Kathy Cannon's List: Future Think: Educational Technology Trends, Predictions and Exuberance

• pp 101-102 "The result of these four factors--
  technological improvements that make learning more engaging; research advances that enable the design of student-centric software appropriate to each type of learner; the looming teacher shortage; and inexorable cost pressures-- is that 10 years from the publication of this book, computer-based, student-centric learning will account for 50 percent of the 'seat miles' in U.S. secondary schools. - Kathy Cannon on 2009-07-20
• p. 9 what students choose to study will change as their economic opportunity in their country changes. As an "escape from poverty" science, math, engineering do not have to be taught in an intrinsically motivating way. "When the same country achieves stability and prosperity, students have more freedom to study subjects they find fun and intrinsically motivating." - Kathy Cannon on 2009-07-20
• pp 30-32
  Disscusses interdependent architectures vs. modular architecture in a product. It is easier to customize the latter. And individualizing requires the ability to customize. Schools, however, work off a batch process approach with too much standardization. - Kathy Cannon on 2009-07-20
• Chapter 6 p 14 -
  Advocates for more investment in ece. Concludes that we need to change our thinking about the importance of this early period on our ability to improve school outcomes. - Kathy Cannon on 2009-07-20

• In every market, there are two trajectories: the pace at which technology improves and the pace at which customers can utilize the improvements.
• We call innovations that sustain the leading companies' trajectory in an industry sustaining innovations. Some are dramatic breakthroughs; others are routine. Airplanes that fly farther, computers that process faster, and televisions with incrementally or dramatically clearer images are all sustaining innovations.
• A disruptive innovation is not a breakthrough improvement. Instead of sustaining the leading companies' place in the original market, it disrupts that trajectory by offering a product or service that actually is not as good as that which companies are already selling
• At some point, disruptive innovations become good enough to handle more complicated problems -- and then they take over and supplant the old way of doing things.
• over time, computer-based learning can become more engaging and individualized to reach different types of learners; software developers can take full advantage of the medium to customize it by layering in different learning paths for different students.

  • Simplistic statement with overly generic concepts like "computer-based" learning. Regrettably such statements undermine some of the value in the argument favoring student-centered learning. No doubt this is enticing for people who have never studied educational technology's history.
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• Parents and teachers will be able to diagnose why children are not learning and find customized instructional software written to help students who closely match their children in learning style

  • Do the authors know how challenging it can be to diagnose learning difficulties? It might be interesting to ask whether sustaining or disrupting innovation in technology can be effective in supporting the diagnosis of learning difficulties. Excellent teaching includes expert diagnosis. Next questions, what is the role of excellent teachers in this newly "transformed classroom?"
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• new technologies often are initially less capable than the old ones
• succeed first in market niches poorly served by older technologies
• ignore or disparage almost all of the useful work that has been done in the past
• Disrupting Class, however, shares the view of the utopians, who for years have claimed that technology will replace teaching as we know it
• nstead, online schools do not need to pay for building construction, meals, transportation, libraries, theaters, art rooms, science labs, and many other features of brick-and-mortar schools. Are the authors recommending we give up those features in order to gain an “economic advantage”?
• demonstrate little interest in anything schools are actually doing with computers, besides online courses
• uthors would like to see education become more “student-centric,” meaning more individualized, through the use of computer
• comes along at a time when the topic of integrating technology in schools is more important than ever because technology is more mature and ubiquitous
• Readers will learn little or nothing about how to fund online learning or other technology innovations
• Nor will they find a vision of how cyber charter schools and similar innovations can co-exist with regular public schools without taking funds from them and leaving them less effective

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• too many skeptics and too many zealots writing about technology in schools.
• A detailed review of Disrupting Class can be found here: http://www.concord.org/publications/detail/2008_DisruptingClass_WhitePaper.pdf
• a hunger for more information about how technology can help schools improve.
• ost people know so little about the subject that they can be led astray by zealots of one opinion or another, either pro or con

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