I’ve been reading a lot this morning and finding some ideas congealing in my head. Writing about them seems to be coming a lot harder. As I struggle with it, here’s a little piece that in some important ways, starts to express them, from Roland Piquepaille’s Technology Trends, a cool example of crowd sourcing, Cellphones to track air pollution.
Computer scientists in Cambridge, UK, are using bike couriers to monitor air pollution. These couriers are doing their usual jobs, but their bicycles are equipped with air-pollution sensors and GPS units that connect to their cellphones via Bluetooth. So their phones are constantly reporting the levels of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, and nitrogen dioxide in the area. And back in the lab, servers are updating a Google map for Internet users and regular cellphone users. The sensors used for this project could also be fixed to a pedestrian’s jacket, which means that everybody in the area could become a pollution tracker.
This sort of stuff was being done 20-25 years ago by Bob Tinker when he invented MBL at TERC and turned into products like National Geographic KidNet. (he now leads the Concord Consortium -www.concord.org)
Dr. Tinker’s work, like Papert’s, is dedicated to creating contexts in which kids ARE scientists and mathematicians.
The stellar work of my friend Bob and his colleagues is too often overlooked and obviously worthy of study.
What intrigued me more about this story was not so much about the technology, but the way that the project is injecting the technology into an existing eco-societal function, piggybacking on something that is already happening, in order to collect the data.
I wasn’t that familiar with TERCs Microcomputer Based (MBL) Learning project, but I was a huge follower of their efforts to help students (and teachers) learn to work data and statistics.
Another similar project is The Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education (CIESE) at the Stevens Institute just across the Hudson from NYC.
With so much more data being collected and made available, it has become essential for people to learn to work that information, to employ it for solving problems and accomplishing goals.
Thanks again, Gary…
I think that cell phones are a great untapped resource in many areas. IF we allowed kids to carry cell phones… we would have the anonymous reporting tool we’ve always wanted — they could text the office if they saw a problem. (And it is not totally anonymous.)
We could also have something to replace those expensive scoring systems. And I was writing the other day about the change in screen technology… they WILL be our textbooks.
Finally, we cannot overlook the SMS notification systems that I think every school should install — if Virgnia Tech had purchased the SMS notification system they had considered months before the tragic shooting incident, they would have been able to notify EVERYONE via cell phone to stay put.
Cell phones are a lifeline, communications tool, and increasingly a productivity tool, and yes, it is not about the technology but its effective use.
(And I’m back after a little break from all of this blogging stuff — glad to see some of us don’t take breaks ;-))
Vicki
I realize that you were not talking specifically about education, but there are often connections to be made between technological innovations and opportunities for young people.
BTW: I’m familiar with CIESE. I worked with them and and STEP at Stevens Tech in the late 80s-early 90s.
I’d personally welcome an educational future free of scoring of any kind. Call me an optimist. 🙂