Technology changing classrooms rapidly
I n the 1960s, what I knew about computers was restricted to one called SILIAC at the University of Sydney. I knew SILIAC intimately because, with an engineering buddy, I had taken off my shoes and walked around inside it.
But by 1982, as an assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction in a medium-size rural B.C. school district, I had begun to wonder about the classroom possibilities of new inventions such as the Apple II and III, the latest iterations of the Apple computer, which had been created primarily to compete with business computing companies such as IBM.
An acquaintance of mine was working his way up the ladder in one of the most influential technology companies in the world. I asked him if he thought these new “personal computers” had any use for classroom instruction.
My friend made inquiries a few rungs above him, but was told that desktop computing had no future in the school system. Forget it.
That was, as it turned out, a bit shortsighted, because five years earlier, in 1977, Apple had released the Apple II desktop computer, which allowed students to learn geography and math problems using computer games.
The Apple II used floppy disks for viewing various types of content. Of course the Apple II did not have access to the Internet — had we even known what the Internet was.
It took a while and it was not until the early to mid-1990s that the Internet was made available to the public.
Before this time, it was solely used by the military, academic institutions and NASA, having first been introduced as a dial-up connection that occupied the telephone line. It was also a very slow connection, unlike the broadband connections of today, and was incapable of efficiently handling video.
Not much use to classroom teachers.
On behalf of the school district, I had acquired an Apple II and, as one who had always been algebraically challenged, soon became fascinated by BASIC (Beginners’ All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) and games such as Oregon Trail, a kind of “survival through logic” game developed in 1971.
Beyond that, we were all struggling to figure out what to do with these amazing machines, but, being teachers, we knew instinctively that there was a wonderland of possibilities, if only we could follow the digital brick road far enough to gain a clearer view.
Perhaps, in retrospect, that was just as well, because now, just 35 years later, school-district officials in the U.S. have begun to experience the early stages of techno-anxiety about what they call the “Googlification” of the classroom. In five years, Google has helped revolutionize the sales methods companies use to place their products in classrooms.
Google has enlisted teachers and administrators to promote Google’s products, and has directly reached out to educators to test its products — effectively bypassing senior district officials.
Google has also outmanoeuvred Apple and Microsoft with a powerful combination of low-cost laptops, called Chromebooks, and free classroom apps.
Today, more than 30 million U.S. children use Google education apps such as Gmail and Docs, according to the company.
Chromebooks, Google-powered laptops that initially struggled to find a purpose, are now a powerhouse in America’s schools, and today account for more than half the mobile devices shipped to schools. In Canada, a proliferation of Chromebooks and Google apps enable students in their classrooms to walk along the Great Wall of China or snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef with the Google Expeditions virtual-reality field-trip experience.
The tech giant is gathering feedback from students and teachers as it plans release of other Expedition apps that will be available on devices schools have already purchased, said Jennifer Holland, program manager for education apps at Google.
The Expedition library includes more than 120 virtual trips to sites including Antarctica, the Acropolis, Chichen Itza, Mars and the Borneo rainforest.
It would be crass of me now to name the major tech company that, in 1982, could see no possibilities for computers in schools, so I won’t do that. No, it was not IBM, despite the fact that in 1942 it had been the oftquoted president of IBM, Thomas Watson, who said: “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
Looking back over the past 35 years, though, it seems true that in the high-stakes world of technology, the future belonged to those who saw possibilities well in advance.
I believe the same could be said of those now trying to foresee the future of public education.