College Student’s Guide to Computers in Education/Chapter 2: Inventing Your Future

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Links to the chapters of the book. You are currently reading Chapter 2.

Title Page

Preface

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Inventing Your Future

Chapter 3: Expertise and Problem Solving

Chapter 4: Human and Artificial Intelligence

Chapter 5: Computer-Assisted and Distance Learning

Chapter 6: Learning and Learning Theory

Chapter 7: Increasing Your Expertise in ICT

Chapter 8: Brief Introductions to A number of Key Ideas

Chapter 9: On the Lighter Side

References


Links to Sections of Chapter 2

Contents

[edit] Beginning of Chapter 2: Inventing Your Future

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” (Alan Kay)
“Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?” asked Alice. “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to, said the Cat.” (Louis Carroll, Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland.)

Please read the “pithy” quotes at the beginning of the chapter and reflect on their possible meaning. Alan Kay has made many very significant contributions to the computer field. His name is closely associated with the development of laptop computers and with the graphic user interface (clicking on icons to make things happen) that is now standard on microcomputers. In 2003, he received the Association for Computing Machinery’s Turing Award for his lifetime of contributions to the computer field. His lifetime has, indeed, been one in which he helped to invent the future.

Throughout each day, you make decisions that will impact on your future. From time to time, you make large decisions that you know will have a significant impact on your future. Your decision to pursue higher education is a good example of inventing your future.

Predictions about the future are usually based on having good knowledge about the past and present. Thus, this chapter is based on:

  1. Information about the past and present.
  2. Some forecasts for the future.

[edit] A Little Bit of Computer History

About the time of World War II, the electronic digital computer was developed independently in England, Germany, and the United States. Alan Turing’s computer development work in England played an important role in decoding secret German messages, thus contributing substantial to England’s war efforts.

More than 50 years ago, in the late 1940s, it was not too clear that computers were here to stay. They were expensive, bulky, unreliable, and difficult to use.

The United States was the third country (after Great Britain and Germany) to begin the commercial production of electronic digital computers. The first commercially produced computer in the United States was the UNIVAC I, delivered in March 1951. Priced in the range of $1.25 million to $1.5 million, the UNIVAC I machine had about 5,200 vacuum tubes, weighed 29,000 pounds, and could perform 1,905 operations per second. Only 46 of these machines were built over a period of about seven years.

The early computers were cost effective on some jobs. For example, in certain types of repetitious calculations—such as payroll— one computer could do the work of many hundreds of people who were using electric calculators. Such massive amounts of computation were also useful in a variety of science and technology situations, such as designing nuclear weapons.

Computer technology has changed a lot since 1951. Much of this change has been made possible by the invention of the transistor. At the time the UNIVAC I was being produced, a vacuum tube cost about a dollar. The transistor had been invented only a few years earlier and initially cost many times as much as a vacuum tube. However, in many electronic circuits, a transistor could replace a vacuum tube, be much more reliable, and use much less power. Moreover, progress in transistor technology soon decreased their price (PBS, 1999).

Adjusting for inflation, in today’s dollars the cost of a UNIVAC I was in the range of $8 million to $10 million. Contrast this with today’s $1,000 laptop or desktop microcomputer that can do two billion operations per second. A rough calculation indicates that the cost per calculation has gone down by a factor of 10 billion since the early 1950s.

Ten billion! Think about that factor of change. Try to develop a useful level of understanding about this huge number and huge factor of change.

Today’s thousand-dollar microcomputer rivals the multimillion-dollar supercomputers of 20 years ago. The torrid pace of improvement in computer price to performance ratio seems likely to continue for a number of years into the future. Thus, it might well be that 20 years from now students will be buying microcomputers that rival today’s multimillion-dollar supercomputers.

Along with substantial improvements in computer speed, the past 50 years have seen substantial improvements in computer memory, secondary storage devices, and in telecommunication systems. Price to performance ratios have improved by factors of more than a million.

Here is a specific example. Microcomputers came into widespread use in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In those days, a 5-megabyte hard disk drive for a microcomputer cost about $5,000. This is $1,000 per megabyte, or $1,000,000 per gigabyte. Now, the cost of a hard drive is less than 50-cents per gigabyte.

