One day in the future, nearly everything you need will come to you digitally - without boxes, cases or instruction manuals.
That's right - books, video games, music, nearly anything you can think of that doesn't rot - will be beamed directly into your home through that magic system of tubes: the Internet.
While it's true digital distribution may be the wave of the future, we're not there yet. The infrastructure that currently exists is not set up to deliver a full digital package and some of the hitches are surprisingly low tech.
For those unfamiliar with the concept, digital distribution is a method of product delivery that shoves aside the packaging of a product in favor of shipping it to the consumer via the Internet.
Most students at the University are already too familiar with the concept, however not in the legal way. I imagine most University students are familiar with it's free-spirited cousin - peer to peer networking.
Peer to peer (P2P) networking involves the sharing of media
between individual users - usually distributing pirated software, music and games.
While P2P networking does distribute things digitally, its not what I'm talking about here.
The type of digital distribution I'm referring to is next step in a process the general population is already familiar with - it's like shopping, except you don't go anywhere and never get to actually hold anything.
The legal version of digital distribution involves manufacturers selling it to consumers directly and then allowing them to download the product at their leisure.
It's already pretty popular.
iTunes and Rhapsody.com already make millions of dollars from digitally distributed content, and sites such as Netflix.com have recently opened up on-demand downloadable movies.
Even video games are transitioning to digital distribution with Nintendo's WiiWare and Microsoft's X-Box Live Arcade.
Digital distribution may be in its infancy now, but the road to complete digital distribution will lead University students to some big payoffs.
For the general population, digital distribution may actually be more expensive than traditional methods of shipping.
Blogger Nick Beaudrot, of the site Cogitamusblog.com, calculates that it's still cheaper to ship products the old fashioned way. Production of the items that are easily digitally distributed is still remarkably cheap. The CDs and DVDs that contain our music, movies and video games are pressed out rapidly, and the packaging is usually pretty meager outside of special editions.
The cost of production and light weight of transport make them relatively cheap to ship compared to the cost of bandwidth. As one anonymous comment on Beaudrot's post said, never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes.
In truth, Beaudrot's idea is sound, and the increasing cost of gas and increasing availability of broadband Internet will eventually make digital distribution paramount.
What Beaudrot doesn't take into account is the other forms of digital distribution - namely books, magazines and academic journals.
These are the media that most directly apply to University students.
University students already have access to many periodicals and e-journals through Middleton Library.
But that's not where the real gain for students is.
For University students, the real gain will be from e-books, podcasts and digitally distributed lecture videos that are already here in some cases and on the way for others.
Other universities are already on top of this. Universities such as Purdue, Washington State and U.C. Berkeley, among others, offer podcasts and in some cases videos of lectures that students can download.
The University has taken the first steps toward getting it all lined up, but the future holds tons of promise.
Unlike DVDs and movies, the benefit of digitally distributed books is easy to see. Books are costlier to produce than disc-based media and it would be much cheaper to distribute them electronically.
Podcasts and videos of lectures may get bogged down in image rights, but by far the biggest hurdle here is an administrative one.
If podcasts and videos of lectures are online, why would students take notes? Would attendance matter anymore? These are anything but trivial issues, and they cannot be resolved easily.
The age of digital distribution is coming, but it's not here yet.
In the case of popular media, it's close and coming fast. For the academic community, it's merely a tiny shadow on the horizon of an academic revolution.
It'll be here eventually, but in the meantime we should all invest in bigger hard drives.
Originally published in The Daily Reveille...
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Poverty problem affects everyone, not just the poor
Poverty is a complex issue. On the surface it seems like someone else's problem, but a deeper look can show its impact on others. You don't have to be poor to see the effects of poverty.
As a teenager, I thought poverty was something that in itself couldn't actually affect anything. I felt poverty was an outcome of someone else's poor decisions and lifestyle choices. The poor were merely unable to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps - as the saying goes.
