Navta Associates

A couple of recent articles that I’ve stumbled across recently are in connection with libraries getting rid of their card catalogs, and how they go about doing so. For many, there is some nostalgia associated with this ever-increasingly common occurrence, and some libraries have found creative ways to commemorate the occasion without going overboard.

As much as I am completely for progress, it’s not without an occasional backwards glance that I forge ahead into the digital age. It’s hard to forget the mounting feeling of anticipation that I felt sitting in one of my college courses after a research paper had been assigned. There was usually a mad rush to the library, where students would each grab a drawer or two from the card catalog, and the hunt was on! I wonder how I would have felt if someone had told me that in my lifetime each student would be able to perform basic research on their cell phones. At that time, the card catalogs were the first stop on an analog trail of research, one that led deep into the stacks of books and, inevitably, to a hole where the sought-after book had resided before a fellow classmate arrived there first.

The articles to which I refer:
The cARTalog grows from the empty drawers of the University of Iowa Libraries’ main card catalog, which was retired in 2004.
At the University of South Carolina, the Card Catalog Makes a Graceful Departure.

Citysense is an innovative mobile application for real-time nightlife discovery and social navigation, answering the question, "Where is everybody going right now?"

Reality Mining is similar to Data Mining, but it deals with analyzing real-life occurrences, in real-time. There are a variety of sensors in the world these days–security cameras, financial transactions, mobile phones, just to name a few. This data is starting to come together and has the potential to be aggregated in such a way as to provide a host of analytical tools for those in control of the data. Personal privacy is very much a concern at one end of the “pros vs cons” spectrum, and at the other end humans could benefit in many ways such as having disease outbreaks flagged and therefore treated in a more timely manner than ever before.

Alex Pentland, chief of the Human Dynamics Lab at MIT, and the author of the recent book, Honest Signals seems to be one of the forerunners in this field. Along with Columbia University Chief Scientist Tony Jebara and a half-dozen other location-awareness technologists and researchers, Pentland co-founded the startup Sense Networks in NYC a few years ago.

These ideas could have many applications in the education environment, on the most basic level providing assistance with truancy and attendance. At the moment this technology seems a little “far out” in terms of practical classroom uses, but that may change quickly.

One application tangentially related to education is behavior modification. Gary Slutkin is a researcher who returned to Chicago and had an epiphany: the violence plaguing his hometown exhibited all the signs of an infectious disease. This PopTech video shows how he’s applied epidemiological principles to reduce shootings and violent crime in inner-city Chicago neighborhoods by as much as 75%. Data collected from reality mining techniques could be a crucial tool in changing social behaviors on a large scale, and more specific behaviors such as interrupting the patterns of violence in inner-city neighborhoods. Programs such as CeaseFire may eventually find reality mining to be quite valuable. CeaseFire deals specifically with gun violence, but behaviors such as bullying could be similarly addressed.

Let’s discuss something not quite as “out there” as educational games. How about the future of digital delivery of content (books, textbooks, assessment, etc) is it relates to the traditional print publishing industry. We’ve seen trade book publishers selling e-book versions of print books for a while now, some more successfully than others. Delivering textbooks electronically has happened to a certain extent, mostly at the college and upper grade levels.

One of the major factors yet to be determined for digital publishing is the actual delivery medium. There are a range of possibilities, such as Smartboards, desktop computer monitors, on laptop screens, on the Kindle, and mobile phones. Where will people be reading and interacting with digital products? The Kindle has sold astonishingly well, even though the hardware itself is not nearly as cool as the iPhone, for instance. The Kindle is easy to use and extremely customizable, so it satisfies a wide range of needs.

A fascinating statistic is that e-books have not necessarily eroded print sales. Many people actually purchase both e- and print versions of the same book, either for themselves or to share. It could be extrapolated that digital and print delivery can be symbiotic, rather than a threat to each other.

The most successful product will be linked to a successful delivery medium. Or, the most successful product will be the one that can provide the same experience to users, regardless of their choice of delivery medium.

Kids are becoming more and more tech-savvy. Take one look at the library of projects (over 7,000) created by students who participated in a ThinkQuest competition.

Students today operate in an environment that is on-demand and interactive. Delivery media include a wide variety of tools such as the Internet, video iPods, mobile phones, Wiis, Nintendo DS, MySpace, YouTube, live and reality-based television, etc. Educators can adapt to this language, embedding new technologies and social networking opportunities in their curriculum.

We can see what excites and engages kids in their everyday lives—why not use the same tools in education?

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

It makes sense to bring learning to “where kids live”. In a recent BusinessWeek article, author Olga Kharif cites some interesting statistics and examples regarding how cell phones are starting to be embraced in the classroom. The examples in this particular article are mostly about higher education uses, but I can see the trend trickling downward. As the lines get blurred among laptops, handheld devices, and mobile phones, it’s not a stretch to think that a handheld device could be an ideal educational tool. The iPod touch allows all of the internet and social networking access that a laptop or iPhone offers, without the bulk of a laptop or the potentially disruptive ability to accept and send phone calls. An interesting trend to watch!

boy-playing-video-games

One of the challenges facing educators is to make learning relevant and appealing to kids. By bringing educational content to the places where kids “live”, such as online, and using handheld games, cell phones, and gaming consoles, you can capitalize on their acceptance of these types of media. If content providers can wrap deep, meaningful curriculum in the “packages” that kids prefer to “receive”, they may be able to inspire and successfully teach their students.