Here are two more specific examples. The Russian satellite Sputnik was launched into orbit in 1957. Now, dish TV and satellite-based Global Positioning Systems (GPS) are routine consumer products. The first commercial installation of fiber-optic cables for telecommunication was in 1977. Now, one fiber-optic cable can carry hundreds of thousands of phone conversations, and cables are typically installed in bundles of many cables.

Many areas of research and development depend upon ICT. In some sense, the greater the ICT dependence, the greater the rate of progress. The human genome project provides a good example of a speed up in technological progress. The project that began in 1990 and ended in 2003 cost about $300 million. Initial progress on the project was very slow. Progress speeded up considerably as the project proceeded, and most of the sequencing was complete in the last couple of years.

In 2005, the cost of sequencing a person’s genome was estimated to be about $2.2 million, and various organizations and people believe that the cost may eventually be as low as $1,000 (Wade, 2006).

These massive changes in ICT-related capabilities and price to performance ratios are major change agents. From your personal point of view, perhaps the major challenges are accommodating appropriate aspects of these changes into your everyday live, and getting an education that helps prepare you for the continuing high rate of change in ICT.

[edit] Forecasting the Future

A very short description of science is, “Science is description and prediction.” Scientists have made good progress in describing our solar system and predicting where the moons, planets, and various comets will be many years in the future. Scientists have an increasingly good understanding of astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, physics, and many other areas of science.

However, there are many areas of scientific research where it is difficult—if not downright impossible—to make accurate long range forecasts. For example, weather forecasters regularly provide weather forecasts for the next day, week, or month. The longer into the future these forecasts go, the less accurate they become. Forecasts of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are not very accurate.

Now, consider forecasting in areas such as the stock market, consumer purchases, and other human activity areas. While forecasters in these areas often make use of scientific methods and computers, they lack the underlying theories that make possible the accurate predictions of the sciences. Will consumers like and buy a proposed new product or service? Will a movie or TV series that is being planned attract a large audience? Will a racehorse stumble and break a leg?

Where does this leave you, as you plan for and work to achieve your higher education aspirations? What might the future look like? How can you plan for a future world that might be a lot different than our current world?

Well… I can give some advice, but I cannot guarantee it will work for you. Here is the way I see it:

  1. Plan for a future world in which there will be an increasing number of people. Work to improve your people skills and to improve your ability to function in a world being made “smaller” by steady improvements in transportation, communication, and worldwide competition for jobs.
  2. Plan for a world that faces a steadily increasing pressure on the world’s resources, worldwide competition for these resources, and a steadily increasing challenge of sustainability. Global warming is a massive challenge.
  3. Plan for a world in which there will be a still faster pace of change in science and technology. How will you deal with progress in genetics (gene therapy, cloning, designer babies), drugs to enhance mind and body, and entertainment that is steadily growing in its attention grabbing and attention holding capabilities?
  4. Plan for a world in which you will need to be a lifelong learner and will need to make many changes to accommodate large changes going on in the world. Assume that computers will get steadily “smarter” and that computerized equipment will get steadily more capable. You will need to deal with these types of changes in your work, family and personal life, and leisure.

A good starting point is to increase your understanding of the current situation and near term future situation in various rapidly changing areas of science and technology. An easy way to do this is to spend some time viewing some of the free videos that are available on the Web. Examples are given in the next section.

[edit] Some Visionaries

ICT and the underlying discipline of computer and information are large and steadily growing. One way to gain some insight into the future of these areas is to study some of the work of leading researchers and practitioners. Learn about a few of the movers and shakers. Pay attention when you hear there names in the news or see articles written about them. I find it particularly interesting and useful to read some of the talks and view some of the videos of these leaders.

This section provides brief introductions to a few of the people who are creating the future of ICT. These people are sufficiently visionary that one doesn’t need to study their most recent publications to gain useful insight into where they think the world is heading. Indeed, I find it is fun to read some of their older work and see how well they have predicted the future.

You are undoubtedly familiar with Bill Gates (Microsoft) and Steve Jobs (Apple) and the ongoing contributions they and their companies are making to the ICT world. There are many other entrepreneurs and visionaries who are changing our world. The 50 Most Important People on the Web (Null, 2007) contains brief discussions about many of these people. You might want to build an island of expertise based upon knowing about some of these people. The following sections focus on people that I consider especially noteworthy.

