as “spooky” by many of the smartest scientists, even Einstein, upon first exposure.

For a simple example of nanotech’s discontinuous divergence from the “bulk” sciences, consider the simple aluminum Coke can. If you take the inert aluminum metal in that can and grind it down into a powder of 20-30nm particles, it will spontaneously explode in air. It becomes a rocket fuel catalyst. The energetic properties of matter change at that scale. The surface area to volume ratios become relevant, and even the inter-atomic distances in a metal lattice change from surface effects.

If you are interested in how Nanotechnology and Molecular Electronics may keep Moore's Law alive and well for the next 20 years or so this piece is worth a read.

Yes, But Can We Keep Up?

2008-02-12T10:28:00.001-05:00

Ann Moore , Associate VP at Virginia Tech, recently wrote an excellent article that appeared in Educause Quarterly entitled, "The New Economy, Technology, and Learning Outcomes Assessment" In this piece she argues that the speed of which things are changing demands we revisit how we do assessment. Good point.

She talks about how we need to change our assessment thinking to make up for this rapid change. She separates out "Contemporary Skills" from "Foundational concepts" and "Intellecutual capabilities" suggesting that the skills are the things that change rapidly. That the concepts and capabilities are deeper somehow and more important - not so prone to rapid changes as the technology change accelerates underneath. I'm not so sure - in fact I think all three of these levels are changing rapidly and the pace of their change is increasing as Moore's Law suggests.

The problem education is having assessing learning is that all levels of learning - from the skill set to the intellecutual capabilities are changing.. rapidly - very rapidly and we don't know what to do about it. We don't really have time to "explore seriously and systematically what we think students need to know" as Dr. Moore suggests. What we need to do is some how figure out how to move more quickly from one set of knowledge being important to the next set. Technology and its pace of change will attack everything we know (or think we know). It will destablize our values. It will lay waste to our knowledge - requiring relearning - at an ever increasing speed.

Everyday I listen to my collegues talk about what outcomes they desire in students and not a one of these outcomes (IMHO) isn't questionable. Tell me one thing we want students to learn or do that you are SURE of - just one.

Moore's Law and Virtual Reality - The Octopus Butler Robot

2008-02-12T10:27:00.001-05:00

I love Jaron Lanier's Jaron's World in Discover magazine. The May 2007 issue has a great piece on Moore's Law and Virtual Reality (VR). It it Lanier muses about the hollistic interface we strive for between us humans and "computers." He also talks about "haptics" - something I've mentioned in this blog before. Although Second Life has caught a lot of attention these days, the Wii is also making a big splash in the world of VR. Lanier admits that VR and a true hollistic interface will have to wait for Moore's Law "to catch up." I wonder how long a wait?

You can read more of Jaron's stuff at his website.

More on Moore

2008-02-12T10:26:00.001-05:00

Recently seen on NYSERNet's website (December 2007):

“For the past forty years computer processors have enjoyed the phenomenal exponential growth known as Moore’s Law:, notes John E. Kolb, P.E., Renssealer’s Chief Information Officer, “where the number of processors on a chip double roughly every eighteen months. But the challenges for continuing that growth in the current nanoscale manufacturing environment and overcoming quantum theoretic limits are daunting. CCNI will enable the complex calculations necessary to design and model that next generation of nanoscale electronics.” A leading faculty researcher, Dr. Mark S. Shephard echoed this perspective: “Whole new classes of nanoscale modeling problems of critical importance to scientists worldwide are now within reach. Exploiting the simulation and modeling capabilities of the Rensselaer faculty with this extraordinary tool will allow us to push the envelope on computationally based scientific exploration. I anticipate each calculation opening up new, more computationally sophisticated models to understand.”

Reading Reimagined

2008-02-12T10:24:00.000-05:00

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently published an excellent point of view (need Chronicle account to access link) by Matthew Kirschenbaum on reading and technologies impact on our perception of it. It's worth a read. I think Kirschenbaum makes a number of points I agree with. Interesting for people that visit this blog are the facts he cites about Google's book digitization project (3,000 books a day). This pace of digitization and the appearance of things like the Kindle make clear to me what the future of reading will be. Laterial reading, skimming large volumes of text looking for the few things in it that matter to you at that moment are the future of reading.

