Last night here in Seville I moderated an ETRE roundtable,
with folks like Yahoo´s Tim Koogle and RealNetworks founder and CEO
Rob Glaser discussing the topic above. Here´s what I used as my
introduction:
Free content, free e-mail, free access, free software, free
storage, free delivery...what a utopia was the early Internet! But
then those VC dollars ran out, and free turned out to be nothing
more than the quickest route to Chapter 11. Now the survivors are
working hard to figure out just how to balance the customer’s
ingrained expectation of saving money and time on the Internet with
the realities of maintaining a healthy bottom line. Everyone — from
content providers and e-tailers to Web service suppliers — is
experimenting with various pricing models that will maximize the
Web’s advantages over brick-and-mortar. What are we learning about
what customers expect from their Internet transactions? How can we
take advantage of the Internet’s efficiencies and unique attributes
to build truly sustainable business models? What opportunities
remain untapped?
It was an excellent discussion, even given that in the
ETRE tradition of slipping schedules it began rather late in the
evening. Unlike years past, when there was some reluctance to wean
consumers off their favorite price point — free — the consensus
seemed to be that it was growing increasingly possible to charge for
services (email, storage, other applications) on the Web.
Daniel Mao,
CEO of Sina.com, the Chinese portal that has 22 million users,
noted that while only 5 percent of his users currently pay fees, he
has recently structured a deal with cellphone carriers to provide
the ability to charge customers micropayments as small as one cent,
presented on their phone bills. Tim Koogle said that
Yahoo´s goal is to receive 50 percent of their revenue from
transactions by their 100 million registered users and while that
number was still south of 40 percent (the remainder coming from
advertising), he was optimistic that the goal was
achievable.
Less clear was the ability of Web sites to charge money for
content. One exception is Rob Glasers´ RealOne subscription
network for premium video content, which already has 750,000 paying
customers and is just this week rolling out in Europe. Mao from
Sina.com has also had success in charging for Chinese-language
content tailored for Chinese living in the United States. But in
general it´s clear that content still needs to be exclusive and have
a devoted fan base (as in RealNetworks´ extensive sports
content) in order to make the sale.
On the other hand, however, the
panel was uniformily upbeat about the future of Internet advertising
as a revenue source. The key observation was that Internet
advertising is still extremely primitive and that already, with the
rise of large-format, rich-media ads, we´re seeing much more
response from both buyers and viewers. When we start to add the
ability to target ads, and even more sophistication in ad
presentation, the Internet is likely to emerge over the next five
years as a powerful advertising medium, providing a source of
revenue that may go far to help underwrite the costs of content.
My
contribution to the panel was to note that when we ask consumers to
pay for content, it doesn´t have to be in the form of money. Even
the anonymous demographic information that many sites now request —
age, ZIP code and gender —can greatly increase the value of ads to
marketers. One hopes that consumers can work through their
legitimate privacy concerns and realize that responding to such
queries is just a way they can help support the site without pulling
out their wallets. Otherwise, given the increasing costs of running
even the simplest Website, it´s hard to see how the Golden Age of
Free will last much longer.
For a conference about Europe, taking place in Europe,
there´s certainly a lot of talk here about Asia as the technology
savior of the IT world.
Even Alex Vieux, the charismatic founder
of ETRE, admitted in his opening speech yesterday morning that in
1997, he believed that “Europe could still recover [an important
role in world technology]...there were great companies with good
prospects.” Now he says, “there´s still a chance — but it´s
doubtful.”
On the other hand, he pointed out, Legend Computer Company
in China is now turning out 5 million PCs a year, and could be
the second-largest PC manufacturer in the world by the end of next
year. China also adds 3 million new cellphone subscribers every
month. In Korea, over half of all households already have broadband
Internet connections, at prices as low as $30 a month. And this year
India will sell $30 billion worth of software services around the
world.
Craig Barrett, the CEO of Intel, echoed the same
thought when Vieux asked him what the challenges would be for the
next Intel CEO. The answer from the peripatetic executive was
surprising: in his travels, he said, he is repeatedly struck by the
educational discipline and governmental stress on learning that he
sees in the countries of Asia-Pacific. The biggest issue for his
successor will be dealing with “the movement of intellectual capital
from the West to the rest of the world.”
Barrett elaborated: “Neither
Europe nor the US will be the first in broadband or convergence — it
seems to me that activity in the far East, including China, is far
more entrepreneurial and pragmatic than elsewhere.” For Intel, he
said, China and India are the two hotspots for new investment.
The
Asian imperative repeated itelf in a presentation by NCR´s
Chairman and CEO Lars Nyberg. Nyberg is a European technology
executive who came to the United States seven years ago and saved
NCR, then almost dead from a disastrous foray into the personal
computer business. NCR, a 117-year-old company founded on cash
registers, is a remarkable turnaround story with strong businesses
now in both its core competency of ATMs and, well, cash registers
(now called POS devices), as well as in highly sophisticated data
analysis software.
The company is on a clear path to integrate both its
hardware and software to give, for example, banks the ability to
customize what their ATMs say to each customer based on what the
bank knows about the individual. Nyberg points out that while he´s
waiting for his cash at his local ATM, the bank uses the screen to
try and sell him a mortgage. “But I already have a mortgage,” he
says, “and the bank should know because I send them payments every
month.”
Nyberg is enthusiastic about the potential for smarter ATMs,
but he´s even more interested in (you guessed it) the ATM and
software markets in Asia-Pacific. However, he says, while ten years
ago NCR would have sold its older generation technology in those
countries, now Asian customers will demand the state-of-the-art. And
more than that, “they will probably define an ATM that is different
than ours, and that we may end up bringing back to Europe and the
US.” For starters, the Asian banks will have the opportunity to
study the successes and failures of automated banking in the West,
avoid the pitfalls and then perhaps leapfrog ahead.
What´s happening
at ETRE this year is much more than East meets West — it´s a case of
West running out of gas on its home turf and aggressively pursuing
East. The next move, clearly, is up to Asia. And the emphasis on the
East isn´t over yet: last night´s ETRE cocktail party, at a
centuries-old rancho outside Seville, was dedicated to introducing
companies from....Korea.
Here´s another update from ETRE, the 12th annual European
Technology Roundtable. As I mentioned earlier, San Jose Mercury columnist Dan Gillmor is also
blogging here as well.
A regular attendee of ETRE over the years is
Paul Deninger, chairman and CEO of the Boston-based private
equity firm Broadview, which specializes in mergers and acquisitions
in the high-technology field, as well as running its own venture
capital fund.
Deninger, while certainly not a pessimist, was one of the
early voices of caution about the Internet bubble. Indeed he was
almost booed off the stage at the ETRE conference in 2000
(optimistic theme: “The Next Internet Generation”) where the hall
was packed with newly funded Internet entrepreneurs, most of whom
were never seen again.