[edit]
Ray Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near

Ray Kurzweil is a prominent computer-oriented futurist. He did his doctoral work in Artificial Intelligence under the supervision of Marvin Minsky, who is one of the pioneers of this field. He was awarded the National Medal of Technology by President Clinton and has received a number of other high level awards. He is an entrepreneur who has started a number of high tech companies (Kurzweil Technologies, n.d.).

Kurzweil’s book: The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology contains a number of forecasts, with a special emphasis on genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics. The singularity referred to in the title of his book is a time when computer intelligence exceeds human intelligence.

Quoting from his book (Kurzweil, 2005, page 136):

I set the date for the Singularity—representing a profound and disruptive transformation is human capability—as 2045. The nonbiological intelligence created in that year will be one billion times more powerful than all human intelligence today.

Before you dismiss such a wild-eyed forecast out of hand, examine Kurzweil’s credentials and his record of success as a far out thinker and forecaster. Quoting from (Kurzweil Technologies, n.d.):

Ray Kurzweil was inducted in 2002 into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, established by the U.S. Patent Office. He received the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize, the nation’s largest award in invention and innovation. He also received the 1999 National Medal of Technology, the nation’s highest honor in technology, from President Clinton in a White House ceremony. He has also received scores of other national and international awards, including the 1994 Dickson Prize (Carnegie Mellon University’s top science prize), Engineer of the Year from Design News, Inventor of the Year from MIT, and the Grace Murray Hopper Award from the Association for Computing Machinery. He has received twelve honorary Doctorates and honors from three U.S. presidents.

Now that you are suitably impressed by some of his credentials, you might want to:

After you have viewed one of more of the videos listed above, spend some time thinking about how Kurzweil’s vision of the future of technology fits in with your forecasts of the future you are preparing for through your higher education. There is no guarantee that Kurzweil’s forecasts will prove to be accurate. While many people agree with his thinking, many others strongly disagree. My personal opinion is that you and other students should be preparing yourself for life in a world where many of Kurzweil’s forecasts have proven to be relatively accurate.

[edit]
Thomas Friedman: The World is Flat

Thomas Friedman is a three-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. His 2005 book, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, captures many of the key ideas of change going on throughout the world due to ICT, improvements in transportation, and improvements in education. Friedman’s use of the term flat is intended to convey the idea of a level playing field in the worldwide production and sale of goods and services (Friedman, 2005).

One example of this flatness is the cost of long distance phone calls. If you and the person you want to talk to can connect on the Internet, you can carry on a “free” phone conversation via the Internet. That is, the only cost is whatever you are paying already to have the Internet connectivity. Indeed, if you both have appropriate video cameras such as those now often build into computers or that can be purchased at a modest cost, you can carry on videophone conversations.

A Google search of Thomas Friedman video will provide you with access to a number of his talks and interviews. Many of these are more than an hour in length—he has a lot to say! Here are two recommendations:

As you think about and plan for your future, remember the tune “It’s a small world” and pay attention to Friedman’s insights that the world is getting smaller. Work to become a citizen of the world who functions well in a rapidly changing world that is growing smaller and flatter.

[edit]
Nicholas Negroponte: The One Laptop Per Child Project

ICT is a worldwide reality. However, it is more of a reality in some parts of the world than in others. Nicholas Negroponte is former Director of the MIT Media Lab, one of the world’s leading ICT-based, education-oriented, research and development centers. Quoting from the Wikipedia:

The MIT Media Lab in the School of Architecture and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology engages in education and research in the digital technology used for expression and communication. It was founded in 1985 by MIT Professor Nicholas Negroponte and former MIT President Jerome Wiesner (now deceased).

