Computers in Schools

I just want to start this by saying that I have thought the use of technology, particularly technology with screens, in school has been part of the reason that we are finding education in the United States to be going down hill.

Let me clarify.  I do not think that computers are a bad thing, that they should be done away with.  But I do believe the idea that a program on a computer can teach a child to read or write better than a human teacher there in the room with them is crazy.  It appears that I am not the only one to think this way.  In fact some of the world's top computer scientists send their children to a school without computers.  This is the Waldorf School, located in, yes, Silicon Valley, the home of some of the greatest computing advancements of all time.  Alan Eagle, who works in executive communications at Google, is quoted at saying, "If I worked at Miramax and made good, artsy, rated R movies, I wouldn't want my kids to see them until they were 17."  He says this to make the point that everything has a time and a place, computing technology included.  I am inclined to agree with him.  School systems are trying to integrate computers earlier and earlier in education and I really don't think they are seeing the results that they were hoping for.

Technology is a wonderful thing and should be taken advantage of, it should not be used as a crutch, which is what we are making it by creating a dependence on it among rising students in the United States.  Call me old fashioned, but I believe a key step in getting US education back on track is to take computers out of early education.  They are not really needed, and mold kids with shorter attention spans and less cognitive thinking skills.

I have experience the difference that this makes first hand.  This past summer I was working running some camps in Alabama and in North Carolina.  Though the kids in Alabama come from a very poor area and have not had the opportunities that many of the kids in North Carolina have had, they were much better to have at camp.  I was talking about this with another staff member (who happens to be graduating with a degree in education this year) and we decided that the fact that these kids were not able to play video games all the time and did not need constant input as a result were what made the difference.  The kids in Alabama we could give a basketball and they would be happy to play all afternoon (not that we did that, since it was a camp to work on sports skills and not a babysitting service), but the kids in North Carolina had significantly shorter attention spans.  As soon as they completed an activity, whether they were good at it or not, they were ready to move on to the next thing.  Which meant many a late night searching for filler games for the next day.

Having this experience only solidified my thoughts about computers and similar technology being used in school.  Especially those for early education.

"A Master of One's Own Stuff"

Recently one of my assignments was to read "Shop Class as Soul Craft".  While reading this book I realized just how much we as a society are dependent upon our technology and yet we don't fully understand most of the technology that we use.  In fact, I would say that we very rarely understand the technology that we take for granted.

My printer has been refusing to pick up paper recently and I was getting very frustrated with it.  I had tried everything that the printer's software said to do.  I probably cleaned that machine four times.  Finally I gave up and turned the thing around to open it up and try to figure out what it is that was wrong with my printer.  This makes it sound like a great adventure, which I guess in away it was, even though there wasn't anything seriously wrong with printer.

This experience just kind of struck home with what we have been reading, because I was worried that if I got into the printer then I wouldn't be able to fix it, or if I had to take it very much apart I wouldn't be able o put it back together.

Taking this from Matthew Crawford, the author of "Shop Class as Soul Craft" I have found that I agree with his idea that everyone should learn a trade.  As I say that, I must clarify that I am not a master of any trade myself, I am simply advocating that it is a good idea to have a skill in a field that deals with the concrete rather than the abstract.

Are we so dependent on oil?

Renmatix is a company that has recognized, like many of us, that our dependence on oil is not good for us economically, nor is it good for the environment.  In order to try and fix this, they are opening a research center in Pennsylvania to complete the development of a process they have found that turns agricultural waste into fuel for automobile fuel and other useful chemicals.

This process breaks down the chemicals in the waste, some of these chemicals are useful in the development of fuels such as cellulose.  To extract these chemicals Renmatix is simply using water at extremely high pressures and temperatures.  This process does the equivalent of the work that some microorganisms are capable of in converting the waste into ethanol.  This process is much more sound economically than using corn to produce ethanol because it prevents having to reallocate supplies from the production of food.

If this process is proven to be more effective and more efficient than producing gasoline or other forms of fuel then it would greatly decrease the amount of harmful chemicals released in the air and will put to good use some of the waste that currently has no other use.

The Real Problem.

Then the rain poured down, dropping endlessly from the balloon up in the sky?

As global temperature rise and the amount of sunlight reaching Earth increases, scientists and engineers alike are looking for a way to solve this problem.