This year Deninger offered a remarkable
statistic about the health of the tech biz: roughly 70 percent of
all technology firms with a market value under $1 billion dollars
are losing money. In other words, even though we´ve been through a
brutal shakeout already, there are still a lot of sick puppies out
there, doing very little to create investor confidence that tech
stocks are a smart place to put dollars. And that´s wise: even after
the breathtaking NASDAQ dive from 5,000-plus to 1,000-plus, Deninger
thinks many tech stocks are still overvalued.
The firms themselves may
be sick, but not dead: many of these companies raised a lot of cash
in the go-go years and still have enough in the bank to keep
chugging along — probably doomed, but still in the marketplace.
Their dying machinations —cutting prices below market or launching
new, unsupported product lines — create noise and confusion. “It´s a
little like having a disruptive student in the classroom,” Deninger
says. “Nobody gets any real work done.”
Deninger calls this hangover of
bubble riches the “pig in the python” and it´s his contention that
we have to get past those excesses — and the unrealistic
expectations created in the 1998-2000 years — before the technology
industry can grow again. “It is a mistake to plan your business on a
recovery scenario,” he says. “It´s time for a readjustment of
expectations.”
ETRE, this year, seems already to reflect some of that
adjustment. The corporate presentations, in which young companies
seek funding or partners, have a new humility and an emphasis on
early profits and efficient use of capital. There is none of what
Deninger considers the worst excesses of the bubble years: the
indiscriminate “time-to-market” issue, for example, in which no
expense would be spared in being the first out of the gate. Or
worse, the “time to market share” imperative, in which millions were
spent on “customer acquisition.”
“That´s the one I never
understood,” said Deninger, “because basically that meant ´buying
the customer.´ I always thought: wait a minute, aren´t the customers
supposed to be buying us?”
The answer of course is yes, and with any luck,
Deninger guesses, the customers may be buying again sometime in 2003
and the python will have finally finished the pig.
It´s Sunday at the European Technology Roundtable — the annual
conference commonly known as ETRE — in Seville and while
attendees are still trickling in, the meeting is underway.
Certainly, the first theme to emerge is the damage done to the
progress of information technology during this economic downturn.
Opening keynoter Intel CEO Craig Barrett described the
current state of venture capital as “tragic,” with so many VCs
spending their remaining dollars trying to triage their older
investments and putting little or nothing into the startups so
necessary to provide new opportunities a few years out. “Eating
one´s seedcorn” is the phrase that comes to mind.
Ironically, however, a
few minutes before I heard Barrett´s speech I sat next to a brand
new venture capitalist — Silicon Valley entrepreneur Julien
Nguyen, now managing director of a venture capital fund for the
giant semiconductor tool manufacturer Applied Materials.
There aren´t many
new VCs on the block these days — since fundraising has become
difficult in the extreme — but Nguyen, with his corporate source, is
an exception. I asked him about the VC shakeout, and he said that
while probably one-third of the funds now in existence will vanish,
the process will be much less dramatic than the swan dive of the
NASDAQ. Since most funds are raised with timeframes of 8 to 10
years, many VCs, particularly from those firms started in the
1999-2000 heydays, will simply putter along, tending their existing
investments and still seeing new companies. But unable to raise a
second round of money, they will do no new investing. From the
outside, the firm appears to be running, but inside, the lights are
already off.
For VCs with money to spend, however, it´s a great time.
Nguyen says it´s now possible to work with an entrepreneur for
months, sharpening their focus and business plan, before investing.
(In the boom days, of course, the entrepreneur would have just gone
to the VC next door if he didn´t get immediate dollars at his first
stop.) And there is also a wealth of CEO talent available, says
Nguyen. “These are people who ran $1 billion dollar companies,” he
said. “And they´re not retiring because their portfolios are now
disasters.” And finally, of course, there is the bonus that VCs are
now getting much more for their investment dollar.
I´m heading back to the
conference, but for minute-by-minute updates, see my ETRE colleague
(and San Jose Mercury columnist) Dan Gillmor´s e-journal .
Dan is one of the pioneers in
realtime conference blogging through the magic of 802.11b. Since
Intel is providing a WiFI hotspot here, he´s working away in the
back of the auditorium at every session.
Of course, since I´m not
typing, I´m always listening, so you´ll definitely need to read both
of our blogs for the full picture of ETRE....
In an hour or so I’m
heading for Seville, Spain, where I’ll be attending the European Technology Roundtable , or ETRE as
it’s usually called.
The conference is a fascinating mix of American,
European and Asian technology execs that has been meeting in various
European cities since 1989. I’ll be chairing two panels: “The End of
the Free Web” and “What CTOs Know,” with some interesting folk on
both.
And of course I plan to blog from the conference, starting
this weekend, once I’ve overcome my jetlag with the appropriate
dosage of tapas.
I view Google’s news services as an excellent research tool.
There will still be a demand for specific editors such as yourself,
Dan Gillmor or even Declan
McCullagh .
However, the power of Google and its page-rank
technology and algorithms is up for question by several individuals
including Daniel Brandt. Pay-for-play ranks are skewed and
should not be viewed as fair. Simply because someone doesn’t have
the ability to pay should not be the reason for a lower
ranking.
The future of search technology will be interesting. Should it
continue to be based on your level of interest (by number of links
to you, by number of visits etc.), or should it become a for-pay
model?
But you are very correct. Microsoft had better realize that
the Internet is becoming a serious arena for research, and specific
search technology that will find me paintings (that I search with
“red + white + horse”) will be the killer apps — next to the
text-based entries.
Microsoft? Are you listening? Funny how you would
mention Microsoft with your MSNBC leanings. ;-)
Rogers replies:
Thanks — good link for Brandt’s interesting work. Search is
terrifically important and considering how young the technology is,
we’ll probably see some amazing functionality in the years to come.
As far
as “leanings” go, we at Newsweek are publishing partners with MSNBC,
which is half-owned by Microsoft. But just as Newsweek is owned by
the Washington Post Company and we never hesitate to criticize other
Washington Post units, we’re the same when it comes to Microsoft.
We’ve been in the news business a long time and one thing we’ve
learned — and believe to our collective core — is that you can’t
bend your coverage to commercial interests and survive. We’ve been
around coming up on 70 years now and see no reason to change the
game plan on the Web.
Name: Tom Stickroe
Hometown: Grand Rapids, Mi
I think the idea of “Push,
Nevada” is good, but the marketing of it was horrible. I saw a few
commercials and only once do I remember it saying anything about
winning a million dollars. I think I would have been interested but
it didn’t seem there was any PUSH from the marketing crew. Other
wise, interactive TV — now we got an idea.
