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Earlier this Spring I visited Ireland where I was privileged to see and learn about the Book of Kells which has me thinking about how history repeats itself in updated terms.

At the time the book was written, a scribe was revered among the people of having a skill that very few had. The ability to put word to paper, or in the case of the Book of Kells, word to calf skin. The book and its illustrations were amazing for the time period and the scribes that wrote it to this day are honored for their artistic abilities.

Let’s jump ahead to 2013 where the new scribe is the coder. We look at and use the work of coders with the same awe inspiring gaze as we do the Book of Kells. Think Facebook, Google Search, OSX and Microsoft Operating systems. These coders are our high scribes of today and we look up to them with this awe inspiring gaze of “I wish I could do that.”

And I wonder if we will.

As some point we all learned how to write making the scribe no longer the status symbol of the community.

Will we someday all know how to code? Will coding become the new language to learn? There is a lot of momentum right now behind the idea of teaching coding to all students. I for one know I’m upping my coding skills this summer (my personal goal) as I think it’s a skill I will need to keep current and moving forward.

At one point in history you were “cool” if you could write. Now you’ll be “cool” if you can code.

We’ll see where the future goes!

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Today I woke up to find an article in my Flipboard on Rwanda striking a deal with a South Korean Telecom to roll out 4G across the country.

(Click here to subscribe to my Flipboard Magazine and get all my favorite articles dealing with Ed Tech)

I am excited about the future of Africa and what this means for the people there. I have talked about Africa before and can’t wait to go back to experience more of this amazing continent and its people. There is so much to get excited about in Africa…here are just a few of my favorite quotes from today’s article (bolds are mine).

On Monday, the government said KT Corp of South Korea would inject about $140m (£90m) into a joint venture company that will create a 4G LTE broadband network for 95% of citizens. Debt and vendor financing will also be required.

To put this into perspective in 2011 President Obama laid out a 5 year plan to have 98% of American’s covered with 4G networks. That would be 2016 or about the same time as Rwanda residents get their 4G.

Up to a dozen countries in Africa – including Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda – operate 4G in one form or another, Goldstuck added, but Rwanda “will be the first to have this comprehensive approach”. He also praised the laying of 1,865 miles of fibre optic cable as an impressive achievement.

It is estimated that 95% broadband penetration will translate into a 10 – 13% boost in GDP growth. The Rwandan economy grew by 9.4% in the 2011-12 fiscal year.

We have a long way to go in Africa and the many nations there, but all of this points to a future where the youth of Africa (the largest in the world at 200 million) will be coming online and soon. What does the world look like when Africa is connected? When more people have access to knowledge, and can create and spread messages faster than ever before? Are we ready for this? Are we excited for this? The world is changing and Africa very much could be leading the way.

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There is a great article over at Mashable titled: Why Can’t Millennials Find Jobs? That as I read it I kept shaking my head and thinking about schools, education and where this is all going.

What I want to do is add my own thoughts to the research the article points to.

66% not ready for workplace

This is what companies are thinking? That our universities are producing graduates that are not prepared for the modern workplace? Why doesn’t this come as a surprise to me? It should…I should be, I don’t know, upset maybe? Kids going to school going 10s of thousands of dollars in debt for companies to say they are not prepared.

You see the work force has changed.

Of course many say it is this generation. That they feel entitled to having a job….yet

A Pew Research Study shows Millennials are not entitled; rather, having a high-paying job is low on their list of priorities, underneath both helping others and being a good parent.

But the one to me that I think is the easiest fix that K-12 can help with is this:

84% have not created a professional website or other positive online content which would improve online search results for their name. If you’re unaware how potential employers will perceive you online, try out Abine’s Hireability Calculator.