In hindsight, I didn't really think about it at all. I imagine most people don't. As with many other aspects of the world around us, our exposure to poverty is mainly through the lens of television cameras. The poverty we see on the news is real, but it's not just on TV - poverty is problem all over the United States, and especially here in Louisiana.
In its most base definition, poverty is deprivation. People living in poverty are often deprived of access to healthy food, clean water, proper shelter and education.
People are classified as impoverished when their income is lower than the poverty line or they meet federal poverty guidelines.
The poverty line itself is calculated by the U.S. government and considers inflation and the cost of living, and is used primarily for statistical classification. The federal poverty guidelines are a little more flexible and are used to grant access to government programs such as Women's Infants and Children's Nutrition Fund.
They are both highly influential in the classification of people in poverty and the public perception of what constitutes poverty.
The 2008 poverty line for a single person is $10,400 dollars of yearly income, according to the Federal Register. That means a single person who earns less than $10,400 is technically living in poverty. The line changes for the number of dependents the head of the household has, adding $3,600 for each dependent, so a family of two must be less than $14,000.
They're not the most holistic methods of measuring poverty, but they're the easiest way to see poverty from the outside.
On the national level, 13 percent of the U.S. population lives below the poverty line according to the 2006 U.S. census. That seems like a fairly low number, but in terms of poverty prevention and intervention, the U.S. is one of the lowest-ranked developed nations according to the United Nation's development program. On the human poverty index the U.S. ranks 18th - below most of western Europe and Japan.
That's pretty awful, but poverty in our state is even worse.
Around 14.4 percent of all families in Louisiana are impoverished, as are 19 percent of individuals according the U.S. Census 2006 American Community Survey.
Locally things don't look so good either. 2006 figures show 20 percent of Baton Rouge families and 27 percent of individuals living in poverty.
There are certainly some post-Katrina factors in those statistics, but arguments about the definition of the numbers won't change anything - we're still in pretty bad shape.
The big deal here is that many of the same factors that keep Louisiana on the lowest tier of nearly every U.S. ranking are the result of or a determinant of poverty. The issue really isn't as individual as people tend to believe - poverty affects entire regions.
Two of the major determinants of poverty, education and healthcare, are major problems in Louisiana and have far-reaching effects.
Our poorly funded and staffed schools keep our children uneducated and unskilled in a world that is rapidly requiring advanced training for even the simplest of jobs. Our future workforce will be tainted by poor living conditions and unskilled for the future.
Our inadequate medical facilities can barely handle the sick they have now, but children born into poverty have a lesser chance of survival than those born out of it. High infant mortality is inexcusable in the modern world, but it is also something that damages the future of our state by cutting our population.
Both of these measures seem distant and abstract. But new young people and their education are of utmost importance to the betterment of this state and to the public policy that will be drafted by the state. These are just two examples, but there are many more.
Whether an individual is poor or not is almost irrelevant. Poverty itself is influential and will affect our future.
Originally published in The Daily Reveille...
As a teenager, I thought poverty was something that in itself couldn't actually affect anything. I felt poverty was an outcome of someone else's poor decisions and lifestyle choices. The poor were merely unable to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps - as the saying goes.
In hindsight, I didn't really think about it at all. I imagine most people don't. As with many other aspects of the world around us, our exposure to poverty is mainly through the lens of television cameras. The poverty we see on the news is real, but it's not just on TV - poverty is problem all over the United States, and especially here in Louisiana.
In its most base definition, poverty is deprivation. People living in poverty are often deprived of access to healthy food, clean water, proper shelter and education.
People are classified as impoverished when their income is lower than the poverty line or they meet federal poverty guidelines.
The poverty line itself is calculated by the U.S. government and considers inflation and the cost of living, and is used primarily for statistical classification. The federal poverty guidelines are a little more flexible and are used to grant access to government programs such as Women's Infants and Children's Nutrition Fund.
They are both highly influential in the classification of people in poverty and the public perception of what constitutes poverty.