Rogers replies: Good
point. ABC (and its owner, Disney) are not exactly at the top of
their game right now, so perhaps they didn’t push “Push” enough.
According to some reports, the next push may be Disney CEO Michael
Eisner, overboard.
Finally, check out my new column on the secrets of online dating and, as always, use the
box below to tell me what you really think.....
Bad news for the
most ambitious national experiment thus far in
blending fictional television and the Internet: ABC’s “Push, Nevada” plummeted in this week’s
Nielsens. (Registration required for this site; go ahead and help
feed the writers.)
Not only were the “Push, Nevada” numbers extremely low,
they were poor even in the coveted 18-49 age range; ABC is already
said to be thinking of canceling the show.
That will raise some problems
for the producers, since the final clue necessary to solve the
puzzle isn’t supposed to be released until the last episode. The
producers have said that even if cancelled, the $1 million contest
would continue, although the fine print of the rules does seem to give them the
option to punt the contest as well.
On the Web, the game has some
traction, with several dozen discussion groups devoted to the
mysteries of Push — but it’s hardly become a viral Web phenomenon on
the order of, say, the
dancing baby — and the bopping babe didn’t even bear the promise
of a million bucks.
It’s an unfortunate development because while there is
tremendous creative potential in content integration between Web and
television, the weak showing of “Push, Nevada” will cause
risk-averse television producers to run madly in the opposite
direction.
One lesson here might be that the highly-stylized, faux-Lynch
tone of the television series minimized the opportunity for true
character development. Thus I’m not curious to know a whole lot more
about Jim Prufrock or Mary beyond what I need to solve the mystery,
and that’s leaving behind a big chunk of what the Web can provide:
personal voice.
In all the years I’ve been writing fiction, I’ve never
had someone come up to me to say, here’s how your story should have
ended (i.e., here’s another solution to your puzzle). They want to
know: Why did she leave him? Why did he let her go? What was in
their characters and backgrounds to make them act the way they did?
When
we learn to blend television and the Web so that viewers can get
closer to questions like that — and sure, throw in the million
bucks, too — then we might just have something that will compel
audiences in both media.
Over the past ten days or so the online news world has
been in a swivet over the Google News beta,
which uses Google’s formidable search algorithms to generate a
constantly updated news front page.
Google proudly notes: “This
page was generated entirely by computer algorithms without human
editors. No humans were harmed or even used in the creation of this
page.”
This has launched another round of “the death of editors”
conversation that has been going on since the birth of the
commercial Internet. Initially, editors were supposed to be extinct
due to the rise of the “Daily Me” — everyperson’s ability to
custom-edit their own news page. (The New Yorker satirized the
notion with a cartoon that showed a “Daily Me” obituary page with
headlines like “One year older than you.” and “Five years younger
than you.”)
In the long run, personalization, while an important and
still-evolving part of the news experience on the Web, hasn’t done
away with editors. It turns out that lots of people actually want to
see what the editors think is important — and also make sure they’re
getting to see what everybody else is seeing.
So now Google does away
with editors altogether. Leslie Walker — herself the former editor
of washingtonpost.com — offered a balanced analysis in the Washington Post, concluding that while it’s an
amazing performance by algorithms, Google News may be more of a
research tool and news junkie’s gadget than the average person’s
main news source.
I agree. I think that news seekers like to have a
certain simplicity and regularity in what they view, and the idea of
sorting through 140 stories on every topic may not appeal. (One
thing newspaper and magazine editors know: when you change your
format even slightly, the complaint letters are overwhelming. The
Google News experience implies changing format drastically — The
Voice of America! Ireland Online! The Hamptons Roads Daily Press! —
with every story you read.)
My guess is that the Google
approach, like everything on the Web, will be neither the perfect
solution nor the worst idea ever, but ultimately just another tool,
useful when appropriate. What will be interesting in the short term
is to see how established news sites will respond. Jack Shafer,
writing in Slate,
suggests that established news sites may partner with Google or else
create competitive crawlers.
The latter doesn’t seem too
likely — a media company would have to be pretty dim to get into an
algorithm-writing contest with the brainiacs at Google. Partnership
may make more sense — although then Google might get into a “pay for
play” position that would seriously undercut the value of its page.
There
are a few more ominous possibilities for Google. One is that the
news sites get together and decide to restrict Google’s crawlers
from their sites on the pending theory of trespass. A bigger
problem, I expect, will be Google’s use of photos, which appear to
be automatically plucked from news sites. The top photo at the
moment is a Getty Images picture of Tiger Woods, taken from an
Australian news site. You can bet the Aussies paid Getty for the
pic; is Google paying too?
The final and most interesting possiblity is an
old truism of Silicon Valley: when you become too powerful in just
about any area of information technology, the folks at Microsoft can
suddenly get very interested in your space. Google’s showy tour de
force with news aptly focuses attention on how important search is
in the world of the Web, and one wonders how long it will be before
Redmond decides they need in on that action.
Here’s Steven Levy on one of my
favorite indicators of the immaturity of the Web: lack of IM
interoperability.
As Levy aptly puts it, “Can you imagine a
telephone system where you can’t call your mother because she’s on
AT&T and you’re on Sprint?” No, but I can certainly recall the
days in the Eighties, before we civilians invaded the Internet, when
CompuServe subscribers couldn’t send e-mail to AppleLink
subscribers, and so on among the competing proprietary
services.
I still have an old business card from those days with four
different e-mail addresses on it — not because I wanted four
services, but to maximize the number of people who could communicate
with me. It would actually be a moment of great celebration when one
of the services announced an “e-mail gateway” to another service,
which even so usually only worked sporadically.
Was this a good thing
for anyone? Absolutely not, and worst of all, it damaged the utility
and evolution of the medium itself. Yet in Levy’s column, a
Microsoft representative seems to suggest that the lack of
interoperability spurs competition in the quest for market share.
I’d take issue with that — instead, the walled garden approach
completely undercuts the idea of direct competition. Only with true
interoperability can there be free choice from the consumer’s point
of view.
IM is going to be the fundamental underpinning of true Web
communication, letting us choose between audio, video and text for
our real-time or near-real-time personal interactions (just as the
Web gives journalists multiple media for storytelling purposes). But
that larger functionality just isn’t going to bloom unless we have a
fully connected user base.
Now comes word that Microsoft will charge
for enhanced IM features by making those features available only
to MSN 8 subscribers. While I’m not against charging reasonable
prices for Web services (programmers need to eat, too), I’m just
afraid this will further muddy the prospects for interoperability.
Or
perhaps it will do the opposite: after all, if a consumer is
actually paying for the service, and still can’t IM her mother,
she’s now complaining as a real customer.