Why is this? Why are students finished with 16+ years of education and this has slipped through the cracks? Simple….we never had to worry about it before. Before the Internet you were hired based on the resume you created and the interview you gave. There was no Google, Facebook, Twitter. You weren’t expected to have a professional website. Times have changed and are we preparing students to go out into the work force whether it be after high school or after college and compete in a competitive market? This screams to me once again why Facebook should be open in schools, why a graduation requirement for every senior should be to have a digital portfolio that is public on the web and controlled by them. We have been creating portfolios for years in education. Flipping the switch, moving it online and making it public is not that difficult. It means looking at things differently. It means understanding that the paper resume I practiced writing in business class all those years ago should be replaced (please tell me it has been!). A resume is nothing compared to the power of the Internet. Let’s teach kids how to use it for good.

My favorite part of this article is it ends with three openings on the Mashable Job Board.

Social Media Specialist
Social Media Producer
Digital Markering Internship

Have a read of those jobs and others on the board and tell me the educational system we have in place today is preparing students for these jobs. Only 1 of the 3 jobs listed here requires a bachelor’s degree, all of them required social-networking skills and all of them list skills that could easily be taught to high school students. The jobs of tomorrow are here how have our educational institutions changed to keep up with the new job market? What is your school doing to prepare students for anyone of these or the 144 other jobs currently open on the Mashable Job List.

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Just a quick announcement that I will be running the Google Apps for Education (GAFE) course over the summer for those who are interested in learning more about Google Apps.

The second cohort is about a week away from finishing and it has been great to learn with people on this journey into Google Apps. It really is a love/hate relationship. I love all that I learn from people and things they teach me as Google moves so fast. Also I hate it as it makes it hard to keep the content up to date. I’ll be going back and redoing the Google+ videos with the new announcements for sure.

You can head over to gafeclass.com and check out the projects from past participants in the course and see how they are using Google Apps in their classroom and what you learn in this 8 weeks online course.

Also check out the about page to learn about the pedagogy used in the course. This really is a course that takes advantage of the Internet and living in a connected world.

I also allow you to decide what your final project looks like. Giving you as many options as possible and of course I’m always open to your own suggestions.

Final Project (50% of overall grade)

Well you have made it to the end of the GAFE course now time to put what you have learned into action. There are a couple different options you have for completing your final project. I have outlined them below. If you have an idea that better fits your situation please message me and we’ll talk through it to make sure it fits with the outcome of this course.

Option 1 Use Google Apps with your Students/Staff

Presentation/Project:
You will use Google Apps for Education in your class to enhance the learning experience for students. The outcomes should be student learning focused and age appropriate. You will share the project with the rest of the participants in this course so they can offer feedback and learn from you. You must also “try out” your project with your students and get their feedback on its use.

Final Presentation:
You will create a video no longer than 10 minutes using Google Presentation, Google Hangout, or YouTube that answers the following questions.

• What were your goals for your Google Project?
• What tools did you use? Why did you choose these tools for this/these task(s)?
• How did you go about introducing your project to the students?
• How did the students react?
• Outcome? Did you meet your goals?
• Evidence of student learning?
• What would you do differently next time? What did you learn?
• How do you plan to share this with your school colleagues?
• What was your greatest learning in this course?

Option 2 Update or create a video for the GAFE Course

Similar to option 1 except your audience would be other people taking the GAFE course and the public at large. You would create a video similar to the ones I created except adding your own learning and showing examples of how you have used that specific tool/topic with students/staff in a learning environment.

Option 3 Complete the application for the Google Certified Trainer Program

Sign up and take the test and complete the application for the Google Certified Trainer Program

http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/education/resources/training-programs.html

Option 4 Taking on the Google Ninja Program

Help me by creating content and setting up a very similar system to this for the Ninjaprogram.com website so students around the world can become google ninjas. It would mean creating study materials or pointing kids in the direction of resources, coming up with activities, and maybe even making a video or two.

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Now I have admitted before that I am a google fan boy. I love Google, I love their products, I love the way they take risks in development, I love the future they are trying to make a reality. So it should be no surprise that on Wednesday I prepared myself for the 3 hour Keynote that kicked off Google I/O Developers Conference this year. The conference has now ended and it is time to write my own reflection on the event and how I think this all relates to education.

Let’s start with the educational announcements:

Facts from the above video:

Google Apps

• 25 Million educational users all around the world
• In the US, 74 of the top 100 Universities use Google Apps and 7 of the 8 Ivy League Universities use Google Apps.

