Dan Bricklin also shares the notes he took at a Clayton Christensen fireside chat.
There are several terrific quotes here–many of them bolded.
One in particular leaped out at me:
“…some of the industries that haven’t been disrupted recently as education, legal services, and healthcare.”
It’s funny, these industries are often listed as the top potential markets for the Tablet PC. Are these simply attractive markets because of the growing money involved in them or is there a more fundamental pattern? Hmm.
In terms of education, NPR had an interview last week with Alan Kay, Robert Taylor, and Charles Thacker (three of the winners of the Draper Prize for engineering—all principals in Xerox PARC’s Alto project. The archive is worth listening to just for the history on this disruptive project!). And in the interview Thacker and Kay talked about computers–or the lack of–in schools. Thacker spoke of the growing possibilities with the Tablet PC, but listed a few hurdles that he thought must be overcome before computers are widespread in schools:
1. Computers must be of a form and weight that students can carry around with them all day (2lbs max Alan Kay says).
2. Computers must be economical enough for every student to have one.
3. Battery life must get to the point where a computer in uses lasts all day on a single charge.
4. Core material must move from books to digital media at which point the content can leverage the media richness of computers.
(There are many more gems in the NPR interview. Maybe I’ll post the rest of my notes later. In the meantime I highly recommend listening to the NPR interview archive.)
I work in the 2nd largest school district in the nation and I can say that there is no effort being put into marketing or getting tablets into the hands of our teachers. I had the use of an Acer and a Gateway tablet this summer because I approached the companies, found out who the local rep was and made contact. I had a month to try things out but there was no support or documentation and so I had to figure everything out by trial and error. And, there was no follow up although I tried repeatedly to create a working relationship with the Acer rep. I took the tablet to several Literacy Coach meetings and had people calling and emailing me, asking how to get one. I repeatedly contacted the rep and told him to help me make these available to teachers–where do they buy–is there any discount, etc., but nothing happened. As for myself, I have so many ideas for student writing and inkblogging but I have no access to a tablet (and can’t afford $2,000. or more at this time.) I taught a blogging class and now have 5 teachers blogging with their students. I’d love to try inkblogging in any of those classes. And, I’m dying to try out OneNote to see if I can use it to teach the writing process, even without overlays for revision,until something better comes along or I can figure out some tricks. I have told the reps from both companies that if they want to sell tablets to schools they have to get them in the hands of teachers so teachers can see what can be done with them (create lessons, and try them out) but to no avail. There is alot of money out there for school technology but you must justify the expenditure. To justify the expenditures we must ask–what new learning experiences would a tablet provide that can’t be provided with less expensive desktops or laptops? How can teachers speak to that without hands on experience? It’s frustrating for teachers like me who can see the exciting possibilities but can only press their face against the glass and peak in at all the fun!