Negroponte is dyslexic, which makes reading and writing more of a challenge than it is for non-dyslexic people. His 1995 book Being Digital presents a clear picture of similarities and differences of being in the business of moving bits (of information) versus moving physical (solid objects) made up of atoms (Negroponte, 1995). Quoting from this book:

The best way to appreciate the merits and consequences of being digital is to reflect on the difference between bits and atoms. While we are undoubtedly in an information age, most information is delivered to us in the form of atoms: newspapers, magazines, and books (like this one). Our economy may be moving toward an information economy, but we measure trade and we write our balance sheets with atoms in mind.
…
The information superhighway is about the global movement of weightless bits at the speed of light. As one industry after another looks at itself in the mirror and asks about its future in a digital world, that future is driven almost 100 percent by the ability of that company's product or services to be rendered in digital form.

Thus, for example, an electronic copy of a book can be in a repository, and electronic copies can be quickly distributed around that world at a very low cost. The same situation holds for distributing music.

Negroponte is playing the lead role in an effort to bring inexpensive networked computers to the world. The One Laptop Per Child project is dedicated to making a networked $100 laptop a reality. The designers of the machine realize that many of the people they want to reach do not have electrical power. The machines consume so little power that they can be human powered (think in terms of a wind up flashlight).

Mass production of these computers began in the first quarter of 2007, with the expectation of first deliveries to begin in the summer of 2007. The first machines are being sold in large lots (think of selling a million computers at a time to a government) with about seven different countries interested in making the initial purchases. Initially, the machines will cost in the range of about $160 to $175, but the expectation is that eventually they will cost under $100.

Nicholas Negroponte has committed himself to spending the rest of his professional career spearheading this project. His sincerity and devotion to the project are evident in the materials listed below.

[edit]
Neil Gershenfeld: MIT Center for Bits and Bytes

Neil Gershenfeld is a professor at MIT and director of the Center for Bits and Atoms. One of the projects of this is called the Fab Lab. The goal is to develop a moderately priced set of equipment that can be used to invent and fabricate devices. The current $20,000 form of the Fab Lab is being used for educational purposes at a variety of sites throughout the world. His 18 minute video at http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=n_gershenfeld is provocative and far reaching. It provides insights into “what comes next?”

[edit]
Malcolm Gladwell: The Tipping Point

Malcolm Gladwell is the author of The Tipping Point (2000) and Blink (2006). The Tipping Point explores change and the idea that major changes can occur relatively quickly. The idea of a tipping point is roughly like the idea of when a teeter-totter suddenly tips from one side to the other as one adds more weight to the end that is up in the air.

Quoting from Gladwell (n.d.):

One of the things I'd like to do is to show people how to start "positive" epidemics of their own. The virtue of an epidemic, after all, is that just a little input is enough to get it started, and it can spread very, very quickly. That makes it something of obvious and enormous interest to everyone from educators trying to reach students, to businesses trying to spread the word about their product, or for that matter to anyone who's trying to create a change with limited resources.
…
Beyond that, I think that The Tipping Point is a way of making sense of the world, because I'm not sure that the world always makes as much sense to us as we would hope. I spent a great deal of time in the book talking about the way our minds work—and the peculiar and sometimes problematic ways in which our brains process information. Our intuitions, as humans, aren't always very good. Changes that happen really suddenly, on the strength of the most minor of input, can be deeply confusing. People who understand The Tipping Point, I think, have a way of decoding the world around them.

How does this apply to you? Are you able and willing to make significant changes in yourself and in what you are doing? Alternatively, are you so pleased with yourself that you cannot see any need for change? After all, change is difficult and you might make a change that is for the worse, rather than for the better.

Here are some sources of information about Malcolm Gladwell’s work:

  • The Website http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail478.html contains the audio of a talk that Gladwell gave focusing on ideas in his book, Blink. This book provides an analysis of decision-making and how people tend to make very quick decisions that are often wrong. You might want to skip over the first few minutes of this audio, as it consists of a long introduction that has little relevance to the presentation.

The idea of one-size fits all versus individualization is also important in your education. Nowadays, it is common to order a car or a computer, specify a number of the features that you want it to have, and the manufacturer will build the precise car or computer you specify. That is, within limits, the car and computer manufacturers have learned to mass-produce to meet individual differences.

Most institutions of higher education have a function somewhere in the middle of one size fits all versus a high level of individualization. If you are in the process of selecting a school or a program of study, you might want to think about the level of individualization that will be available to you. If you are already in a program of study, think about what you can do to shape the program to better fit your personal needs. Rather than be a passive acceptor of what the school and program offers, put some effort into shaping and inventing your personal future.