Love that they released these figures as just two weeks ago I had an IT Director tell me students still needed to know how to use Word as that was the standard. According to Google itself over 5 million businesses use Google Apps. What this tells me is platform no longer should be the focus. Wordprocessing the skill should be.

It’s Google’s Job to Fix It

Now I understand that this is Google trying to sell a product. But really isn’t that exactly what we hear educational institutions say? If only it was easier, faster and of course cheaper. What I love is Google is taking on those challenges and is continuing to try and knock down the barriers of technology in the classroom. At some point educational institutions will run out of reasons not to fully integrate technology. The only reason that will be left is fear….and fear is no way to run a school.

Google Play Store for Education

Two things here that make this a game changer:

1) The easy of use to volume purchase an app for a school/district or classroom.

2) No syncing of devices or management needed. The next time the device connects to wifi the new app, books or the video is instantly downloaded to the device. This is HUGE and those of you who are in charge of managing iPads in schools know just how huge this is. No need to sync, no need for one computer to manage all the iPads. Just buy and done. WOW!

Of coures this is a direct shot at the iPad. The question I have is, are they too late? No school that has invested in iPads is going to change to Android. Not for a long while anyway so I am left wondering just how much effect this will have. There are some schools that are going with Nexus 7 tablets and for them this is a big announcement for sure. But we’ll have to wait and see if this actually brings new schools to the Android platform.

I will say though that you put a ChromeBook with a Nexus 10 device and you are in a 2 to 1 situation for about $650 per student. That is very very tempting. If I am starting a new school tomorrow I would have to seriously way this against the MacBook Air and iPad combination that is about $1400. There is a huge savings cost there. That along might put Google in the game of education.

Google Search

If you haven’t seen the demonstration of what is coming to the Chrome Browser than you need to watch this. How does this change the classroom?

Honestly this to me was the biggest announcement of the three hour keynote. One of the big things I focus on in all my talks is how search is THE skill of our time. If there is one thing that everyone should know how to do today it is to know how to search. Not “find stuff” but really search the web for meaningful information. What they showed of course is pretty basic but this is just the beginning for sure. This is going to be a game changer.

If I were a 4th grade teacher today (which if I went back into the classroom is where I would go) I would start next school year by buying a ChromeBook setting it up in my classroom and would have it be always open to Chrome. Over the computer would be a sign that says “Ask Me Anything”. We would use the computer throughout the day to answer our questions, to see if we could stump it, to see what information we could “find” and what information did we need to “search” for. How would the classroom change if Google was your teaching partner? How would your teaching change? How does learning change?

Lastly…something that I’m still working through, is over the last two days I have listened to some of the other presentations and more than once developers have been talking about the “On Demand Generation“. That this generation (meaning all of us living right now) are more and more expecting things to happen when we want them to. We want our TV shows when we want to watch them, we want our music when we want to listen, we want our information when we want it, and we want directions now and based on the latest traffic information available. What about weather and my ability last week to know exactly when to quit playing golf for a 30 minute rain delay as the storm passed overhead. We are expecting it as a society and developers are focusing on it. This is what is coming; the ability to get anything we want “On Demand”.

I keep thinking about this and how does this change everything about education? An education system that was built over a hundred years ago on the premise of “Just in Case”? If we can literally learn anything “On Demand” then education has to change. It can not survive a world where there is no “Just in Case”. We need new skills, we need new knowledge. We need to be able to learn, unlearn and relearn quickly and we need to be comfortable always being a beginner.

What are your thoughts? What does school look like if we are preparing an “On Demand Generation” for their future?

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Now don’t get me wrong, the announcement that Google Reader will no longer be after July 1st came as a shocker….but then again…not really.

We know where Google is headed…everything tied to Google+ and Google+ integration across all apps. Which now that I see that and treat the Google ecosystem that way, well, it turns out it is a pretty nice feature.

But what this means is that apps that don’t “fit” into Google+ are probably on the outs (worried about Google Sites as well…who else uses them besides education?).