Some reader comments on the recent
discussionabout the difference between inventing great
technology and actually getting the world to use it — and the
specific example of building a business around downloading music.
Name: Steven Tinari
Hometown: Langhorne, PA.
Being the first in any given market does not guarantee
success. Remember those old films where they are trying desperately
to build a flying machine? The wisest
visionaries are reactionary. Build what people need, tempered with
what they want, and you will succeed.
Name: Barry Bainton
Hometown: Barrington, RI
Many inventors feel that the
perceived benefits that they envision for a fully developed
technology should be the basis of the reward that they expect today
for their undeveloped concept. What is missed is the fact that in
order to get, you must give up the idea that your idea exists in a
vacuum. You and your idea exist in a
social and cultural environment which create opportunities and
threats. To see only the opportunities and not the threats is naive
and dangerous. Without wrapping the new product in a blanket of due
diligence, the journey from concept to commercial product can be
cold and rough.
Name: Michaela Stephens
Hometown: Austin, TX My
belief is that it is time to stop trying to build online business
using the copyrighted music of musicians who are already discovered
and instead focus on building a business of partnership with amateur
musicians. The advantages are many:
with undiscovered musicians, the RIAA has no ownership or say in
what happens. Online distribution means that musicians could
theoretically upload their music onto a server that could reach
anyone in the world with an Internet connection. Online distribution
would also mean that a vast diversity of music genres could be
developed, instead of this shallow manufacturing of stars and hits
that recording studios do these days.
An online distribution system would mean that the business
would not be required to purchase all the expensive recording
equipment or pay for an artist to travel to the studio to record.
Instead, artists would be responsible for recording their own music,
and uploading it. I feel sure that
money could be made by giving amateurs a place to post their own
songs. Let’s see some idealism make it in this world.
Rogers
replies: This sounds quite a bit like Garageband.com, an excellent idea that perished in
the general Internet collapse but which has been recently brought
back to life. The interesting twist that Garageband adds to
Michaela’s suggestion is that songs are rated by the users, and in
theory the best tracks rise to the top.
The old Garageband offered the
top-rated band a $250,000 recording contract, and while that
expensive plum is no longer available, the site promises that there
will be some revenue-generating opportunities ahead.
It will be
interesting to see how the new Garageband makes out. To Michaela’s
point, if you can’t champion idealistic notions on a brand-new
medium like the Web, then the world is way more petrified than I’d
like to believe.
One of my hardest-learned lessons about how the future happens
is encapsulated in Paul Saffo’s admonition “Never mistake a clear
view for a short distance.”
What Saffo means is that very often
technologists can envision exactly how wonderfully a new technology
might play out. We can visualize all the parts fitting together, and
how much better the solution will be than what is presently
available.
The only thing we often don’t take into account is the set of
existing conditions that have to be overcome before the shiny new
technology really works. It might be something as mundane as the
fact that companies haven’t fully amortized the technology they
already own. It might be more subtle: resistance on the part of
workers who mistrust the new tools, or reluctance because there are
already functioning businesses built on the old, less efficient
methods—and nobody wants to let go of something that is already
paying the rent.
In the fifteen years I’ve been developing new media,
I’ve fallen victim to that excessive optimism too often. Now when I
feel myself falling in love with a new technology, I remind myself
of a certain spot in central California, where you can see
snow-capped Mount Whitney gleaming in the distance, and it appears
just a short stroll away across a flat plain. Once you start
walking, however, you discover that the flat plain is in fact Death
Valley, and it goes on and on and on a whole lot farther than it
appears.
Lesson: on both the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada and in
the world of new technology, never mistake a clear view for a short
distance.
Yesterday’s New York Times has an excellent example of
that dilemma, in the case of building a business out of downloaded music. (Register, and help feed the
writers). While critics charge that the recording industry is
dragging its feet out of greed and stupidity, the fact is that there
are tremendous legal and practical hurdles to putting music on line
in a way that properly compensates musicians and other copyright
holders. Writer Amy Harmon, who has long followed media and
technology, does a thoughtful job of explaining just how complex the
issues are. Digital delivery makes perfect sense for everybody as an
abstract concept: the problem is when you try to make it work in the
real world.
In the same issue of the Times comes word that the
KaZaA music-swapping service has an advertising deal with a European ISP, and various
commentators try to spin this as somehow legitimizing the service.
What it probably does is make KaZaA even more of a target for
litigation, because now copyright holders can argue that KaZaA’s
owner, Sharman Networks, is actually making money off facilitating
the theft of intellectual property. Hard to know what will kill
KaZaA first: litigation from the RIAA, or the release of a
KaZaA-specific worm or virus that rapidly trashes a few million
peer-to-peer music-swappers’ hard drives.
Here’s a smart piece in
the San Francisco Chronicle by Joyce Slayton: “That Reporter Done Steered Me Wrong: How much
should we blame journalists for the dot-com crash?”
The basic theme:
“Scads of journalists were writing glowing stories about amazing new
companies such as Webvan, Enron and Pets.com, companies that had
raised millions and were set to make even more in the new economy.
Reporters who were supposed to skeptically evaluate these companies
and filter the puffery were reporting optimistic earnings and
market-growth projections and, seemingly, failing to report
losses.”
The piece makes good points about why this happened, from the
lack of experienced journalists to the impenetrability of privately
funded startups’ finances. It also mentions the pressure on
journalists to be positive in the midst of the bubble. I remember
being on a panel of journalists at a conference just after the
bubble burst, when the NASDAQ was around 3,800 (already down from
5,000). The moderator asked all of us how low the NASDAQ would go,
and I was the most pessimistic at 2,500.
My opinion was thoroughly
mocked and for the rest of the conference I had entrepreneurs
cornering me to say “You negative journalists are what’s killing the
business.” The next year I was at the same conference and all I
could say was that I wished I’d been right: the Nasdaq by then was
at 1800.
However, there was one startlingly prescient piece about the
Web bubble collapse, way back in 1996, in of all places the
then-wildly boosterish Wired magazine: Chip Bayers’ “The Great Web Wipeout.”
It was presented as a mock Time
magazine feature, and intended as over-the-top satire. But it’s
filled with paragraphs like this:
“That’s no solace to the
out-of-work Web editors at companies like The New York Times. Many
of them have little hope of returning to their careers in “old
media” now that their new careers have been stranded ashore by The
Web Wipeout’s receding wave. And many an executive will have a
difficult time passing the blame for these big-buck boondoggles as
media companies return to their tried-and-true core businesses,
which proved to be the wiser investment after all. ‘We learned a
thing or two,’ said Time Warner Chairman Gerald Levin, only
half-jokingly, at a recent raucous shareholder meeting. ‘Gangsta rap
— yes. World Wide Web — no.’”