It's ok if you didn't get down this far in the post...

Individual Molecules as Bits

2008-02-12T09:49:00.001-05:00

IBM recently announced they can manipulate individual atoms in hopes of making small faster computers. In fact, the article suggests that this might someday lead to CPUs the size of dust particles.

Here's the link if you want to read it for yourself:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136665-c,futuretechnology/article.html

This type of breakthrough is what has me thinking that Moore's Law is still viable and will be for sometime to come.

Still a Good Read on Literacy and Technology

2008-02-12T09:48:00.001-05:00

Bertram C. Bruce at the U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has an excellent read entitled, "Critical Issue Literacy Technologies: What Stance Should We Take?" that talks about this issue. Although the article is a bit dated, it still is relevant and worth thinking about. Bruce's idea of "autonomy myth" is a good idea - and might be a better way to think about this whole idea. You can find a copy of this on line here.

Technology and Literacy: Elective Affinities?

2008-02-12T09:41:00.001-05:00

The University of Pennsylvania, Department of Germanic Languages and Literature describes a conference they held in September 2005 like so:

Is a picture really worth a thousand words? What is the role of words in a culture saturated with images? This international conference will explore the relations between word and image from a range of interdisciplinary perspectives. Our title has been borrowed from Goethe's 1809 novel Elective Affinities . In the novel, the chemical term “elective affinities” extends to human relationships, both intimate and political. Like the alkalis and acids of which Goethe's characters speak, words and images, though apparently opposed, may have a remarkable affinity for one another. At the same time, as one of the characters in the book objects, such affinities are problematic, and “are only really interesting when they bring about separations.”

How words and images represent and whether they enjoy a harmonious kinship, engage in border skirmishes, or seek to annihilate one another, are not merely formal matters. The history of iconoclasm tells us about the ideological stakes of the debate. Contemporary discussions of memorialisation seem to demand multi-media expression, and urban inscriptions such as graffiti and mural arts express political positions. New technologies for meshing words and images – such as medical imaging, virtual archives, the Internet – will also be discussed. Among the themes of the conference are: the arts of the book; early correspondences; political inscriptions; sacred words, sacred images; scientific imaging; spaces, places; photographic texts.

See http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/affinities/

Sounds interesting. I wish I could have attended. It makes me wonder if they had conversations at this conference on how technology and literacy might have "elective affinities." Might they, like alkalis and acids, be opposed to one another and at the same time have a remarkable affinity for one another? Has there ever been a tool so adept at helping us create, manipulate and distribute text as technology (computers and networks)? Has there ever been a tool that so threatens text as technology appears to?

Moore's Law and Google a Faustian Bargain?

2008-02-12T09:37:00.000-05:00

Take a look at the latest from Google's CEO Eric Schmidt and think about the Faustian Bargain in what he is saying. At one point Eric says, “The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as ‘What shall I do tomorrow?’ and ‘What job shall I take?’ ”

Hugh? Did I read this correctly? Are we all comfortable with Google (or anyone) knowing that much about us? Will the automation of the collection of little bits of information about us (our digital trail) ultimately result in the end of privacy? If Google will know that much about us, what else will be out there about us, and who will have access to it.? Two good reads about this topic are:

Short one: Gary Marx's Privacy and Technology.

Long one: David Brin's book The Transparent Society.

My point for thought in today's post is how does the idea of the 32nd square play into this fear/reality?

More on Nanotechnology and Moore's Law

2008-02-12T09:35:00.000-05:00

Another example of nanotechnologies and the remarkable staying power of Moore's Law can be found by reading a bit about optical phase change memory. A recent work by Bruno F. Soares, Fredrik Jonsson, and Nikolay I. Zheludev of the Optoelectronics Research Centre, University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom entitled, "All-Optical Phase-Change Memory in a Single Gallium Nanoparticle" suggests to me there is still no end in site of our abilities to make technology faster and smaller and an ever increasing rate of change.

If I'm right in doing my math, then we are looking at almost a quarter of a terrabit per square inch! This is much greater storage than these blue laser DVDs - no?