The 2008 poverty line for a single person is $10,400 dollars of yearly income, according to the Federal Register. That means a single person who earns less than $10,400 is technically living in poverty. The line changes for the number of dependents the head of the household has, adding $3,600 for each dependent, so a family of two must be less than $14,000.
They're not the most holistic methods of measuring poverty, but they're the easiest way to see poverty from the outside.
On the national level, 13 percent of the U.S. population lives below the poverty line according to the 2006 U.S. census. That seems like a fairly low number, but in terms of poverty prevention and intervention, the U.S. is one of the lowest-ranked developed nations according to the United Nation's development program. On the human poverty index the U.S. ranks 18th - below most of western Europe and Japan.
That's pretty awful, but poverty in our state is even worse.
Around 14.4 percent of all families in Louisiana are impoverished, as are 19 percent of individuals according the U.S. Census 2006 American Community Survey.
Locally things don't look so good either. 2006 figures show 20 percent of Baton Rouge families and 27 percent of individuals living in poverty.
There are certainly some post-Katrina factors in those statistics, but arguments about the definition of the numbers won't change anything - we're still in pretty bad shape.
The big deal here is that many of the same factors that keep Louisiana on the lowest tier of nearly every U.S. ranking are the result of or a determinant of poverty. The issue really isn't as individual as people tend to believe - poverty affects entire regions.
Two of the major determinants of poverty, education and healthcare, are major problems in Louisiana and have far-reaching effects.
Our poorly funded and staffed schools keep our children uneducated and unskilled in a world that is rapidly requiring advanced training for even the simplest of jobs. Our future workforce will be tainted by poor living conditions and unskilled for the future.
Our inadequate medical facilities can barely handle the sick they have now, but children born into poverty have a lesser chance of survival than those born out of it. High infant mortality is inexcusable in the modern world, but it is also something that damages the future of our state by cutting our population.
Both of these measures seem distant and abstract. But new young people and their education are of utmost importance to the betterment of this state and to the public policy that will be drafted by the state. These are just two examples, but there are many more.
Whether an individual is poor or not is almost irrelevant. Poverty itself is influential and will affect our future.
Originally published in The Daily Reveille...
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Educators cannot ignore effects of technology
Technology will revolutionize the education system, but not in the way most people think.
Educational technology has advanced by leaps and bounds within the past 10 years. Nearly every classroom here at the University has a computer that can connect to the Internet, show videos and DVDs and play PowerPoint presentations. All of these are technological advancements that our parents and early educators would have never dreamed possible. But for all the advancement they represent, they are not the advancements that will truly alter the education of future generations.
On the contrary, it's not the technologies themselves that will change education, but the after effects of these technologies will shape the education of our children.
We live in a time of great technological advancement, but the true benefit of technology is not reaped by the first generation to experience it. It's the subsequent generations that truly explore, exploit and refine technology.
This isn't a knock on the intelligence of older generations. It isn't an issue of capacity, but one of exposure.
The easiest example of the diffusion of technology through generations is the Internet.
The early adopters of the Internet were a few tech-savvy members of Generation X. This generation, born between 1965 and 1982, helped nurture the Internet into its current state. In those days the Internet was more of a person-to-person method of communicating - similar to the message boards we have today. However, because of the advanced knowledge required to access the Internet, only a small set of Gen X have been exposed to it in significant amounts.
While Gen X is credited with furthering the Internet, it is not the generation most entrenched in it.
The Millennial Generation, unlike its predecessor, came of age when the Internet was just beginning to take off and is most heavily associated with its use.
This group, born between 1982 and 1997, were exposed to the Internet on a much larger scale than the general population of Gen X. The millennial generation has extensive experience with the Internet, but it was still introduced after its early socialization - the Internet merely augmented an existing world-view instead of being the focal point.
The Millennial Generation is the group that has popularized sites like Facebook.com and Myspace.com - they are social Internet users.
The generation after the Millennials, which some have taken to calling Generation Z, was born with the Internet. Many of those young people were at keyboards before they could ride bikes and are quite familiar with the Internet and its possibilities.
