Our Childrens’ Education and Technology

Think about it, in the near  future children will be educated without ever touching a textbook.

Heart of Wisdom’s first goal is prepare children for eternity. At the same time we recognize homeschoolers need to keep up with the new technology and learning possibilities. Technology has become a critical part of our children’ education.

“ We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist; using technologies that haven’t been invented in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.” – Karl Fisch

It’s an exciting time to be teaching. Educational opportunities include  correspondence courses through  e-mail, non-interactive broadcast video,  videos,  video conferences, and online  computer courses.

Students in the future will not carry a load of books in a back-breaking backpack. They will  carry (and search) thousands of books  with an Kindle: Amazon’s 6″ Wireless Reading Device. They will watch videos and read or listen to books on an Ipod. Have you heard of the amazing  IPod U?

Watch this powerful  information video.

If you can’t view the video– it includes these facts (which are already outdated). From  Did You Know 2.0

Did You Know 2.0?

Sometimes size does matter.

If you’re one in a million in China, there are 1,300 people just like you.

In India, there are 1,100 people just like you.

The 25% of the population in China with the highest IQs is greater than the total population of North America.

In India, it’s the top 28%.

Translation for teachers: they have more honors kids than we have kids.

China will soon become the number one English-speaking country in the world.

If you took every single job in the U.S. today and shipped it to China, it still would have a labor surplus.

[In the next five minutes]

• ~ 60 babies will be born in the U.S.
• ~ 244 babies will be born in China.
• ~ 351 babies will be born in India.

The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that today’s learner will have 10 to 14 jobs by age 38.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 1 out of 4 workers today works for a company for whom they have been employed less than 1 year.

More than 1 out of 2 are working for a company for whom they have worked less than 5 years.

According to former Secretary of Education Richard Riley, the top 10 jobs that will be in demand in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004.

We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist,

using technologies that haven’t yet been invented,

in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.

Name this country:

• ~ Richest in the world
• ~ Largest military
• ~ Center of world business and finance
• ~ Strongest education system
• ~ World center of innovation and invention
• ~ Currency the world standard of value
• ~ Highest standard of living

England, in 1900.

Did you know?

The U.S. is 20th in the world in broadband Internet penetration (Luxembourg just passed us).

Nintendo invested more than $140 million in research and development in 2002 alone.

The U.S. federal government spent less than half as much on research and innovation in education.

1 of every 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met online.

There are over 106 million registered users of MySpace (as of September 2006).

If MySpace were a country, it would be the 11th largest in the world (between Japan and Mexico).

The average MySpace page is visited 30 times a day.

Did you know?

We are living in exponential times.

There are over 2.7 billion searches performed on Google each month.

To whom were these questions addressed B.G. (before Google)?

The number of text messages sent and received every day exceeds the population of the planet.

There are about 540,000 words in the English language, about 5 times as many as during Shakespeare’s time.

More than 3,000 new books are published–daily.

It is estimated that a week’s worth of New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century.

It is estimated that 1.5 exabytes (1.5 x 1018) of unique new information will be generated worldwide this year. That’s estimated to be more than in the previous 5,000 years.

The amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years.

For students starting a four-year technical or college degree, this means that half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study.

It is predicted to double every 72 hours by 2010.

Third-generation fiber optics has recently been tested by both NEC and Alcatel that pushes 10 trillion bits per second down one strand of fiber.

That’s 1,900 CDs, or 150 million simultaneous phone calls, every second.

It’s currently tripling every 6 months and is expected to do so for at least the next 20 years.

The fiber is already there. They’re just improving the switches on the ends, which means the marginal cost of these improvements is effectively $0.

Predictions are that e-paper will be cheaper than real paper.

47 million laptops were shipped worldwide last year.

The $100 laptop project is expecting to ship between 50 and 100 million laptops a year to children in underdeveloped countries.

Predictions are that by 2013 a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computation capability of the human brain.

By 2023, when 1st-graders will be just 23 years old and beginning their (first) careers, it only will take a $1,000 computer to exceed the capabilities of the human brain.

And while technical predictions farther out than 15 years are hard to make, predictions are that by 2049, a $1,000 computer will exceed the computational capabilities of the human race.

Come back frequently to this site for details and more information to help prepare your children for the the new and dynamic information environment made for teaching and learning.

What Do You Think?

How do you think we should educate the 21st Century Student?  Is your child learning what they need to thrive in our rapidly changing world?

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