Technology Moves Literacy Backwards

2008-02-12T09:34:00.000-05:00

In a still relevant work entitled, "Information Literacy as a Liberal Art:Enlightenment proposals for a new curriculum" Jeremy J. Shapiro and Shelley K. Hughes make an excellent case for a deeper understanding of what information literacy should be all about. At a key point in their work (IMHO) they state, "This set of circumstances forces us to ask, what do citizens need to know about information and these technologies to "no longer be limited to a mechanical knowledge of the procedures of the arts or of professional routine," so that "they will no longer depend for every trivial piece of business, every insignificant matter of instruction on clever men who rule over them in virtue of their necessary superiority?" - clever men who are likely nowadays to be programmers, systems analysts, network service providers, Webmasters, information industry moguls and directors of academic computing rather than kings and noblemen. " (Read this piece, it is worth it).

2008-02-12T09:31:00.000-05:00

Professor Milton Feng and Professor Nick Holonyakof the University of Illinois campus in Urbana have recently built a different type of transistor althogther that outputs laser light.
"Room-temperature transistor lasers could facilitate faster signal
processing, large capacity seamless communications, and higher performance
electrical and optical integrated circuits," said Feng, the Holonyak
Chair Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Illinois.
Feng has received worldwide recognition for his research on heterojunction
bipolar transistors. He has produced the world's fastest bipolar
transistor, a device that operates at a frequency of more than 700 gigahertz."
During the past year (2006), high-speed transistor records have fallen like dominoes on the Illinois campus. In January, Feng's group announced a transistor with a 150-nanometer collector and a top frequency of 382 gigahertz. In May, the group reported a 452-gigahertz device with a 25-nanometer base and a 100-nanometer collector. Further scaling reduced the collector size to 75 nanometers, resulting in a 509-gigahertz device, announced last month. So what?

The significance of this, of course, is that transistors are one of the fundemental building blocks of computers. They are, afterall, ultimately where the bits of 0 and 1 are stored in a computer. The faster they get the faster computers will be able to store and retrieve information... at least that's the theory. To imagine how this continued rapid advancement in the speed of transitors might impact technology is difficult. Suffice to say it is just another example of the unpredictability of all this.

I wonder what it means to be able to build Integrated Circuits that use photons to transmit information around and not electrons?

Our View of Technology as Progress After the 32nd Square

2008-02-12T08:52:00.000-05:00

Albert Teich's excellent book entitled "Technology and the Future" discusses and offers debate on thinking about technology. The work is full of excellent papers and essays debating the pros and cons of technology and offering philosphies on progress and how it relates to technology. The first essay in this work is by Leo Marx and is as relevant today as when it was first published. In it, Marx asks if technology means progress and if it does "toward what?" I wonder, if as Neil Postman and Leo Mark suggest, we have lost our interest in this question. Is technological progress in of itself a sufficiently reliable basis for progress? Is the mear introduction of technology into the educationaly process in of itself a sufficiently reliable basis to say we are making progress in education?
[@more@]The speed at which new technologies enter our society and their complexity make it difficult for institutions like education to protect themselves from it. Quality education takes thought. Thought takes time, reflection, reading, pondering. Technology demands immediate attention, not careful study. Can education afford to act so quickly? Can education afford to wait?

Introductory Computer Science courses at many colleges and universities moved from an "Intro to the latest programming language" to more applications focused (Microsoft Office) in a couple short decades. To those outside education, it appears we moved too slowly. To those of us inside it, this rapid change in an INTRODUCTORY course is - well - curious. How can a fundemental course in a discipline be based on such transitory knowledge?

I can't help seeing the similarities in this "Age of Technology" that Thomas Carlyle did when he first coined the term "Age of Machinery" in his 1829 essay Sign of the Times. Carlyle worried that machinery would become the dominant or exclusive mode for whatever they were designed for. Now, as then, there are those that worry that this is true. I worry this is true, especially in education. It is nearly impossible in higher education today to speak up against a technology. Course managment systems, virtual 3D worlds, wikis, blogs, web pages, etc. are the bread and butter of education today. Oddly, NONE of them existed a mear 20 years ago. Can education afford to move so quickly? Can it afford not to?