At the heart of the Internet is information, specifically instant information. There are few questions that cannot be answered, or at the very least enlightened, by a quick Internet search.
For those socialized and educated through the old way of learning, such as using a card catalogue in a library, this new method of information seeking exists in contrast to the old way, and makes it better.
For the new generation coming up, there is no old way. The technology that has brought amazing advancements to Gen X and the Millennials will be the status-quo for Gen Z- they won't know anything else.
Rapid access to information will become, or already is, the norm. I imagine there are hundreds of students at the University right now that have no idea what a library card catalogue actually looks like, much less how it works.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but that generation will need new skills to deal with this information.
This new generation shouldn't change for us - we should better ourselves and up the ante. Future educators will need to revolutionize the way they dole out and teach students to analyze information.
It's already happening in other parts of society.
In a 2008 study, The Context-Based Research Group found that young people responded better to information that was processed in quick, successive waves. Each wave increasing the level of detail, until a full picture was established. Using that information, several Associated Press branches tailored their style and found a great deal of success.
The writing is on the wall. While it may seem blasphemous to those that still remember the old ways, those ways may need to go the way of the Edsel and Windows ME.
Of course not all areas of education will change completely. Medical doctors will still need to know how to troubleshoot a patient's problems, and scholars will still have to be familiar with the body of work in their area. But the steps leading to those levels of education cannot remain as they are.
Without revolution or innovation we may find ourselves a shallow, under-educated society that has access to all the world's information, but without the capability to use it.
Originally published in The Daily Reveille...
Educational technology has advanced by leaps and bounds within the past 10 years. Nearly every classroom here at the University has a computer that can connect to the Internet, show videos and DVDs and play PowerPoint presentations. All of these are technological advancements that our parents and early educators would have never dreamed possible. But for all the advancement they represent, they are not the advancements that will truly alter the education of future generations.
On the contrary, it's not the technologies themselves that will change education, but the after effects of these technologies will shape the education of our children.
We live in a time of great technological advancement, but the true benefit of technology is not reaped by the first generation to experience it. It's the subsequent generations that truly explore, exploit and refine technology.
This isn't a knock on the intelligence of older generations. It isn't an issue of capacity, but one of exposure.
The easiest example of the diffusion of technology through generations is the Internet.
The early adopters of the Internet were a few tech-savvy members of Generation X. This generation, born between 1965 and 1982, helped nurture the Internet into its current state. In those days the Internet was more of a person-to-person method of communicating - similar to the message boards we have today. However, because of the advanced knowledge required to access the Internet, only a small set of Gen X have been exposed to it in significant amounts.
While Gen X is credited with furthering the Internet, it is not the generation most entrenched in it.
The Millennial Generation, unlike its predecessor, came of age when the Internet was just beginning to take off and is most heavily associated with its use.
This group, born between 1982 and 1997, were exposed to the Internet on a much larger scale than the general population of Gen X. The millennial generation has extensive experience with the Internet, but it was still introduced after its early socialization - the Internet merely augmented an existing world-view instead of being the focal point.
The Millennial Generation is the group that has popularized sites like Facebook.com and Myspace.com - they are social Internet users.
The generation after the Millennials, which some have taken to calling Generation Z, was born with the Internet. Many of those young people were at keyboards before they could ride bikes and are quite familiar with the Internet and its possibilities.
At the heart of the Internet is information, specifically instant information. There are few questions that cannot be answered, or at the very least enlightened, by a quick Internet search.
For those socialized and educated through the old way of learning, such as using a card catalogue in a library, this new method of information seeking exists in contrast to the old way, and makes it better.
For the new generation coming up, there is no old way. The technology that has brought amazing advancements to Gen X and the Millennials will be the status-quo for Gen Z- they won't know anything else.
Rapid access to information will become, or already is, the norm. I imagine there are hundreds of students at the University right now that have no idea what a library card catalogue actually looks like, much less how it works.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but that generation will need new skills to deal with this information.