It’s probably the most accurate
prediction of the Web’s future that ever appeared during the go-go
years...and at the time we all thought it was pretty darned funny.
A decade ago in medialand, “convergence” became the buzz word
du jour. By the early Nineties it was clear to anyone paying
attention that sooner or later all forms of media — print, audio,
video, graphics — were going to be delivered as streams of digital
bits. The key phrase there is “sooner or later,” and a lot of people
lost a lot of money betting on the sooner rather than the later.
Many
digerati also jumped to what seemed the obvious conclusion that all
these bits were going to be delivered in the same box. We went
through a few bizarre years of computer makers like Gateway and
consumer electronics companies like RCA trying to moosh both devices
together. The Japanese even invented a new word for it —
“compunications” — which presumably sounds better in Japanese than
English. Then WebTV came along and separated the boxes but still
mooshed media together on one screen.
Nothing seemed to work and a
few hundred millions dollars later you could clear a new media
conference room by uttering the word “convergence.” Now MediaMetrix research reports that consumers have
been practicing convergence all along, merely by putting both boxes
in the same room.
Half of the adult Internet population has televisions
and computers in the same room and half of that group uses both at
the same time. I’d be willing to bet (and the Pew Foundation
research on Internet use suggests) that in younger audiences that
number is much, much higher.
For passive television, this is
another challenge on the order of Tivo — you can’t ever be sure your
audience is really paying attention. For the Web, this is pure
opportunity. Web programmers can use the mass reach of television to
drive viewers, in real time, to content which is designed from the
start for non-linear, truncated bursts of attention.
To some extent,
television thus far, with its mass reach, has been able to give only
passing attention to the Web (as opposed, say, to newspapers, which
have been forced to respond more vigorously). But the Web is now
drawing the passive television audience in a way that television
programmers can either ignore at their peril or embrace more fully
to the considerable benefit of both media.
An interesting example of that
embrace, ”Push, Nevada,” debuted last night on ABC. It’s a
thirteen-episode mystery drama with an attached Internet game in which one can win $1 million,
using clues from both the show and the online content. The first
episode was not exactly great television — sort of low-rent David
Lynch shot in oversaturated color. The wooden dialogue (apparently
intentional) had lots of long pauses and portentous phrases, but
then maybe those were clues...
The associated Web sites and other
evidence are very nicely done, so clearly the Internet is much more
than an afterthought. And as of Wednesday afternoon there were only
4,900 people signed up on the Yahoo bulletin board set up for
Push players, so thus far there may not be a lot of
competition for that seven-figure payoff. And for media watchers,
”Push, Nevada” is definitely worth a look.
So convergence is here —
and this time it’s the audience and the producers, not the hardware
manufacturers, who are making it happen.
While the Practical Futurist was off unpacking boxes and
untangling Cat 5 cable as part of his move, Newsweek’s International
edition was producing a terrific set of pieces on, of all things, the future.
To take a moment for promotion,
this is one of the many benefits of the Web site, — the ability to
see all of the editorial content produced for Newsweek’s other three
English- language editions that don’t circulate in the United
States.
A good pairing of what-may-happen and how-it-may-happen is
Newsweek’s piece about “Life in
the Grid,” and the latest IEEE Spectrum article on “autonomic computing.”
The former paints a picture of
the likely future in which much of our personal data is widely
accessible in an interconnected Web — raising, of course, both the
possibility of great efficiency and ease as well as all the 1984
issues we’ve worried about for decades. The final element raised by
the story is what happens if one of these interlinked computers
fails?
The IEEE piece addresses this directly with the notion of
self-diagnosing, self-healing computer and software systems — the
kind of technology that will be utterly necessary if we’re really
going to make ubiquitous computing as much of the fabric of daily
life as, say, the water or electrical supply.
Another Newsweek piece
in the special section looks at the current
sad cultural status of the futurist. It’s an excellent story
that underscores why people like Paul Saffo of the Institute for the
Future — who probably has a better grasp on what the future may be
like than most anyone I know — shies away from the name “futurist”
like a vampire from garlic.
As longtime readers know, the
reason I use the word in this Weblog is because I believe that we’re
all futurists. The best way to predict the future, as Alan Kay said,
is to invent it. I would add: Invent your future, before it invents
you.
Well, the Practical Futurist has been off the grid for a few
days, engaged in the utterly non-virtual experience of moving to a
new loft. Over the past few months, during the construction of the
space, there’s been one future-oriented question that’s been
interesting to ponder.
It’s the same big question I ran into when I
built a new house in 1995: What wires should I put in the walls? I
was in California then and among my friends in Silicon Valley it
became a bit of an arms race. “Oh, you only put in two Cat 5’s and
two coax? I’m running fiber, too.” Or for the ultimate one-up: “I’m
just putting cable raceways in all my walls and I’ll pull whatever I
need as I go along.”
Back then, I ran two sets of Cat 5 (a total of
eight twisted pairs), two runs of coaxial cable, and two pairs of
speaker wires. The speaker wires went to the family room, where the
audio-video system was installed. Everything else did what the cable
installers call a “homerun” to the utility room where I planned to
install the whole-house server. From that room I ran fiber optics
underground to the curb.
This time, in my loft, the picture has changed.
The building itself has an internal T1 line for Internet and a
rooftop satellite dish for television. I’m still putting Cat 5, coax
and speaker wire in my walls, but now everything goes to one central
location, as I know I’ll want direct Internet connections for the
audio-video system too.
But I may not use much of that Cat 5 in the long
run. For starters, I’ll set up wireless network for my computers.
And sooner or later I’ll almost certainly be using wireless instead
of coax and copper to distribute the audio-video signals to the
other rooms. The only increase in wire count has been for my main
audio-video room: I made sure that I have a total of seven speaker
outlets for advanced audio signals, such as SACD or DVD-A.
But
one thing doesn’t change. This time around I’ve already had to
upgrade my wireless computer network from 802.11b to the more costly
802.11a, so it won’t interfere with my new wireless telephone
system. No matter how much you plan ahead, there’s never
enough.
Some thoughtful reader comment on last week’s Practical
Futurist column “Girls Just Want to Have
Games,” typified by this remark:
Name: Rich Blank
Hometown: St. Louis
The computer-savvy females I know (Mom, thirteen-year-old
sister, ex-wife) love computer games, but not the traditional
“girly” games; instead they play games like SimCity, SimLife,
Civilization, and Pharoah— games that involve planning,
understanding cause and effect, and building on previous play to
create something substantial. Perhaps the problem lies less in
developing new games and more in the way existing games are
perceived and marketed.
Rogers replies: Rich is correct in this
broader view of girls and games. I talked with Warren Buckleitner,
whose Children’s Software Revue is one of the very best
resources on kids’ software and other interactive media. He cites
the same titles as Rich as being games that appeal very strongly to
girls.
