SubscribeThe Case for an Obama Educational Technology Investment
For his new book Grown Up Digital, Don Tapscott interviewed 10,000 young people about their use of technology. His conclusion:
Technology is not technology to these kids. It’s like the air.
Tapscott, author of several books on technology, including Wikinomics (check out my Wiki ROI guest series on the Wikinomics Blog) and Growing Up Digital (1997), has observed the growing role of technology in the lives of the net generation – people born in the 1980s and 1990s who have grown up with technology as a part of daily life. But there’s a significant weakness in the presence of technology in these students’ lives: education.
Schools have struggled to get the resources to put enough computers in classrooms, and educate teachers on how to find and build high-quality digital curriculum materials. The underlying problem is that there’s not enough public money for educational technology, and what little is available is extremely hard to get.
With the handover to a new President and administration just weeks away, Jim Goodnight, CEO of software maker SAS, and Keith Krueger, CEO of the Consortium on Social Networking, published an essay on BusinessWeek.com making the case for a significant investment in educational technology by the incoming Obama Administration.
A $20-36 billion investment, the range Goodnight and Krueger propose, would have some immediate economic impacts that mirror the intent of the economic stimulus planned for other industries:
1) Creation of jobs in the technology and telecommunications sectors;
2) School districts hiring technical and technology curricular staff (a vastly understaffed function today); and
3) Upgrading and retooling of school facilities and equipment (which is impossible in the current fiscal environment).
And here’s an example of the deeper economic impact:
PricewaterhouseCoopers found that the UK economy enjoys benefits of 2.05 pounds (US$3.05) for every 1 pound per pupil invested in technology for a three-year rate of return, including more employable graduates.
This is the opposite of a bailout. It is perhaps the smartest possible investment of taxpayer money because it will yield both short and long term benefits. In the short term, it will create the kind of jobs in the technology and education sectors that contribute to what Thomas Friedman calls Rebooting America. Even better, the long term outcome of this investment will be more employable graduates that provide an economic return that far outweighs the initial investment.
my 2 euro cents,
-Stefan"
Matt Wiseley says:
Jan 7th, 2009
I’ve been participating in a lot of educational technology discussions lately and it’s amazing to watch teachers struggle to ramp up to the huge technology curve ahead of them. Students take most of it for granted while schools are just starting to come around to basic tools like blogs and wikis. I think the next 10 years is going to decide whether U.S. school systems sink or swim in their use of technology.