This new generation shouldn't change for us - we should better ourselves and up the ante. Future educators will need to revolutionize the way they dole out and teach students to analyze information.
It's already happening in other parts of society.
In a 2008 study, The Context-Based Research Group found that young people responded better to information that was processed in quick, successive waves. Each wave increasing the level of detail, until a full picture was established. Using that information, several Associated Press branches tailored their style and found a great deal of success.
The writing is on the wall. While it may seem blasphemous to those that still remember the old ways, those ways may need to go the way of the Edsel and Windows ME.
Of course not all areas of education will change completely. Medical doctors will still need to know how to troubleshoot a patient's problems, and scholars will still have to be familiar with the body of work in their area. But the steps leading to those levels of education cannot remain as they are.
Without revolution or innovation we may find ourselves a shallow, under-educated society that has access to all the world's information, but without the capability to use it.
Originally published in The Daily Reveille...
Friday, April 11, 2008
'Banking system of education' outdated, obsolete
As an undergraduate student, I hated scantron exams. In hindsight, I had every right to - scantrons represent a detached system of education that may not give students the best possible education.
Recent technological innovations have given unprecedented access to information, but students are still educated in nearly the exact same manner as their parents - memorization and repetition.
This method - labeled the "banking system of education" by educational theorist Paulo Freire - has ruled our educational system since its inception, but challenges from new educational mediums and the failure of our system to prepare its students for the real world are leading many to question our educational system as a whole.
These questions may be unanswerable, given the structure and nature of the system - a system that seems to value numbers graduated more than the education and viability of its students.
Freire's concept of the banking system of education is fairly simple. As expressed in his 1970 work "Pedagogy of the Oppressed," the banking system treats students as an empty bank account. As empty accounts - or blank slates - students are instructed to open their minds and allow educators to fill them with relevant data and information.
The end result is passive learning - education without agency.
Freire rejects the banking approach to education. In his view, the banking system creates oppression of both the student and the instructor, inadequately preparing students to handle the outside world.
In place of the banking system, Freire advocates an education system that ignores the traditional student-teacher relationship and creates a reciprocal relationship between the two - the student also teaches, and the teacher also learns.
Freire believes in the idea of active education.
In our fast-paced world, this feels like a romantic notion calling back to the days of wise philosophers and their apprentices - a world that doesn't exist today.
One look at the structure of the University makes it clear the aforementioned romantic notion of a reciprocal student-teacher relationship may be long forgotten.
In my mind, the Cox Auditorium is a monument to the banking system of education and an outright rejection of active education.
Each morning, students cram themselves into a modern structure designed to pump their brains with as much knowledge as possible, while at the same time keeping interaction with their instructor as limited as possible.
Slideshow presentations blasted onto giant screens illuminate sleepy faces. The flashing bullet points drill home the important points of a lecture, telling students what they should write down and pay attention to.
In fact, students don't even have to raise their hands to give feedback - they have clickers.
I see students sitting in seats that have been manufactured to ensure maximum capacity, their eyes glazed as another bullet point slides across the screen and then leeches its way onto their spiral notebook. The students clasp a multi-buttoned clicker with their free hand, ready to pick the pre-fabricated answer to a multiple choice question.
If that's not the banking system of education, I don't know what is.
With all that said, I don't blame the instructors one bit. I find it hard to believe any professor or instructor at the University came into their job with the intention of turning students into zombies armed with remote controls.
Most graduate programs the instructors completed are designed as the antithesis of that mentality - graduate students often work with their professors. Unless grad school was a traumatic experience, the benefits of active education are remarkably clear.
Reliance on the banking system of education is a product of the administration and the nature of the American higher-educational system. Public universities are encouraged to graduate as many students as they can.
An educated populace is a successful one - or so it seems.
This places the administration in a tough position. They need state funding but must balance it with the educational needs of their students. Sadly, undergraduate students seem to lose out most often and - outside of a complete reboot of our education system - it seems unlikely active education will ever dominate our universities and schools.