So instead of getting all freaked out and sad or nervous, which is the tone of most the e-mails I have received……let’s get excited!

First off Google Reader was not the first RSS Reader. I personally wouldn’t even put it into the “Early Adopter” era of RSS Readers. I had 4 others before I moved to Google Reader. But it is safe to say that Google Reader pretty much became the main RSS Reader of most people. Not because of its ease of use, but rather because it has an open API which allows sites like Feed.ly and Flipboard to connect to it.

Secondly there has been very little innovation in the RSS Reader area for some time. By Google now dumping Reader, it has left a big hole in the middle of the tech world and that is where the excitement comes in. For the first time in a long time, we’re going to see some innovation in the RSS Reader area. There are engineers, companies, and programs I’m sure that are already working on some new solutions for us all. We have until July 1st, so let’s not panic and see what these innovative people come up with. It is going to mean some playing around of new systems but who doesn’t like to geek out a little now and then?

Here are a couple of the things I will be looking for in my next Reader:

• Web-based with offline support: Much like Google Docs now works and syncs seamlessly online and offline via the Chrome browser, I want this in my next Reader
• Ability to have one beautiful reading experience on all my devices (iOS and Android). Really enjoying the experience of the Google+ app on all the devices….seems so sleek and fluid
• Ability to comment right from app: Not sure if this can be done but would love if I could read a blog post and comment right from the app. Even if this functionality was only for the major blogging platforms (WordPress and Blogger) that would be a start and a HUGE benefit to everyone. Don’t even know if this is possible but it would be powerful for sure.
• Ability to share with social-networks
• Exit strategy: Have to be able to import/export OPML files like other readers.

What functions would your dream RSS Reader have? It’s time to dream and be innovative.

If you are building a new RSS Reader and are looking for beta testers…..shoot me an e-mail and I’d be happy to be a tester and give feedback. Actually if you need it, I have hundreds of educators you can beta test on over at COETAIL.

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A couple of interesting things over the past 6 months or so that I have been a part of and/or witnessed that I wanted to share and reflect on.

I have been working with a lot of International schools over the past six months. I find it fascinating that in a lot of these schools, I end up having conversations with the administrative team where someone (usually the head of school) will say something along the lines of:

“You have spent a couple of days with us now, how do we compare to other International Schools you have worked with in the region?”

There is this sense that we need to keep up with our neighbors…the idea that we don’t want to get too far behind. I have yet had a head of school ask me.

“Jeff….what do we need to do to be a leader in the region?”

Photo Credit: Kadath via Compfight cc

Please do not get me wrong. I have consulted with schools now from coast to coast in America and in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe. International schools are far ahead of their counterparts in the US, and in the International School world, Asia schools are leading the way. Part of it is money, part of it is where Asia is right now in the world and its own pace of change. Part of it is teachers, administrators, parents and students who I think see a change that is coming.

However, I don’t see a lot of schools pushing. Maybe schools that are pushing don’t need my services…which is alright by me. But there are many schools that have in their mission statement to “be a leading school in (Asia, Region, World)” but then they ask if they are keeping up?

So, what should schools who want to fulfill their mission statement be asking/talking about/planning for? Looking at the next three years, I think you’ll see many of these International Schools in Asia going to a “2 to 1” program. Many of them are already 1:1 or in the midst of rolling them out. The conversation has now turned to what comes after 1:1.

I don’t want to name schools here, but let’s just say there are many in the Asia region who have started looking at 3 year technology plans that call for both some sort of tablet device as well as a laptop for MS and HS students. Some schools are picking up the cost for both, other schools are buying the computer while having the student buy the tablet, and yet others are putting it all on the shoulders of parents. The individual school community is what determines how each individual technology plan plays out. There are a few reasons for this:

1. Textbooks are changing and schools are preparing for that change…although personally once you go this route, I think you do away with textbooks pretty much all together. In a 1:1 culture you can, in a 2:1 culture it’s easy.

2. Feedback from students: Personally I can’t find too many students who say they love it when a school turns their textbook into a PDF to use on their computer. Really…this isn’t the “new textbook” this is an old textbook in PDF form. So wrong on many levels.