“There’s a lot of bunk as to what people think girls want,” he
says, “because gender roles are so culture-driven. Many girls hate
to be stereotyped and if you say it’s girl’s software they’ll go
after something else.” On the other hand, he says, “interactive
material sometimes follows the marketing categories you see in the
publishing and toy business. There’s always been a boys’ aisle and a
girls’ aisle in toy stores.”
Every year, Buckleitner and his
team do a survey of gender roles in games. “There’s always a great
predominance of male main characters,” he says. “But this is true
across all cultures. Look no further than Winnie the Pooh: that’s an
all-boys club.” He says that past the “pink frosting” of games like
Barbie, the real attraction in games is what the kids get to do.
“There’s at least an 80% crossover between what keeps girls
interested and what keeps boys interested.”
For anyone involved with
children and interactive media, Buckleitner’s Revue is well worth
the $24 a year subscription price, since that also gives you full
access to the over 5,600 reviews on his site.
To see a sample, check
out this review of the new Nancy Drew title that I
described in this week’s column.
Well, now that we have the kids back in class, it’s
time to lower the curtain on this most interesting conversation
about computers in schools. Two final thoughts:
A number of writers
cited Clifford Stoll, the astrophysicist who came to
fame with a book about catching a rogue hacker (“Cuckoo’s Egg”) and
went on to become America’s most visible techno-curmudgeon with
books like “Silicon Snake Oil” and “High Tech Heretic.”
Sometimes I think
Stoll overplays his role (as does most everyone who gets typecast in
the media spotlight) but he makes many good points from the
relatively unassailable position of someone who knows computing
inside and out. In this interview about computers and education, he
makes an excellent observation:
Q: You say in High
Tech Heretic that one of the things educators and software
manufacturers say is that learning is fun when you use computers.
But, you argue that learning isn’t supposed to be fun. Stoll: Hey, for me, learning was never
fun. It was work. It took hours of reading, of thinking, of looking
stuff up. Turning learning into a game is to denigrate the most
important thing we can do as human beings: To teach, to learn.
Indeed: often the people I meet who
are enthusiastic about creating free-form, non-linear education are
themselves the highly-educated products of the most linear Ivy
League colleges: “I went to Deerfield, Harvard and MIT, but now that
I’m an education theorist, I’d like your kid to teach
herself.!”
Ultimately, the whole debate over computers in schools
echoes the three phases we seem to go through whenever society
encounters transformative technology:
1. We decide it’s the solution to all our problems. 2. We decide it’s the stupidest thing ever. 3. We put it into perspective and it becomes no
longer “technology,” but part of life.
In my view, we’re still
somewhere between phases 1 and 2 in our use of computers in schools.
If I had to err on one side or the other, I’d tend to do with fewer
computers until we get a little more perspective.
Recently I spoke to a
group of parents in an upscale midwestern suburb about computers and
education. Afterward one mother came up to tell me proudly that her
teenage son was already so computer-literate that he was skipping
his classes in order to build Web pages for local merchants. I asked
her if she’d be similarly proud if her son was skipping high school
in order to mow lawns, because the net effect on his education was
about the same.
My message was simple: rather than tying your kids to
the mast of some technology that changes every day, make sure they
know how to communicate (which includes the arts) and how to learn.
Then add a dash of math and physics — not so they become scientists,
but so they understand the scientific method and linear thought.
With those tools they’re set for whatever this century will throw at
them. ________________________________
Today’s Practical
Futurist column is about computer games for girls: is there such
a thing and if so, is that good or bad? And more importantly, it
answers the question: What do Barbie and Nancy Drew have in
common?
Over
the past few postings we’ve heard from parents and teachers on the
utility and appropriate use of computers in the classrooms. Much of
the commentary has been moderate, taking the position that computers
are tools, nothing more or less, and that how they are used is key
to whether they are a boon or a waste.
Far more readers said computers
have been oversold in the lower grades-say, K-3-than in upper level
classes. And no one suggested that computers can replace teachers —
although a number of teachers expressed concern that such a swap is
exactly what they fear school administrators have in mind.
More
than a few readers pointed out that computers are “the most
depreciating educational supply one can purchase” — and that schools
don’t replace hardware often enough to keep up with the technology.
It’s reminiscent of author William Gibson’s comment that buying a
new computer was like buying a block of ice — it’s losing value in
the trunk of your car even as you’re driving away from the store.
Tellingly, it was most often a student who pointed out the
obsolescent factor — which leads to some comments today from
students, both current and recent.
Name: Vicky Johnson
Hometown: Houston, Texas The first computer that I used in
school was an Apple //e in third grade. We had occasional computer
labs where we would play a multiplication game or some such. As a
child I found it amusing, a pleasant distraction, like music class.
By fifth grade I regularly typed my book reports. My box of
childhood treasures holds a rock, some dried flower petals, a
painting of a unicorn, and a 5 1/4” floppy disk marked “Do not
delete!” in red marker. By eighth grade, computer programming was
thrown into the mix: by college, I had completed the coursework
equivalent of my freshman year, and I graduated in three years to
become a computer programmer.
Having said all that, you would
think I am resoundingly in the “pro-computer” camp. Not so! I could
have benefited far more from computers than I did. We had Apple
//e’s in elementary school, but 9 years later, when Windows 98 was
already out, we still had 286’s and 386’s in the high school
computer courses. If the school district had focused on computers
where computers are needed, rather than the ridiculous notion of “a
computer in every classroom” — including 1st grade reading
classrooms — we wouldn’t have had to take our programs home to our
personal computers for compilation.
Name: Patrick
Hometown: near DC
As a high school student, I can tell you that our computers
get minimal use. A lab is nice, but having 5 computers in every
classroom is simply a waste of money. The only time people ever use
them is to check their e-mail, or play games when the teacher isn’t
there.
Name: Kelly Utter Hometown:
Baltimore, MD Computer education
is important in today’s world. However, I think it’s going way too
far. My brother is in fifth grade, and he has to do PowerPoint
presentations for school. That’s fine, but what about kids who don’t
have computers at home? School should not be a place where money
buys your grade — if a child turns in a thoughtful handwritten
report, that doesn’t mean the child didn’t work as hard as the kid
who has a fancy computer and Dad to help him with the
slideshow.
When I was my brother’s age, I was creating models of Incan
Burial Champers out of toilet paper rolls, cardboard, paint, and
whatever I could scrounge. This was far more hands-on and
interesting (plus I retained much more learning) than creating a
PowerPoint presentation.
I’m a programmer, so I do value education about
computers — but I’d rather see kids taking classes in how computers
work, and basic programming skills. For the price of a new computer
lab, a school would be much better off hiring an energetic,
enthusiastic, and competent teacher.