Second Life and Moore's Law

2008-02-12T08:41:00.001-05:00

Alright, I admit it, I'm in Second Life (TLTC Palisades) and learning as much as I can about it as fast as I can. Just recently I agreed to write pieces for the SLED Picayune, an inworld (see how good I've gotten at the lingo already) publication about education and libraries in SL. Second Life has been getting a ton of press lately and it is growing quickly. There is plenty of chatter in the blogs and web about its success (or lack there of). Some people think it is the future, some already are writing it off. �

BTW, like any SLer worth their salt, here is a picture of me in SL.�

There's talk in the education community that SL requires too big of a computer system and too big of an Internet pipe and that most schools can't participate. That software security and lab management of computers makes it nearly impossible to make SL available in schools.Many educators aren't sure how to even educate IT staff or key administrators about what it is and why it might be useful.�

Now I have a life times worth of experience that could help people with these issues, but it is sort of like raising kids.Just because you've been doing it for 20 years and your kids turned out great, doesn't mean you know anything at all about how to do it!! Same is true for SL deployment. Each school, each user, each case it different. Educate people and hopefully they can find their own way.

The point of all this of course is SL is the tip of the iceberg. Sure Linden Labs deserve credit for doing such a thing, but things like SL will become routine soon. Technology will change fast and SL will seem primitive in just a few short years. How does one participate in something like SL without feeling like they are on the bleeding edge and at the same time investing in something that won't be around in two years? How is it that I'm in a quandary about how to even tell my superiors what SL is and at the same time wondering if it will even be viable by the end of next year? This I argue it what we are in store for as we move out further and further from the 32nd square. We are in store for more improbable things that become primitive over night.

If you don't know what Second Life is, find out. But don't worry if all the time you use learning about it feels like it was lost when in two years it is something completely different that is "in". That's the way it goes.�

Memory for Life (M4L)

2008-02-12T08:27:00.000-05:00

Memory for life (M4L) is the topic of a paper written by Kieron O’Hara, Richard Morris, Nigel Shadbolt, Graham J. Hitch, Wendy Hall, and Neil Beagrie. The paper discusses the problem space for the creation of technologies to store memory for life. It is an example of how beyond the 32nd square things get more difficult to predict.

The mere fact that a paper such as this exists demonstrates the point of this blog. If we have reached a point where we can realistically envision creating technologies that will store our memories of life and allow access to them in ways similar to our brain. Then perhaps we should collectively think more seriously about our futures.

Although I have see other articles about similar things (the brain download by 2050), this paper is more immediate.... more relevant, more now. The academic seriousness of the paper is worth noting here. This was not some futurist making a prediction. This was a well thought out idea from a team of scientists.

New Media and New Literacies

2008-02-12T08:26:00.000-05:00

The November/December 2006 issue of EDUCAUSE Review has an article by Carol Holder where she discusses the issues surrounding new media and new literacies. I found this article interesting for a couple of reasons. First you should know, I agree with Carol (and people like Donald Leu) but that's not the point of this post. The thought that jumps out at me whenever I read something like this is that perhaps none of this new technology has anything at all to do with literacy.

Those of us in technology and education maybe guilty of putting too much importance on what we do. We say things repeatedly like, "literacy demands extend beyond the traditional modes of reading, writing, and speaking.." Do they? I mean really do they? I am married to an elementary school teacher of 20 plus years. She is a well respected scholar and teacher. She spends her day teaching kids to read, write and speak. She thinks I'm off my rocker when I include all this new media in my definition of literacy. Given that she is an expert in literacy, and has done nothing but teach it her whole professional life, I tend to think I should pause and give her point of view a careful consider.

Does any of this new media really change what literacy is? If students learn to read well, write well and speak well won't they have command of any new media? What other skills make them ready to deal with the rapid changes coming after the 32nd square?

Hitting a Clay Pigeon: Defining Literacy After the 32nd Square

2008-02-12T07:56:00.002-05:00

The definition of literacy is constantly changing to accommodate new technology. If, as I would argue, one of the main objectives of education is to produce literate people, how will the accelerating pace of technological change affect educational institution's ability to produce literate people?

