The FCC created the National Broadband Plan in 2009 to outline
targets for updating broadband infrastructure and access across all
sectors in the country. With regard to education, one of the plan's key
recommendations is to foster innovations that specifically enable
wireless connectivity for mobile devices, so that students can more
easily access the Internet at home or in school. This recommendation is
based on research showing that online learning can substantially boost
students’ achievement in reading and math, as well as motivate students
toward better overall school performance.
Five years into the
plan’s implementation, numerous innovative educational technologies are
being tested in classrooms and homes across the country. Educational
wireless provider Kajeet has developed a technology called SmartSpot,
which enables students to connect to fast 4G LTE networks using any
Wi-Fi-enabled device. Affordable for schools and families, the
technology is designed to be safe for children who go online for their
studies.
A total of 450 SmartSpot devices have been deployed to
eight schools in Detroit, Michigan, for the current school year. These
schools provide a stark example of the digital divide in America:
roughly 70 percent of these students have no Internet access at home.
This greatly limits how teachers can integrate valuable online resources
into coursework. SmartSpot will remove this restriction, thereby
providing teachers with added flexibility and motivating students toward
success in school.
Even before graduating in 1991 with a bachelor’s degree in
computer engineering from the University of Michigan, Tony Fadell showed
an entrepreneurial knack as chief executive officer of Constructive
Instruments, a company that produced multimedia software for children.
Upon graduating, he followed a rapidly rising career trajectory in
disruptive consumer electronics. By the end of 2001, he had produced the
initial concept and design for the groundbreaking Apple iPod, and he
eventually became senior vice president of Apple's iPod Division.
Mr.
Fadell cofounded Nest Labs in 2010 and currently serves as chief
executive officer. His company devotes itself to reimagining mundane
household products, with the goal of improving efficiency through
elegant design. The Nest Learning Thermostat, for example, presents a
simple and sleek interface and intelligently adjusts itself according to
a homeowner's schedule.
Mr. Fadell is a proven innovator, and
his views on disruptive technology are highly sought after. In a number
of interviews and talks in recent years, he has stressed the
relationship between a disruptive technology and marketing. At the 2013
LeWeb conference, in Paris, he noted that for a disruptive technology to
be successfully pushed to market, the consumer must understand the
problem that the technology is trying to fix, and how fixing it provides
a genuine benefit. This education process should be the goal of
marketing.
Rick Bolander, who currently serves as managing partner with Bay
Area-based Gabriel Venture Partners, has worked with numerous start-up
corporations with technology-centered business models. His client list
has included Chegg, Netscaler, and Kajeet, Inc. Deeply committed to
demonstrating the positive social aspects of disruptive technology, Rick
Bolander understands the importance of STEM (science, technology,
engineering, and math) literacy for today’s students.
Recently,
many educators have focused attention on multimedia literacy, the skills
associated with understanding and manipulating virtual, aural, visual,
and physical components to express ideas and create original content.
Experts predict that these abilities, as well as the skills associated
with interactive devices such as those found in computer gaming, will
play a major role in personal and career success in coming decades.
Some
commentators in the field have even extended the concept to include
programming, the ability to create logical and comprehensive
instructions for digital technology applications, as the key “literacy”
for today’s generation. These experts believe that, just as reading and
writing defined literacy for previous generations, future generations
will consider the ability to program a primary type of literacy.
Many
of today’s young people are already learning math and logic skills
associated with programming through various in-school and
extracurricular activities. Scratch, a program conceived at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, develops the visual
programming skills needed to create animated characters and stories.
Lego’s Mindstorms kits combine the popular building set with robotics
through the use of command-box programming, and the Arduino is a simple
introduction to open-source electronics programming using a language
analogous to C++.