There is hope though, and it resides in something the administration can't do anything about: student responsibility.
Students enter the University for a variety of reasons: some see it as a path to a future job, some as personal betterment and some see it as just something to do. Whatever the reason, students should take responsibility for their education.
At any University, the classroom experience is unavoidable and imminently valuable. Its nature has changed little in the past 50 years and is unlikely to undergo a revolution anytime soon. The difference-maker in our educational experience will be the work we students put into the subject matter - outside of our large classrooms.
Originally published in The Daily Reveille...
Recent technological innovations have given unprecedented access to information, but students are still educated in nearly the exact same manner as their parents - memorization and repetition.
This method - labeled the "banking system of education" by educational theorist Paulo Freire - has ruled our educational system since its inception, but challenges from new educational mediums and the failure of our system to prepare its students for the real world are leading many to question our educational system as a whole.
These questions may be unanswerable, given the structure and nature of the system - a system that seems to value numbers graduated more than the education and viability of its students.
Freire's concept of the banking system of education is fairly simple. As expressed in his 1970 work "Pedagogy of the Oppressed," the banking system treats students as an empty bank account. As empty accounts - or blank slates - students are instructed to open their minds and allow educators to fill them with relevant data and information.
The end result is passive learning - education without agency.
Freire rejects the banking approach to education. In his view, the banking system creates oppression of both the student and the instructor, inadequately preparing students to handle the outside world.
In place of the banking system, Freire advocates an education system that ignores the traditional student-teacher relationship and creates a reciprocal relationship between the two - the student also teaches, and the teacher also learns.
Freire believes in the idea of active education.
In our fast-paced world, this feels like a romantic notion calling back to the days of wise philosophers and their apprentices - a world that doesn't exist today.
One look at the structure of the University makes it clear the aforementioned romantic notion of a reciprocal student-teacher relationship may be long forgotten.
In my mind, the Cox Auditorium is a monument to the banking system of education and an outright rejection of active education.
Each morning, students cram themselves into a modern structure designed to pump their brains with as much knowledge as possible, while at the same time keeping interaction with their instructor as limited as possible.
Slideshow presentations blasted onto giant screens illuminate sleepy faces. The flashing bullet points drill home the important points of a lecture, telling students what they should write down and pay attention to.
In fact, students don't even have to raise their hands to give feedback - they have clickers.
I see students sitting in seats that have been manufactured to ensure maximum capacity, their eyes glazed as another bullet point slides across the screen and then leeches its way onto their spiral notebook. The students clasp a multi-buttoned clicker with their free hand, ready to pick the pre-fabricated answer to a multiple choice question.
If that's not the banking system of education, I don't know what is.
With all that said, I don't blame the instructors one bit. I find it hard to believe any professor or instructor at the University came into their job with the intention of turning students into zombies armed with remote controls.
Most graduate programs the instructors completed are designed as the antithesis of that mentality - graduate students often work with their professors. Unless grad school was a traumatic experience, the benefits of active education are remarkably clear.
Reliance on the banking system of education is a product of the administration and the nature of the American higher-educational system. Public universities are encouraged to graduate as many students as they can.
An educated populace is a successful one - or so it seems.
This places the administration in a tough position. They need state funding but must balance it with the educational needs of their students. Sadly, undergraduate students seem to lose out most often and - outside of a complete reboot of our education system - it seems unlikely active education will ever dominate our universities and schools.
There is hope though, and it resides in something the administration can't do anything about: student responsibility.
Students enter the University for a variety of reasons: some see it as a path to a future job, some as personal betterment and some see it as just something to do. Whatever the reason, students should take responsibility for their education.
At any University, the classroom experience is unavoidable and imminently valuable. Its nature has changed little in the past 50 years and is unlikely to undergo a revolution anytime soon. The difference-maker in our educational experience will be the work we students put into the subject matter - outside of our large classrooms.
Originally published in The Daily Reveille...
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