Can technology stunt community growth and personal development?

Could it be that, despite the rising importance and inarguable necessity of technological advancement, we are actually doing harm to society?

We know technological advancement is good, and makes some things possible that could never have been dreamed of even 10 years ago. In education as well, this has created new ways of delivering content and, to a certain extent, revolutionised schooling - just look at CIDA as an example of the benefits.

Reading this post about online education by Jeremy from Huddlemind Labs, as well as this article about e-learning by the Department of Education, it's obvious that this is a part of our future, and probably a very big part at that.

The big flashing warning sign - if we take education online and remove students from interactive classes, how will they develop the ability to interact at a social level? It's already difficult enough with kids in schools interacting with others every day. But if half of the children were to sit at home with little interaction, we must be cautious of raising a generation of individualistic loners with no ability to communicate with others, let alone function as part of a team.

This is not an argument against using technology to educate, but rather just a thought that this needs to be managed as we make these changes. I believe that this is a huge opportunity sitting and waiting to be developed - the management of children's social and educational development at the same time. If a workable solution can be created, not only can we improve education throughout the country, reaching far and wide, but also improve the strength of community and thereby improve everyone's quality of life.

[And with all the talk of "free" around and SA's [slow] move towards free education, here's a link to something I wrote a while ago: what is mahala education actually worth?]

Forget old school, we need some new school

We now live in a world where life-long learning has replaced the life-long career. It’s anticipated that people will change jobs four to seven times in their lifetime, and anywhere between 50% and 80% of the jobs that will exist in 10 years time do not exist today.

WOW! The world has changed. Is changing! Rapidly!!

Naturally, this has BIG implications for the future [future leaders included] meaning that we have to think about this sooner rather than later.

Here is an absolutely astounding TED talk - Ken Robinson challenges the level of creativity in schools. Listen to that and you will understand why we need to see significant changes in the way we teach young people… especially since the system we currently have produces results where “many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they’re not.”

Is there no way we can look at things differently? Perhaps find a way to pull collaboration and creativity into an education system that is increasingly falling short of its primary objective? Look at a whole fresh new set of “outcomes”. Perhaps there is a way to revolutionise our entire approach to education and at the same time better equip young students and future leaders for the world that awaits them [as opposed to the world from several decades/centuries ago].

Forget old school. I think we need a bit of New Scool. What do you think?

*!Watch this space!*

[now that you’re done reading, go back two paragraphs, click on the TED talk link. and listen to it!]

Wolves in sheeps' clothing

Problems, problems, problems...

Every day seems to be greeted by volumes of new ones arriving on our doorstep, taking the wind out of our sails just as we seem to be seeing the end of our "old" problems.

Does this sound familiar to you. Certainly, an easy mindset to slip into in a challenging environment. But that's not what we're here for, is it?

As the old saying goes, problems are just opportunities in disguise. And how much more true is that here in South Africa, where [not problems, but] opportunities abound.

And where do strong business ideas stem from - opportunities, not so?

In my rose-tinted, opportunistic little mind, I can see three huge opportunities for South Africans right now [someone surely said this about the security industry several years back when all anybody else saw was violence - and look what the security industry has done].

1. Energy [alternative energy, to be precise. Yes its expensive right now, but it won't always be!]

2. Transport [my view, thanks largely to driving from Pretoria to Johannesburg on "the busiest highway in the Southern Hemisphere" for much of the past six years]

3. Education [with a total of about 45 million potential "customers", how can this not be an opportunity]

Here is Google Trends' results on searches for these items in SA [education coming up much stronger despite Eskom's not-so-recent um... shortcomings]:



The reason these are close to my heart? Each one has the possibility of significantly changing the quality of life for millions of people.

Next step... what are the AWESOME WOW opportunities in these areas that will make a difference? Anybody?

Mahala education - what is it worth?

Okay, so CIDA is not exactly mahala (free). But its certainly is excellent and has established itself as a forerunner in the hunt for a new education model that works.

If you look around a bit more, you can see other signs of the revolution coming, and speeding up as it prepares to hit. Case in point: Open educational resources (OERs). An example of this is MIT OpenCourseWare - with a vast array of educational literature online, you just need to log on, pick your subject and off you go - now that's mahala education.

But with only about 5 million of our 40+ million citizens having internet access, we know its not that simple. Most people don't even have sufficient food, clothing and shelter, let alone access to the internet.


Now don't get me wrong - I'm a firm believer in the internet as a facilitator for the coming revolution in education, but its not going to be the spark that ignites the flame. For that we need more, and like many others out there, I'm wondering what it will be, and what we can do about it.

Consider this - a lady who works for us shared the story of her son's school, where she was with him to register for the new school year (he's about six years old). While standing there, she overheard two of the school's teachers saying that they would never send their own children to that school. And yet, mainly due to geographical distance and finances, she has no other option. Would you, as a concerned parent, feel good sending your child off to school each day?

If the statistics are to be believed (and I'm not saying they're not), we're in pretty good shape with over 96% (as at 2005) of children aged 7 - 17 attending an "educational facility". A few points on this, though:

1. With 35 children for every 1 teacher, as one of this kids in the class, you will get about 3% of the teachers time on average. Most people probably give their pets more time than this.
2. This makes no reference to quality of education, which is a key concern.
3. Education is a long-term project, for which there is no quick fix. It is now 13 years since SA's memorable democratic change-over in 1994 - a full school life. This means we should start seeing the fruit now, but are we?
4. Even if educational shortcomings can be resolved, we need positions to place these school-leavers into. With an official unemployment rate of about 25% (unofficially 40%), is this realistic? At these rates, you statistically have more chance of being jobless after school than you do of attracting your teachers attention in a class of 35.

No, this is not negativity. This is just being realistic. However, as I said before - the revolution is on its way, and I trust that the positive results over the next few years will make the points above seem much less significant. Its about changing lives, and even one life changed makes it worthwhile. And I must admit, I do see lives that have been changed, don't you?

Education vs innovation?

A good place to start is one very close to my heart, as I believe it underlies many of the other critical aspects to making lasting changes - education!

As a nation, this is one of our largest challenges. We have an abundance of creative, energetic young individuals who have amazing ideas that could change the world... if only they knew how.

CIDA has managed to bridge this gap by revolutionising the tertiary education model for developing countries.

I was very fortunate to attend a meeting at CIDA City Campus in 2001, where I was part of a group that saw the inner-workings and met one of the early drivers of the process - Taddy Blecher. Work commitments kept me from making the contribution I wanted to, and I ended up missing out on something incredible - who would've known how it would impact society.

Lesson learned - incredible opportunities come along all the time - don't let them pass you by!

However, education remains one of the greatest opportunities in South Africa. But how do you provide a solid foundation from an early age to children in disadvantaged communities? Well, this is a challenge in any community... but having found a nursery school which provides meaningful input, I'm interested to see if there is a way to roll this out inexpensively, while providing suitable rewards for the teachers and educators involved. There must be a way, and I'll keep you posted on my findings.