3. What a tablet offers is a new way to interact with information. Tablets, as I have stated before, are mainly consumption devices. Yes…you can create with them…but they are consumption devices first and foremost and they do an amazing job at it. Once we start creating material that is specific for the interactions that tablets allow we “get it”. Tablets allow us to interact with information in a touch sensitive way, much the same way as books do. I’m reading a book in the Kindle App right now and I get to look words up, highlight, and take notes much the same way I did in old textbooks. But I also get to click on links, rotate objects, watch videos and interact with information that a paper-based textbook (or a PDF version of my old paper-based textbook) just can’t allow. The size and feel of a tablet is…well…made for this type of learning.

I am also happy to report that within these conversation all around the world, Professional Development is making its way more and more into conversations (maybe because I’m pushing it, maybe because the technology has been in place for a while, maybe because people are seeing that the technology without the PD is ineffective). Which is why I think we are still seeing growth in programs like COETAIL and for the new GAFE Course. More schools are encouraging PD around technology. Either in preparation for 1:1 rollouts or in preparation for what’s next.

So what will the next three years of education look like? Personally I think we will continue to accelerate in the transformation of a new type of education….what I think that will look like and technology’s role in it is a blog post yet to come.

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(Stories from my side of the field parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

“Ok, let’s go play!” My dad says as the three of us jump up and down and head in three different directions.

My youngest brother heads to the kichen, opens up the cupboard and grabs two white paper plates. My other brother (the middle one) hustles to the back porch and grabs an incrediball, while I run upstairs and grab our gloves.

“Greg…where’s your glove?” I holler down the stairs.

“In my room in the corner!” He hollers back.

My mom walks over to the coat closet, opens it up and picks up her and dad’s gloves.

“Let’s go boys before the sun sets.” Dad says as he opens the front door.

It’s a perfect summer day in Spokane, Washington. At 8pm the sun is low on the horizon but still plenty of sunlight for a family game of hot box. As the three of us tear through the front door into the front yard, the smell of freshly cut grass hits my nostrels. That unforgettable smell of summer, of newness, of baseball.

“Put one here,” dad says to my youngest brother. Bryan drops a paper plate at dad’s feet and then walks over to mom about 60 feet away and lays the other one at her feet.

Photo Credit: StuSeeger via Compfight cc

Hot box is a simple baseball game. Two people throw the ball back and forth while the runner tries to run safely between the bases without being tagged. It’s our family game as we rotate through being runners and base protectors. It always starts the same way, with mom and dad throwing the ball to each other while the three of us try and make it safely between the bases.

I’m up first and wait for my dad to throw a high fly ball to my mom. Reading the angle of his wind up I know it’s going to be a high throw and I take off from the plate next to my mom and sprint towards my dad. By the time the ball completes its arc in the air and lands in my mom’s glove, I’m 2/3 of the way to the other plate. I take two more steps and slide into the plate before my dad can catch the ball my mom has thrown and tags me.

“SAFE!” my brother yells from the sideline. That’s your job if you’re not playing to be a base umpire.

“Those aren’t your school jeans are they?” my mom asks as I get up from my slide and look down to find a fresh grass stain on the lower half of my left pant leg.

“No…I changed when I got home.” I reply.

It was something that was drilled into us growning up on the farm. As soon as you got home from school you changed out of your school clothes to your play clothes. To this day I come home from school and have to change right away out of my school clothes. The day hasn’t ended until I’ve changed my clothes…something that to this day my wife teases me about.

We continue playing hot box for an hour. Until every one has rotated through being a base protector and being a runner. All along laughing and joking.

My dad and mom make the best base runners. They’ll take off from a base and get themselves into a pickle in between the bases. We throw the balll back and forth between us trying to tag them so they’ll be out. As we throw the ball to each other we slowly close the gap between us, giving the runner less and less room to run. Until one of us can catch the ball and in one motion tag the runner.

It is a simple game that for an hour a couple times a week transforms our front yard into the base path between 2nd and 3rd base at the Kingdome, home of the Seattle Mariners back in 1988.

