Today, there are more than 3.3 billion mobile-phone subscriptions worldwide, which means that there are at least three billion people who don’t own cellphones, the bulk of them to be found in Africa and Asia.

And when will the other three billion be networked?

According to statistics from the market database Wireless Intelligence, it took about 20 years for the first billion mobile phones to sell worldwide. The second billion sold in four years, and the third billion sold in two. Eighty percent of the world’s population now lives within range of a cellular network[.]

But it is the sheer economic possibilities for people in rural, isolated places that the cell phones bring. Poor (making a few dollars a day) know the investment in a cell phone brings ICT to their existence and with it opportunities for increased profit margins. Information is power, especially when your advantage is just-in-time commuication vs no communication.

Read the article. And read Future Perfect, Jan’s blog.

2. Compatibility. Back to the realization that some great technologies out there are incompatible with current modalities of teaching and learning. I would love to see more Web2.0 tools in the classrooms, but these tools require (gasp!) collaboration and creativity, neither of which are part of the didactic, lecture based models.

An idea that is incompatible with the values and norms of a social system will not be adopted as rapidly as an innovation that is compatible. The adoption of an incompatible innovation often requires the prior adoption of a new value system. (p.15)

Again, as much as we can, the K20 Center uses bridge technologies. Innovations that can be used in the current paradigm of teaching and learning, but give the freedom to push the envelope. The point is to introduce innovations that enhance however the students are being taught. And with the right professional development and the right leadership, teachers will begin to see how the technologies can really engage students in 21st century skills.

First, I really like his definition of innovation:

An innovation is an idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption.

There are some compelling aspects of education and technology with regards to this definition. Common education has been a slow adopter of innovation and I want to know why and how this can be fixed. This issue is at the core of what the K20 Center does. The concept of innovation as an idea and practice is very important for education and I’m beginning to sense that many, if not most, believe innovation to be related strictly to tools (technology). We know from research (at the K20 Center and elsewhere) that technology adoption in education is most successful when fused to a change in school culture. That change in culture is, in itself, an innovation.

A second important aspect of this definition surrounds the concept of “perceived”. Using a laptop is not an innovation to me. I’ve been doing it for years. The ways I use a laptop may be innovative. But for many educational leaders, putting their hand on a keyboard is innovative. Using a trackpad to move the mouse cursor is innovative.

If an idea seems to be new to the individual, it is an innovation.

Leaders can have a difficult time with innovation adoption. I’m sure their is more psychology worth investigating, but I suspect if an individual’s knowledge base has gotten them the top of the ladder, it can be a challenge to admit their is more worth learning. Unless, of course, one is threatened with extinction. Social service leaders may have the most difficulty with adoption of innovations.

Rogers writes (p.12) an important question innovation researchers address is

…how the perceived attributes of an innovation, such as it’s relative advantage, compatibility, and so on, affect its rate of adoption…

Drilling down into these attributes, the beauty of the K20 Center’s work using the IDEALS model for school change begin to emerge. I’ll tackle one attribute per post:

1. Relative Advantage. Kids are learning so why change? Assessment strategies are key here. If education assessment creates the wrong perception of effective learning, we might as well go home. NCLB isn’t helping in this regard. Assessment of learning is a complicated beast and stupefying it to the level of NCLB will do more harm than good. But what alternatives do we have? Plenty. But proper assessment takes time and wasting it on pouring data into the heads of children does not help.

But let’s assume we begin assessing kids on their problem solving abilities. Not multiplying 3 times 3, but how do you evenly arrange 9 desks in a room? It’s the process we are interested in, not the solution. And it is the process that should be assessed. In the real world, there are multiple solutions to complex problems. In school, we teach our kids there is one right answer and infinite wrong answers. This is not real world preparation. Does this mean we shouldn’t teach the basics? Yes. They’ll learn the basics when they discover the wrong math creates inconsistent results and integral errors when complex problem solving. And please, don’t underestimate kids’ ability to do complex problem solving and project-based lessons. Learning 2.0.

How does the K20 Center contribute to addressing the relative advantage attribute? We take into account the current culture of education. But show that it’s real power comes after cultural change. Some of the best tools for educational change are poorly fitted for the current paradigm of teaching and learning. It’s unfortunate because there are some really awesome tools available to schools that engage kids in complex problem solving and project-based learning.

Nonetheless, there are what I would term, bridge technologies. Technologies that can be effective in both paradigms. And the best technologies are ones that bridge and direct learning towards the new paradigm. These are also technologies that can easily be re-purposed. Here’s one: the laptop computer. Like many innovations, you’ve got to be careful with it. It can send you backwards as well as forward, depending on how you use it. Why? I’ll have to get to that on another post.

There are two ways to look at the explosive growth of the Internet: One is to celebrate the fact that in the 15 years since it became commercially available, what began as an obscure military technology morphed into a global phenomenon that is regularly accessed by over a billion people. The other is to ask why the world’s other five billion folks aren’t online yet.

Meraki Networks, Inc. is run by Sanjit Biswe who comes out of MIT. He and his company have created an intelligent access point, called Mini, that is both rugged and self-organizes its own mesh network. The WAP acts as a router if plugged into a network and a repeater if not and within 700ft outdoor of another Mini. The device has a current cost of less than $5 in parts (he’s currently selling them for $50). The devices are configurable to allow limited connections and even block connections if needed.

This isn’t a new idea. Other companies have been working towards universal access through mesh networks. But Meraki has something coming soon that I really like: Meraki Solar. There are few details about it on their website, but this has the potential to create access in rural areas globally. The hardware is a simple solution, but the idea is big, especially if it is robust.

Global access is key to my idea of democratic education. The rest of the hardware is another topic altogether. Kudos to the One Laptop per Child Project. I think the $100 laptop could be an excellent companion to the Minis, and unlike the $100 laptop, the Mini network would stay up regardless on the status of the laptops.

I’d encourage communities to create mesh networks whenever possible. Information should be shared and yes, I’d prefer my taxes going to universal access (I know, this is revealing my socialist side).