Web 3.0

This week I've been thinking a lot about property value. 

If schools in the future don't need buildings and actual property will the internet property costs go up?  Are there limitations to internet property?  Are there servers in some building somewhere that will eventually overtake human space?  What will happen to all that beautiful beachside property that was land granted by the State of California?  Can I bid on some futures for both markets?  I'm not sure I'd know what to do with some internet property, but i'm guessing it will be more populated than any actual property I ever own so it seems like a great bet.
My friend Tony, a talented advertising professional, recently turned me onto the upcoming world of 3D building projections.  I was entertained, curious and "unlearning" for days after I was exposed.  The symbol is so perfect for the present and future of schools.  A classical building turned into an outdoor, nighttime, digital lazer show that draws crowds into the street to watch in awe.  Please see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0XKmU5hF5s for a glimpse of this new art form.  This highly developed  imagery says so much about the expectations students have for school, projected onto the brick and mortar that exists.
Coordinated light that recreates buildings, and in a half-second destroys them, is closer to the norm of education for the graduates of 2040 than the antique buildings they project onto.  Changing a projector bulb is more likely in their skill set than priming and painting.  Typing the code for a mural on the side is more likely than a spray can.  And yet without electricity the whole thing falls apart.
Last week Shalauna and I sent out a question about the 'future of schools' to our friends, family, and students.  Even the youngest respondents struggled with the idea that "physical classrooms and buildings of 'school' would no longer exist".  Their suggestions about the future of education were mostly about internships, outdoor, and service learning education.  I have been struggling all week with ambivalence of how to understand this phenomenon...are they limited by what they know or are they excited that digital learning will emphasize going outdoors?  As a public health and prevention specialist I worry about the increased sitting, typing, and isolation of working on a machine like I am now.  But as an educational leader I worry about the loss of the residence hall experience, the organic nature of a classroom debate so dependent on body language and paralanguage to grow, and the plethora of activities defined as "co-curricular" engagement.             
I've come to the conclusion that not knowing is exciting, and the thought that keeps me excited is how desks will turn in virtual reality suits.  I can tell my kids about the old Oregon trail game as something I actually remember as motivating and useful...and they'll say: "Yeah that's nice dad, today I sat in a covered wagon and explored the landmarks first-hand in our simulation hollow deck.  Then after a short hike in the Gobi Desert and some lunch I walked around on Mars collecting geology samples."  To which I will reply; "I wanna go!"
I think virtual property value has more potential, but will require the real environment for endless inspiration. 

take the school out of education

school books
school busses
school buildings
school uniforms
school lunches
school schedule
school standards
school supplies

books are digital
busses are old
buildings are in disrepair
uniforms are degrading
lunches are unhealthy
schedules are demotivating
standards are low
supplies are bought by teachers

and somehow bad mortgages lead to decreased school funding.

take it away Jerry Brown...good luck buddy!

getting technical, ethical, and headachey

why doesnt anyone read my blog? (insert sarcastic frown here)

Technically speaking

Teaching and learning is going to the cloud.  No doubt this has its pros and cons.  As an educator I see it as a new challenge.  Several of my colleagues teach online courses and i think they'd agree it is more work than it soumds like.  For some reason the feeling associated with "online course" has a toned-down, less important, almost second-rate connotation.  i chock this up to the lack of best practices in an emerging field because the preparation involved is intense and obvious.  I think teachers feel like the 'organic' evolution of a class culture is so different online and has so many forms that are different from their rows and boxes and basically the same stiff i mean stuff they have been doing for years that the cop outs are winning out right now.  fortunately the new generation is coming and the trends are a changing, see

32 Trends Affecting Distance Education: An Informed Foundation for Strategic Planning

http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall63/howell63.html

for a great overview that i think is already obsolete in many ways.  but that is the nature of technology, growing and changing exponentially faster than anything else.  Hopefully the desk manufacturers union lobbyists will at least adjust, because I think the future of classrooms is not only more digital, its going to require less sitting.  I think the classrooms of the future will be more like video games and VR simulators, requiring people to acknowledge that our brains require more than the use of just our ears and eyes to learn.  i think as schooling goes to the cloud all the buildings left behind will become playgrounds for technology like Wiis and Playstations...well probably more like their great great great grandchildren operating systems.  I look at the air force and NASA and cant help but think we've known this for a long time and just ignored it.  Perhaps we the "normal curve" dicated that teaching with the same methods for the "most technical" of professions wasn't economical.  Hopefully with exponential growth in technology, education will follow suit with exponential growth in its use to relate learning to real life applications...and for motivation's sake, to fantasy applications as well.  Jim Block is ringing in my ear now with the four basic principles for motivating students (i hope he will critique and correct this):
1. curiosity: we must stimulate students current interests and push them to use them to explore the stuff they want to know more about.  hell, just the idea of identifying things they want to know more about is a good start (and making a habit of doing so is a goal)
2. sense of control: force students to dictate their progress, write test questions and assignments, etc.  see the greatest book of all time: FLOW for more info on this, a sense of control is vital for losing oneself in a psychologically optimal experience.  which leads to the next:
3. moderate challenge: somewhere in between stuff thats too hard and stuff thats too easy is the right amount of challenge and skill use that leads human brains onto a different wavelength of enjoyment...referred to as flow...where "something unexpected occurs" and we are "stretched beyond ourselves".  Just think about that thing you do for 2 hours that feels like 20 minutes and you'll know what im talking about.  this chart is from the book;

4. fantasy: providing students opportunities to experience an increase in possibilities with a decrease in consequences and another part of the reward pathway will open up...and perhaps they will like us as much as they like video games (for a minute or so).  try out a "if you were the president/chancellor/superhero/god/parent/teacher/etc. type assignment" with the conditions that "there are no wrong answers" and see what happens.   

Ethically speaking

I was on a committee that produced the following document a few years back
http://www.policy.ucsb.edu/policies/advisory-docs/social-networking-guide.pdf
and its already almost obsolete.  Makes me think that all of the use of social networking for business is really just an excuse for employees to be on facebook at work.

Headachey

Ive grown to be able to predict how long it takes for a headache to develop from working on a backlit screen.  As it creeps up now, i look forward to my first-ever dictated blog next week with Dragon dictation technology.  Every injury has its lessons, i look forward to the new challenge.

Political side note: tax subsidies for voting is long overdue, the fact that less than 1/3 of our citizenry will actually exercise their right to vote tomorrow (and that its predictable) is almost as sad as the 2/3 of americans with no right to complain about anything