Volcanoes have always been a source of protection for planet Earth, albeit a violent source, but protective nonetheless.  When a volcano erupts it's gases are released into the atmosphere, creating a barrier between the sun's burning rays and the life here on Earth.  What if we were to simulate the process that make the volcano so beneficial to Earth?  What if human kind manufactured artificial volcanoes?

That is the concept that scientists have been developing for some time now, and there will be tests taking place at a Norfolk airfield next month.  The idea is that a gigantic pipe is being suspended in the air by balloons the size of ball stadiums, and chemicals, water in the first test, will be pumped up the pipe and into the atmosphere, to create a layer between the sun's rays and the Earth.

While even I can appreciate that this is a marvelous idea, it makes me question what we are doing with the advanced technology that we now have.  This scenario makes it look like we are trying to treat the symptoms without addressing the real problem.  I am a big advocate of green technology, and putting back into the environment.  But this seems to be going around the problem.  Now, I am no expert, but it sure looks to me like if people would be conscious about the impact that they had on the world around them that we wouldn't need to artificially stimulate the atmosphere around our planet.  This concept is like something out of a science fiction novel, a planet that is being maintained through the genius of a few people.  That is not how that is supposed to work, nature has been doing it's own thing for a very long time and now that we are getting involved in natural processes things just keep getting more and more messed up and complicated.

I believe that if we would work with nature instead of trying so desperately hard to control every aspect of it then we would be much more successful in our adventures.

The Human Chip

For a long time people have dreamt about creating robots and other technologies that could behave as humans.  This was always a far off, extremely hypothetical idea, at least as far as the general population thought.

That may not be the case anymore.  Recently IBM has been working on a computer chip that is supposed to work more like the human brain than anything the technological world has seen before.  What does that mean, for technology, and for the human population?  Are we slowly going to be overrun by robots that have become more and more like us?  Will this technology be used in wars? Espionage? How are we going to make use of a computer this powerful?

All of these options seem to be totally possible, at least if you have any imagination at all, but in reality this computer chip, though one of the smallest we've seen, uses the most energy we have seen.  The human brain uses about 20 watts of energy whereas this genius piece of technology consumes about a kilowatt of energy to do the same amount of work.

Now, I'm all about conserving some energy, so to me hearing that is not promising, but it maybe that a technological revolution is about to take place.  One in which there are not separate programs for everything that software can do.  This would mean that many of our current technologies would become obsolete, that they can be replaced by these "human like" chips that consolidate the amount of software, programming, hardware, and therefore energy actually needed.  That idea is very appealing to me, that we could simply replace older technology with this more advanced technology and it would get rid of a lot of the excess energy that we consume.

We'll see what happens... how will we use this great advance in technology to further society?

Electronically Controlled Exterior for Green Buildings

I recently read about an architectural theory and plan that would leave a new multi-story office building to consume little more than 100 kilo-watt hours of energy per year.  At first that meant nothing to me, but reading on it was made clear that the average building of similar size typically uses up to two or three times that much energy.  How amazing is that?  We could use a fraction of the energy that we are now if this worlds.  This is all theory of course, or rather, a new idea that is being tested right now.  What new idea could possibly cut down on such a significant amount of energy consumption?  Well, the main innovation involved is the addition of 180 vertical ventilation flaps that are connected to a weather station on the roof and from sensors placed along the building that report the temperature and air pressure and even measure the amount of sunlight.  A main way of keeping a building cool and conserving energy is to use the cooling and heating systems as much as little as possible.  Which, logically, would require a greater source of outside airflow within the building. Letting air into the building generally means opening the windows and letting the wind through.  This can cause some problems within the building, papers flying all over, knocking things off of desks and tables.  These breezes are caused as the air pressure around the building shifts.  The vertical ventilation columns around the building will shift to control air the air pressure and the changes in air pressure around the building.  Allowing fresh air in, but no strong winds.

If this works, if it is possible for us to use up to a third the energy that we do now in our office buildings, the total amount of energy that we save could have a huge impact on the environment.  The energy saved in not using the heating and cooling systems could be used in many other areas, such as research to find better technologies to improve the life of those around the world.  This green technology would, if it indeed works, not only be saving the energy of one building, but it would be a huge step towards making all buildings more environmentally friendly.