Donald Leu writes, talks and thinks a lot about how technology is forcing us to change our definition of literacy. I recommend reading some of his stuff, in particular his paper entitled, "Literacy and Technology: Deictic Consequences for Literacy Education in an Information Age"

What do you think about this issue? How will we create literate people when we might not know what it means to be literate?

The Improbable World

2008-02-12T07:56:00.001-05:00

You can find a lot written about Neil Postman's Technopoly. It is not my intent to open a debate about this work here. I am however interested in Chapter 4 of this book here - where he talks about technology and its role in creating "The Improbable World."[@more@]

Each year I update a PowerPoint slide in my lecture on how technology is impacting our notion of literacy. This slide has a list of things on it and I ask students to tell me which one of these things is NOT possible today. The list has things on it like:

robots doing spinal research
GPS systems implanted in human beings
drinking glass that know when you need another drink
fish that turn color when certain toxics are present
head transplants

etc.

The point of the list of course is to make the point with students that it is becoming harder and harder to know what is possible and what is hooey. Even very educated people today can be convinced things are possible that are not. For example, on any given day visit the NewScientist web site and read a few of the articles they have posted. What does it mean to live in a world that is more and more improbable?

Moore's Law and Nanotechnology

2008-02-12T07:51:00.000-05:00

"Today's computer interfaces, the imaginary places where we meet and exchange information with our machines, are simply laughable compared to what's coming. Most of us are still crouched before a screen, attended by a keyboard and mouse. Occasionally we execute little curlicues with the mouse, but mostly we type---slowly---on the keyboard, feeding a trickle of information to the computer, while it spews back a niagara of information onto the screen. We don't converse with our machines, we send them telegrams." Gregory Rawlins, Moths to the Flame

Each time is appears Moore's Law is coming to an end somebody somewhere breaks a barrier and it continues. In the last couple of years we have seen a slowing in the advancement of computer processor speeds. People are beginning to wonder if the incredible acceleration in CPU speed we have seen in the last two decades will finally slow down as it appears might be happening. Yes, as Grace Hopper suggested, we can put to or more CPUs together and increase the over all speed of a computer, but the process of fabricating CPUs might be hitting a bit of a barrier. Maybe....

Nanotechnology is making rapid advances and with the coming of "bottom up" nano-fabrication another barrier in Moore's Law might soon be coming down. A recent discussion by Sunlin Chou at Intel shed light on what the future of silicon might be and how nanotechnology is involved.

What is the 32nd Square?

2008-02-08T09:55:00.000-05:00

Dr. Kurzweil tells the story of the Chinese Emperor who was so pleased with the game of chess that he granted the inventor any wish. The creator of chess asked the Emperor for one humble grain of rice to be placed on the first square of a chess board, two meager grains of rice on the second square, four tiny grains on the third square, eight grains lined up neatly on the next square, and so forth until all 64 squares of the board were accounted for. The Emperor thought the inventor a humble man for asking so little, yet by the 32nd square the Emperor owed the inventor eight billion grains of rice, enough to cover a one acre field.

Dramatic things happen on the second half of the chess board, from square 33 to the 64th square (at which point the inventor controls all the rice on the planet).

According to Dr. Kurzweil, in 1995, we reached the 32nd doubling of computer power. In the first quarter of 1996 more computers were sold than televisions, and more mail was delivered electronically than through the postal service. You might have heard that this is the information age, and that a technological revolution is going on. What you might not have heard is that the revolution didn't really take off until 1995. Hold onto your hat. The real revolution is about to begin.

Dramatic changes are underfoot. Computers are getting ready to listen, understand, translate languages in real time, respond instantly with voice, video, animation, graphics, and text. Soon computers will immerse us in virtual worlds so strange and unusual we cannot yet imagine their composition. The reason these changes are no longer science fiction is because we now have (or will soon have) the computing power to make them happen. We crossed the threshold into the future. We are standing on the second half of the chess board. What does this imply for the profession of orientation and mobility, and for the students we serve?

[[http://wayfinding.net/futimpt.htm, accessed November 2006]]