Name: Owen Beste
Hometown: Springfield, Virginia
I am a high school senior in Fairfax county,
Virginia. In the classroom, computers can be invaluable. I most
often use the computer as a resource to find information quickly and
efficiently, when I might be working on a history project or looking
up biographical information about an author. And my physics class
regularly uses computers to plot data and perform
calculations.
However, there is a problem — not with the computers
themselves, but with their utilization. Many teachers at my school
lack the skills to use computers effectively, and thus they neglect
the use of computers in the classroom.
The final problem that I see is
that schools often do not teach students the basic skills of
computer use. I have been using computers since a young age, but
many students have not. If they do not have access to computers at
home, then who will teach them the necessarily technology skill
except the school? If students and teachers do not know how to use
their computers, what good is spending millions to provide
computers?
Name: Tye Campbell Hometown:
Brooklyn, NY As a college senior
preparing to be an NYC teacher and also a computer fan, I have
thought about this a lot. Schools are excited about getting
computers into the classroom, but they have neglected to ensure that
the teacher getting the computer actually has a desire to have one.
I see many computers in classrooms with teachers who avoid them like
the plague. So instead of the computer being used effectively as a
teaching tool, some teachers use it to distract a handful of
students, usually boys.
On the other hand, I have seen the computer used
quite effectively in the classroom. The willingness to use the
computer as a teaching tool is critical to this argument. If the
teacher is not open to using the computer, give it to a teacher who
is, or get rid of that teacher.
One of my main goals as a
teacher will be to integrate computer use not as a separate subject
area, but into the main parts of the curriculum (science, math,
reading, writing, social studies, etc.). Computers as a subject
themselves is not as needed as it was 15-17 years ago. With
computers in just about every home today, it’s time to help students
put the PC knowledge they have already gained to use in their
everyday learning. For the few students who do not have a computer
at home, I will spend extra time with them on the computer, so they
can catch up. That’s just a sacrifice that teachers should be
willing to make. After all, it was our choice to teach.
Rogers
responds: Finally, for a really in-depth look at what students
think about computers in school, take a look at the latest Pew Internet and American Life report. The
title tells much of the story: “The Digital Disconnect: The widening
gap between Internet-savvy students and their school.” For any
educator who doesn’t think that the post-Internet generation needs
some fundamentally different handling, this should be required
reading.
A number of themes have emerged from the hundreds of e-mails
that continue to arrive about computers in schools, with a wide range of both
positive and negative assessments. Examples:
Name: Steven Gates
Hometown: Sacramento, CA
Computers have proven to be an
invaluable asset in my children’s education. My children attended an
elementary school having one computer for every four students in
each classroom, and several computer labs for individual work. The
computers were fully integrated into the curriculum. In the 3rd
grade, children learned how to prepare Macintosh hypercard
presentations. By 6th grade, they were quite adept at Internet
research, and could touch-type their assignments. Their
computer-written essays, revised on the fly, were far superior to
what I was able to write at the same age.
Computers can easily be integrated into “personalized and
tactile forms of instruction”. When my son started first grade, he
had no interest in reading. I bought him a computer reading game
(Super Solvers Midnight Rescue), hoping it would spark his interest.
He sat in my lap as we played the game together every night, and he
became absolutely hooked. By Thanksgiving he was the top reader in
his class, and by the end of the year he was reading at the
third-grade level.
Name: Nancy Kloser
Hometown: Bennington, VT
The tech industry propaganda regarding education and computers
has eroded our education system. I already see so many kids (18 -
30) coming out of high school and college who do not have a basic
concept of how to write a sentence, much less use proper grammar.
And the number of misspelled words is alarming, especially with
spell-check in every word processor. Beyond the lack of basic
education, I think in some ways the use of computers in schools have
made our children lazy, not caring to interact with teachers and
authority figures, and uncaring about the quality of their
communication and social skills outside of the computer.
There have been
some interesting observations from teachers on the simple
practicalities of computers in schools, as with this anonymous
contributor:
As a teacher, to have two computers in a classroom for 25
students is a scheduling nightmare. Even in upper elementary grades,
equitable access for the class is limited by the students’
keyboarding ability. Since many school computer labs don’t teach
keyboarding as a technology skill, most students “hunt and peck”,
taking 15-20 minutes to type two paragraphs. Multiply this time by
25 students and the value of the typical 1-2 computers per classroom
is so limited that the computers are rarely used for word
processing.
Name: J. Rosen
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York
As a NYC teacher with 30 years in the classroom, I would like
to say that computers in every classroom is a waste of time, money,
and effort. You cannot effectively use FOUR classroom computers with
33-37 students in a class. Cannot be done. I work with 7th and 8th
grade students and their typing skills are so poor (speed and
spelling) that a 150-word essay is all that can be COPIED — not
written — in a full class period.
And here are a couple of
readers —one teacher, one student — who have done very well without
computers, thank you.
Name: Jeff Smith
Hometown: San Francisco I
was director of a wilderness school for seven years, miles from the
nearest paved road, power lines and generator. We did fine, playing
live music, reading cellulose and ink books, cooking, growing
gardens, snowshoeing on the Appalachian Trail — did fine, meaning
learned well. Computers would have been a distraction, and would
have kept us all in the passive modes of living and learning that we
had gone to Maine to escape. Maybe there is a middle ground, but if
there is, here’s hoping it is on the ‘wilderness’ side, and that
computers are last on the list of resources that schools invest in —
after pianos, unadulterated food, dance class, art class, theater,
counseling, and other non-cyber experiences. Name: Martin Harris
Hometown: Monument Valley
I didn’t learn to read till I was
11 years old. I grew up in a trailer using an outhouse and hauling
water. Right now, I’m designing my own webpage on an HTML editor
although I’d never used the Internet till last September. Why am I
able to do this? Since I never went to school, and we didn’t have a
TV, once I learned to read, reading is all I did. Then I got my GED
and went to college where I studied philosophy.
The question is not the relative significance of
computers and teachers. The question is: do we need schools at all?
Since we will probably never be able to pay teachers as much as,
say, engineers, AND we give teachers very little social status, why
would we ever think that we could possibly have good
teachers?
And before the long weekend, here’s a final thought about
another oft-cited issue: teacher training.
Name: Jerry Olivier
Hometown: Austin, TX
Computers are a valuable tool, essential to a
properly designed learning environment. They belong in the same
discussion as text books, pencils and chalkboards. When used
properly they are means to find and assimilate information, compile
results and communicate ideas with others. Those students who master
the technology can focus on the information exchange and effective
communication with others. A good
analogy is skiing. Until you master the mechanics of getting down
the hill in one piece, you cannot look around to enjoy the scenery.