[edit]
Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED)

TED started out in 1984 as conference bringing together people from the worlds of technology, entertainment, and design. Over the years, it has broadened its scope. Recently, it has received outside funding to make videos of the conference talks and post them to the Web.

Most of the videos are about 20 to 25 minutes in length. They are presentations by many of the movers and shakers of the world. If you want to know where we are now and where we are going, spend some time viewing and listening to the visionaries. See http://www.ted.com/.

I strongly recommend viewing a variety of these videos. Learn about state of the art activities in technology, entertainment, design, business, science, culture, arts, and global issues. While I was writing this book, the topic How the Mind Works was featured on the homepage of the Website. Surely, you want to know more about recent advances in brain science and how minds work.

Here is another TED example. Quoting from: http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=h_fisher:

“Helen Fisher is an anthropologist with Rutgers University, specializing in gender differences and the evolution of human emotions. Her most recent book is Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love. In this wide-ranging talk, she outlines the bio-chemical foundations of love (and lust), and discusses the natural talents of women, and their new significance in the modern world. (Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 24:13)”

[edit] ICT is Worldwide

Many people who live in the United States assume that the U.S. is the world leader in all aspects of the development and use of ICT. Thus, they are surprised when presented with facts such as:

  • The Wikipedia (a free encyclopedia written by volunteers) is actually more than 250 different Wikipedias, each in a different language. Fifteen of these Wikipedias each contain more than a hundred thousand articles. See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias.
  • The Web was “invented” by Tim Berners-Lee. Born and educated in England, he developed the Web while working for CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. Access a short video of Berners-Lee talking about Internet Neutrality at http://people.w3.org/~djweitzner/blog/?p=74. (The Website may download the video to your desktop, in which case you will need to click on the file to run the video.)
  • In the 2007 Association for Computing Machinery world computer programming contest, the only U.S. university to finish in the top 10 was MIT, which placed 4th. See http://icpc.baylor.edu/icpc/.

[edit] Summary and Self-Assessment

Improvements in transportation, communication, and freely sharing (or sale) of intellectual property make the world smaller and flatter. This means that you need to think about the extent to which you want to become a citizen of the world, functioning well in different countries and cultures. It also means that you need to think about gaining levels of expertise that will serve you well in your economic, social, cultural, and other aspects of your life.

One key to gaining increased levels of expertise is to clearly identify areas in which you want to increase your expertise, find or develop measures of your current levels of expertise, and consciously work toward achieving the higher levels of expertise that you want to achieve.

The idea of islands of expertise may prove quite useful to you. Even when you were in grade school, you and/or some of your fellow students may well have known more about dinosaurs or super heroes than your teachers. It is easy to select a narrow area and develop a level of expertise that is above that of your peers and your teachers.

The $100 laptop project is a great area in which to develop an island of expertise. In recent years, there has been a huge surge in worldwide connectivity via cell phones. A cell phone can be used to connect to the Internet (for example, to do email) and the Web (for example, to retrieve information), but the human-machine interface of a cell phone is not nearly as convenient as can be provided by a somewhat larger machine, such as a laptop. How will the world change as many hundreds of million of people throughout the world acquire access to the Internet and Web. How will our educational systems, businesses, family life, social life, and so on be affected by continued rapid improvements in connectivity?

Think about the discipline or disciplines you are specializing in during your college work. How will they be affected by continuing rapid progress in the cost effectiveness of ICT systems? You may well be able to use this thinking as a starting point for developing islands of expertise that will help to differentiate you from your fellow students and from people who are already have well established careers in the disciplines.

Links to the chapters of the book. You are currently reading Chapter 2.

Title Page

Preface

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Inventing Your Future

Chapter 3: Expertise and Problem Solving

Chapter 4: Human and Artificial Intelligence

Chapter 5: Computer-Assisted and Distance Learning

Chapter 6: Learning and Learning Theory

Chapter 7: Increasing Your Expertise in ICT

Chapter 8: Brief Introductions to A number of Key Ideas

Chapter 9: On the Lighter Side

References

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