During a recent evening of channel surfing, I stumbled across a great show on the History Channel dealing with the development of the typewriter. I knew some about the history of the typewriter, including the fact that they key placement was designed to slow the typist down so that they machine could keep up and that key jams would be lessened.
The IBM Selectric was a revolution. No more jammed keys! Instead, IBM thought of a new way to make the typewriter work better — put the letters on a ball that whirled around, striking the page as directed by the typist’s keystrokes. Not only that, but the balls could be interchanged, allowing for different fonts, etc. No doubt about it, the Selectric represented a tremendous reform in typing, allowing people to produce better documents, faster and with fewer headaches.
Here’s where business is different from school. If you check info on the Selectric now, you’ll find that the last innovations on the Selectric were in the early 80s. A twenty year run that was tremendous for the company and the consumer. The end came because consumers didn’t want better typewriters, they wanted to produce better and better documents and publicatons! While the typewriter was the way to do that for many decades, almost no one uses a typewriter now; we use our computers!
Education is stuck in a “typewriter” mentality. The government keeps trying to improve on the “typewriter” of education — which is the school model. We don’t want/need better schools — we want and desperately need better and better ways to help learners learn! Schools, like typewriters, used to be the best means to the end. No more.
My personal resolution is to help lead the transition away from the IBM Selectric mentality of improving schools, to the revolutionary possibilities that are available with a PC, online learning and a connectivist mentality!
Well, this makes a lot of sense . . . But how do we put this together with working within the system? And not fighting against the system?
Good question. I hope you’ll help us all figure that one out. I think what you are doing at the TLCs is probably a step in that direction. Part of the challenge is how to we help the System see the value of the contribution you are making in learners’ lives. I’ve been thinking of “mashing” the Tag Galaxy software with the LinguaFolio assessment notion so that we begin to break learning into smaller more recognizable and transferable pieces.
Another way to look at your question is to consider that Microsoft (Apple and others) didn’t decide to make a “better” typewriter — they didn’t threaten IBM there, they just did what they did best — the Selectric wasn’t “replaced” with another typewriter, it just became irrelevant as the world moved in another direction.