The problem with computers in classrooms is not the technology, but
poorly trained teachers and poorly written curriculum. We must
invest in training our classroom professionals in the proper use of
technology and how it can facilitate learning. We are currently
expecting our students to learn to ski from instructors who cannot
ski themselves and frequently don’t even like skiing.
Next week:
a wrap-up with a look at what kids think.
Lots of interesting mail about yesterday’s item on computer use in schools. For
starters, here are some views from the front lines.
From: Larry Mike
Garmon Altus, OK
As a teacher, I thought computers would be a
valuable aid to me and to my students but I have come to the
conclusion in the past two years that computers have the potential
to do more harm than good. I have watched perfectly good teachers
use computers not as tools but as the primary instructor in the
classroom — sometimes so the administration and school board can
brag to the public and other districts about how their particular
school district is up-to-date. It’s all smoke and mirrors.
A good education
comes from a triad of cooperation between the student, the parent,
and the teacher. I prefer to teach the old fashioned way — my
knowledge and experience, a book or computer as a reference only,
and hard but meaningful exercises with a pencil put to
paper.
Randy Stephens Graham,
Texas Our school system in
Graham, Texas, knows that computers are merely one more tool in our
teacher’s arsenal for teaching kids. We have one or two computers in
every elementary classroom and find them very useful for certain
specialized programs.
We have a reading program called “Reading
Recovery” where our kids read books, take a comprehension test on
the computer and accumulate points toward small prizes donated by
local businesses. The computer tracks reading comprehension and
reading level for each student and can report by teacher, grade, or
compare over a period of years. The computers are great for special
uses such as this.
Our teachers use the computer to track in detail each
student’s progress through the K-12 curriculum. We are able to
quickly catch a student who is falling behind and provide extra
one-on-one tutoring until he catches up. We can see if the entire
class is missing a concept, in which case, our teaching methods need
to change. The computer can keep detailed records that would
otherwise be unwieldy and indecipherable.
We use computers to teach, not
just to say we have them.
Gregory Julian
Winfield, West Virginia As
a high school teacher, I too am not convinced we need to be spending
so much on computers and computer education. We are teaching kids to
be good “cut-and-pasters” when they write research papers, but they
are not gaining any critical thinking skills as they would have if
they had go into a library and read information. Spelling and
grammar skills are deteriorating, as we all become more dependent on
spell checker programs. I know they are useful, but we need to keep
computers in the perspective that they are tools for learning, not
the main resource.
Micah Price Palatka,
Florida I teach elementary special
education and find my few computers invaluable. After instruction
and directed student practice, I use them for math and language
drills. With excessive classroom sizes, these students would
otherwise get less direct one-on-one assistance with certain skills,
as I can physically only help so many at once.
Unfortunately, many do
not receive help at home, and computers help supplement that. I also
find that my more aggressive behavioral problem students will cope
better with a computer that tells them they got the answer incorrect
and then helps them do it again.
Computers are a very useful
tool if the computer-based instruction has a direct purpose and is
given meaning. My students also learn to use MS Word and other
programs, which one day will help them to get jobs. If you just
stick a student on a computer and say “play,” then the benefits are
reduced. My classroom, however, is the exception, as many teachers
lack the training and experience to fully utilize technology in the
classroom.
Kevin Boggs I’m an
elementary school technology coordinator and teacher, so I guess it
goes without saying that I’m somewhat biased towards the use of
computers in elementary schools. I do recognize, however, that many
times computers are not used to a fraction of their potential.
For
instance, few schools are able to fund the full-time tech support
that is necessary to keep the computers and network running well.
Often teachers are not sufficiently trained to effectively use
computers in instruction or have no ready resource to turn to for
help. I refuse to believe that computers, used well, do not help
kids learn. I’ve seen it too often with my own eyes.
I think it’s
interesting that at my school alone I manage a network of over 200
computers, yet I’m paid a fraction of what I would be paid to manage
a LAN in the private sector. Every year I have to fight to get
funding for repairs and improvements, not to mention my own
position, since many of the powers that be aren’t sure what it is
that I do. I think that it is the lack of support for technology
within the schools that leads to waste.
Politicians want to put
computers in classrooms, but I never hear about the plans for
support. It’s a bit like spending your money on a car but not
thinking about insurance or gas or getting a license.
Rogers
replies: The lack of continuing support and teacher training,
once computers are in place, was a consistent theme from two dozen
other educators. Tomorrow: some views from parents.
It’s back-to-school time. Here’s a topic that’s going to get
more exposure over the next few years as the United States struggles
to revamp its failing public education system. Computers were once
going to be the salvation of education: many parents still think
that without extensive computer training, starting at an early age,
their kids will never compete.
The question is: are we
spending money on computers for children, especially in the lower
grades, which would be better spent on teachers? There appears to be
increasing evidence that’s the case.
Here’s a piece from Red
Herring: “Is Our Children Learning?”, subtitled “Each year
more than $5 billion is spent on computers in the classroom. But
it’s the tech companies that benefit.” The classic popular text on
the topic appeared back in 1997 in the Atlantic: “The Computer Delusion.” That article, subtitled
“There is no good evidence that most uses of computers significantly
improve teaching and learning,” won a National Magazine Award for
The Atlantic and a book contract for author (and former Newsweeker)
Todd Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer’s heavily researched book will be out
next year from Random House and should launch a national discussion.
In the
meantime, what do you think? Are computers, especially in the lower
grades, a distraction or an asset? Have parents been sold too
heavily on the need for computers when in fact kids need more
personalized and tactile forms of instruction? And are the schools
in your area using computers well — or wasting money that might
otherwise help fund teachers?
For weekend
reading, here’s something from Upside: a smart roundtable with seven Silicon Valley venture capitalists and money
guys (including long-time players like Bill Hambrecht and
William Draper), looking at the future of the market, technology and
funding. A few sample quotes:
Bill Hambrecht: We’ve
all been through these cycles before, and one of the questions that
I keep asking myself is, What’s different, and why is it different?
I think the primary difference was the scope and the scale. This was
a meltdown of almost unbelievable proportions, and I think we’re
dealing with an aftermath that’s out of proportion to anything we’ve
ever dealt with before because the bubble was so big.
Richard
Kramlich: I used the analogy of the state of technology as
equivalent to 1929. The reason I said that was if you took the
technology portion of companies in 1929—electricity, radios, and
railroads—they dropped 89 percent top to bottom. And the Nasdaq,
worst case, was down 74 percent. If you look at the higher,
vulnerable part of the Nasdaq, particularly telecom, it’s off 95
percent. So it’s every bit as bad as ’29 in that sector.
But I wouldn’t be
surprised if sooner or later this issue does get mixed into the
larger national discussion.
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