If 1:1 is Preparing Students for the Future, Is It the Right Future?

Wayne Gretsky once said, “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.”  Technology as a tool for productivity is not a new idea. We can see images of buildings filled with computers from the seventies and eighties: Unix terminals connected to mainframes with their human interfaces entering data to be processed, Windows' machines with accountants computing in excel, young men and women hacking into government files. Even Ferris Bueller reminded us in 1986, "I asked for a car, I got a computer. How is that for being born under a bad sign?" This idea that children benefit from using technology to learn is simply not new. The new piece of the "digital age" is that technology has become relatively affordable for schools and highly mobile. 

The central problem for 1:1 initiatives is that for many, 1:1 is putting technology in students hands in order for them to be productive workers and learners. If we put a screen and a keyboard before them, they will be able to type out higher quality essays, research key information, make great presentations, access the knowledge of the known world, and make significant calculations in spreadsheets. This concept of individual computing is a product of the office work of the 1950s and 60's, became actualized in the 70's and 80's for the workforce, reached households in the 1980's and 90's with the home computer and is finally became affordable enough for schools during the last 5-10 years. It's taken us 60 years in education to develop the efficiency skills for the 1950's office space.

The reality is our world is changing. In fact, Benedict Evans points out that the laptop as an interface is rapidly decreasing as the world becomes a mobile. While the amount of reading and writing done by individuals is rapidly increasing, the quantity of long form pieces is quickly diminishing. As we transform into a global mobile society, we are valuing instant access to knowledge, simple, concise communication, and multi-media input. This world is not one in which simply being able to use Office productivity suites will prepare our children for the future. We need "to skate to where the puck will be" as we prepare our students. 

Our current sixth graders will enter college in a world of mobile computing, connected communications, and wearable technology. Their view of the world as seen through the images they gather, the comments they make through social media, and the communication they share will be foundations for their success. Already we are seeing advertising dollars shift from traditional media to mobile communication. We are seeing engineering products centralized not on the home but being accessible throughout an individuals lives. As we think 1:1, we can't think simply about giving children a productivity tool, but need to think about giving them the tools to be successful in the mobile digital world. That is where they will be living. Whether your ecosystem is iOS, Android, or Tizen, it doesn't matter. What matters is that students have the mobile tools to create beyond long form writing and spreadsheets, these students must have the capacity to gather images, video, audio, and writing and cultivate these into concise products to be shared with a variety of audiences. Their world will not be limited to the traditional office but one accessible from all reaches of our planet. 

Bueller Games (Needs Flash)