Late into my junior high years we played this game as a family and in my mind it was always just a game. Years later looking back, little did I know that what mom and dad were teaching us was a fundamental part of baseball called the “run down”. Something that by the time I was the starting shortstop in high school I was extremely good at. Knowing when to throw the ball to your teammate in a run down is the key, and with years of practice under my belt in our front yard, I had learned to perfect the timing in all the run downs my mom and dad would put themselves in on purpose.

As another baseball season begins today on this beautiful sunny spring day in Seattle, I can’t help but think about all those hours we played hot box in the front yard as a family.

Here’s to another baseball season and to families everywhere who know the joy of summer days in the yard playing hot box.

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In the middle of completing my month long work/vacation tour of Europe and Asia (as I sit on a plane on my way to Doha), I keep reflecting on the experience that has been these past couple weeks hopping around from London, to Amsterdam, to Switzerland and Ireland and never relying on a paper map.

I didn’t have data on my phone, but what I did have was the ability to download Google Maps to use offline. It is a feature that came to Android last June. After experiencing using the offline maps the past couple of weeks, I really think the paper map’s days are numbered.

Why my digital map beats your paper map

Constantly Updated:
Let’s start with the fact that the map that we had in our guide book was two years old. Two years, it seems, in Ireland is a long enough time for roads to be built as we found ourselves on roads that didn’t exist on the paper map we had.

Where Am I Now:
By far the most useful feature is the ability to know exactly where you are. GPS works all over the world and by turning on my GPS and loading the offline maps we knew exactly where we were on the bus, on the subway, on the running trail or on the street. We were able to plot our route with precision instead of “I think we’re somewhere around here.”

Ability to explore and get lost with confidence:
What the GPS mentioned above allowed us to do was to explore with confidence. I was able to mark our B&B as a favorite on the map and then off we went. Walked around Amsterdam and when it was time to return home, pull out the map find where we were and plot a route home.

Ability to expand and zoom:
Your paper map can’t do this which is why you travel with a couple different ones. But on my phone the downloaded Google Map allowed me to zoom all the way in and all the way out to the point I downloaded the map from. Allowing me to see exactly where we were in the larger picture of the city.

Ease of carry and no folding:
Let’s face it, folding maps is never easy…..in fact I always used to see it as a traveling challenge that I had to solve. Now with the maps on my phone, nobody knows I’m a tourist. I just appear like everyone else looking at my phone and figuring out where to go next. I had the whole of Ireland in great detail in my pocket. Simply amazing.

Off the beaten path:
My wife and I wanted to go for a run in every country (mostly because we thought it would be cool to have it show up on our runkeeper timeline but also because we have a race coming up the beginning of April!). The Google Maps allowed us to find trails and details that were not possible on the tourist map we had. We were able to find running trails, to figure out our route and if we did get off track simply look it up on our phone. A great example was a trail we found that followed the subway line in Lausanne, Switzerland from our hotel down to the lake shore. We were thinking we would take the subway down to the lake, but after finding this hidden trail on the map we got an extra Km in on our run that we would not have known existed on the city map.

I could go on and on but I won’t. This is a game changer in all sorts of ways. Are we teaching students how to read a digital map? How to expand and zoom, how to orient the map to north vs the direction you’re walking and when to use both? Are we teaching the benefits of GPS, how to use it, how it works, and why it is a technology we all take for granted today but by itself is an amazing little feature built into almost every product?

This changes map skills, this changes what we need to be teaching students because the excuse of “what happens when you don’t have the Internet” just went out the window. With technology getting cheaper and cheaper, I wonder when a city might start distributing digital maps like this. Or what if you could check one out on a iPod touch from your hotel during your stay?

Game changer I tell you…..and one I’m not sure we’re preparing students for.

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I have been pondering this question for some time now. What does it mean to disconnect? We all say we need to. We all believe it’s healthy for us (any research out there?). What does it truly mean to disconnect.

