TechEd 2001: Technology in Education International Conference and Exposition

Citation

Riggs, C. (2001), "TechEd 2001: Technology in Education International Conference and Exposition", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 18 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2001.23918eac.005

TechEd 2001: Technology in Education International Conference and Exposition

Colby Riggs

TechEd 2001 was hosted by the Community College Foundation in Ontario, California from March 26-29, 2001. Attendees are primarily university, community college, and secondary school educators. The format of the conference is unique, offering over 30 interactive pre-conference workshops and 120 "hands-on" computer workshops, which cover topics ranging from multimedia, computer security, Web development and distance education. In addition, there were 130 traditional "how we do it well at our institution" presentations by educators. There were also interesting "spotlight sessions", which explored new directions in educational technology. The following describes some of the highlights of this year's TechEd event.

Tiffany Shlain, the Founder and Director of The Webby Awards (http://www.webbyawards.com/), which are similar to the Oscars for the Internet, gave an upbeat presentation entitled "The Evolution of the Revolution." Ms Shlain described the evolution of the Internet to date in terms of variations in weight of the content/format/interactivity of Web sites. The first Web sites were viewed as being "light", since they had very limited technical wizardry and the creation of content was quick and fast growing. The next stage of Internet development was characterized as being "heavy", in which e-commerce created sites mainly to make people stay on their sites. They did this by building sites that tended to be "heavy or sticky". The Internet is now moving to a stage of "lightness" again. "Lightness" is described in terms of offering mobility, impermanence and interactivity. It is with the state of "lightness" that we can experience the full power of the net connection. We can not only gather information but post additional information such as is seen in community sites, where ideas and community unite such as in the "Café Utne http://cafe.utne.com/cafe/ Many sites now encourage user posted content, such as posting short films at Atom Films http://www.atomfilms.com/

Paired with Tiffany Shlain in the same session was John Mongridge, Chairman of the Board, Cisco Systems, whose presentation was entitled "Scalable Network-Based Education." He began with a startling, and to many an eye-opening, statement that all institutions are in the midst of a tremendous technological transition and that education and especially technology in the classroom are lagging way behind. He stated that classrooms are one of the most isolated entities, since the majority of classrooms have no telephone or contact with the outside world. Mr Mongridge suggested that new economic development relationships need to be formed between businesses and educational institutions to address this ever-increasing disparity. He acknowledged that the educational community alone cannot find the capital to update its infrastructure. He stated that there have been very successful collaborations with non-profit institutions, federal and state and local government and the business community that have helped fill this educational and technology gap. "Cisco Systems http://www.cisco.com/ has successfully created "Cisco Networking Academies" that are Internet based "global e-learning" programs which train educators to establish and maintain sophisticated Cisco networks at the local schools. Cisco was able to leverage the use of the Internet and rely on the existing infrastructure at the schools to offer these successful programs at very little cost. The curriculum is flexible. Since it is Web-based, it can be taught regardless of time, distance and socio-economic standing of the schools/students. Cisco has expanded the academies beyond the schools and is now working with unions and other institutions. Cisco is exploring new personalized e-learning environments and applying the technology beyond the technology fields, as in the Virginia Tech Math Emporium http://www.emporium.vt.edu/

Ian Jukes, Director of "The InfoSavy Group http://www.ianjukes.com/ gave an invigorating "Spotlight Session" called "Living on the Future Edge: Understanding Change in the Age of Technology". He stated that the future of technology needs to be understood as part of the growth of computational speed and power. He began his presentation by describing past technological innovations and the outrageous and inaccurate predictions and comments about the new technologies from leading minds of the time. These predictions, although misguided, were a natural and are a continuing reaction to new technologies. Mr Jukes explained that technology is changing so quickly that it is hard to grasp. It is people's natural mindsets which tend to lag behind new technologies. Technology changes things we have been doing in the same way for years and forces us, as human beings, to face these technological changes and incorporate them into our lives.

Mr Jukes described five trends not to ignore when thinking about technology:

1. 1.

   Moore's Law ­ the technological processing power doubles every 15 months but declines in value.

2. 2.

   Law of the Photon ­ A tripling of the bandwidth per dollar will continue in the next 20 years. The future will see bandwidth in excess of one billion times that of today.

3. 3.

   Internet Revolution ­ The rapid expansion of the Internet in terms of users, Web pages and Internet access devices is doubling in size every 30 days. The explosion of e-mail messages per day has risen to over 12 billion .

4. 4.

   Age of Infowhelm ­ The amount of unique information will double every two weeks by 2005, which leads to a depreciation of information. In other words, what the average college student will learn in year one will be obsolete by year three.

5. 5.

   Technological Fusion ­ Previously separate fields are fused together to create more powerful technologies.

A direct, positive result of Moore's Law, the Growth of the Internet, Law of the Photon and Technological Fusion is the development of more and more electronic devices being compressed into a smaller and smaller piece of electronic real estate. The forms of media are now converging around the portable digital desktop. At the same time we are seeing a movement toward natural interaction and technological transparency.

The future possibilities of technological change are absolutely amazing. The change in our mindset is the key to bringing the many possibilities to reality. But the question arises of how as educators can we accurately anticipate the future, when we are in a world of fundamental uncertainty. Mr Jukes suggested that we need to develop a new educational paradigm that makes the fundamental shift from a content-based curriculum to a process-based curriculum. The new curriculum will emphasize the process of learning rather than just the product of learning. The new paradigm focuses on the transparent usage of technology rather than on its use as just a tool. We need to emphasize the need for information fluency as the basis of critical thinking skills, problem-solving skills and real world communication skills. When we as educators are able to view technology in more human terms and when technology is not the subject or the curriculum but the process, then will we be better prepared to meet the needs of our future generations.

Colby Riggs (cmriggs@lib.uci.edu), Systems Librarian, Library Systems, University of California, Irvine.