Through the Keyhole

Teaching students how to do everything using technology

The digital revolution in schools is not about teaching students to use technology, it's about teaching students how to do everything using technology.

- Chris Dede, cited in Back to the Books (and Laptops)

Make it really easy

You can’t underestimate the miracle that happens when you make something really easy for people.

- Saul Hansell, The Lessons from the Kindle’s Success

 

We're not good at predicting the future

[As we try to plan for and retool for the future,] We’re going to get it wrong. We’re not good at predicting the future. Change is exponential, and our incorrect guesses are incrementally wrong.

– Cory Ondrjka, one of the founders of Second Life (quote courtesy of David Warlick)

Would you like fries with that?

Uninformed in technology = illiterate in technology. Illiterate in technology = “Would you like fries with that?”

– Scott Floyd, Oh. no. he. didn’t.

Everyone can learn from each other

Everyone can learn from each other, independent of time, space and place.

– Ryan Bretag (courtesy of David Jakes)

The Web waits for you

[T]he web waits for you. It will hold the information for you until you are ready to learn it, ready to use it. It waits, patiently, always on, always gathering, categorizing and remembering. I can take a week off because the web doesn’t.

– Jeff Utecht, Back from Digital Darkness 2008

The Web makes those in power nervous

The Web provides everybody with access to information. That makes those in power nervous.

 – Jonathan Aronson, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California

The impoverished imaginations of adults

Virtually all learning difficulties that children face are caused by adults' inability to set up reasonable environments for them. The biggest barrier to improving education for children, with or without computers, is the completely impoverished imaginations of most adults.

 - Alan Kay (Scholastic Administrator, April/May 2003)

 

Technology or magic?

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

 – Arthur C. Clarke

 

Uneven distribution

The future is already here - it is just unevenly distributed.

– William Gibson