Here are some scenarios I have been playing through my head:

• I frequently go for runs with my wife. I have my phone strapped to my arm and it tracks my run via GPS and posts it for me and others in my running social-network to view and encourage me. Am I disconnected?
• I went for a drive today listened to the radio, Sirius Satellite, and used the cars built-in GPS Navigation system to get to where I was going with live weather and traffic updates. Am I disconnected?
• I worked out for an hour today with my phone strapped to my arm and the video of my workout pumping through my ear-buds. Am I disconnected?
• If you listen to music while you run are you disconnected?
• If you watch TV while you workout (drove pass a gym today that had them connected to the treadmill) are you disconnected?
• I’m sitting here in my very quiet house eating dinner, no TV, no radio, just me my cat and this blog post. Am I disconnected?

I don’t know the answer to these but I am becoming increasingly frustrated with people saying we need to disconnect and then they turn around and use their built in GPS to navigate home. I know, I know…that’s different! Or is it?

The problem no longer has to do with disconnecting or the amount of screen time one gets. What the conversation I think needs to turn to is a simple one really.

Are you consuming, using or creating with technology?

What we really mean when we say “Kids need to have balance” or “I need to disconnect” isn’t really about disconnecting, I would argue, but rather about being less of a consumer.

TV and radio started it…so really it’s their fault (if you want someone to blame!). All you could do with that mass communication was consume. It turned us all into a bunch of consumers. Sitting around our radios and our television sets consuming information, relaxing, and just being. As far back as I can remember in my schooling years there were calls for a limit on the amount of TV we were suppose to watch…all of which is consuming.

So I want to have a different conversation. Sure we still need to disconnect in that out in nature, reflective zen sort of way. Totally for that.

But I also want to have the conversation that we start looking how we interact with technology.

How much time do I spend consuming vs creating?

To me this starts to get to the root of really what we are talking about.

The 1% rule states that the number of people who create content on the Internet represents approximately 1% (or less) of the people actually viewing that content. For example, for every person who posts on a forum, generally about 99 other people are viewing that forum but not posting.

Let’s start with this. That approximately only 1% of people are actively creating content on the web today. In 2012 the BBC released a report saying the 1% Rule was no longer the case but I can not find anywhere in their report where they talk about the 1% creators. They talk about Lurkers becoming Contributors which basically means “Liking” a post or commenting on an update in Facebook, A Tweet or a ReTweet, or even a +1 on Google+. The article talks about participation not creation.

I have started asking this question when I present to the educators in the room. It’s a simple question really.

“How many of you take things from the web to use in your lessons and classroom?” Almost always 100%

“How many of you take the things you have created and share them on the web for others to use?” Almost always roughly 10%. Which falls short of the 80/20 Rule:

This can be compared with the similar rules known to information science, such as the 80/20 rule known as the Pareto principle, that 20 percent of a group will produce 80 percent of the activity, however the activity may be defined.

That saddens me really…..and then I think back to how much time we spend with technology simply consuming…we have created a technology consuming culture.

So what if we took a step back and we started evaluating the time we spend with technology on a consuming vs creating scale? Creation is the top of Bloom’s Taxonomy, creating is an active mind at work, creators/innovators/problem-solvers are what this world needs. If we look at our interactions with technology through this lens we see something different.

• A student building a world in Mindcraft?
• A student playing Fruit Ninja?
• A student blogging?
• A student reading Facebook updates?
• A student spending hours programing a robot?
• A student spending hours playing Madden Football?

Let’s take a step back and look at what we ask students to do in our classrooms. How much time in a given day do students create/innovate/problem-solve vs how much time do they consume?

What if we changed this?

What if we created….creators?

What if we allowed students to create things……anything really?

What if we quit blaming technology for “being connected all the time” and started to define the time as consuming vs creating?

My problem might be that I am a 1%er. I should track it but I probably end up with a reverse 80/20 rule. Where I create 80% of the time and consume 20% of the time.

Take some time to look at your own habits and those of the people around you and see if you notice the same thing. Spending time with technology is not a bad thing…it is how you spend that time that counts. Spend it wisely and it can be just as good as doing anything else.

Photo Credit: photosteve101 via Compfight cc

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