Working with educational institutions for most of my career, I have seen quite a shift in how technology has helped and hindered those of you making amazing breakthrough through research.  

Not everyone has the ability to do research but we should all revere those who do as today’s breakthroughs are addressing some of the biggest challenges we face as a human race.

With that, we have seen a huge shift in focus as life science researchers are thinking less about samples and experiments and more about data analysis and sharing.  Preserving the output of data in manageable and sharing formats is the foundation of new industry phrases such as ‘Science 2.0’ or ‘Open Science’.  With either phrase, the concept is the same.  Data is the true productive output of research where value from billions invested in research must be realized.

The inherit value of data will likely last beyond its initial intended use.  So finding a way to store, share and reuse this data is critical to the success of this research.  Sun and its partners have solutions where the storage preservation aspects of the storage platform are decoupled so that you can customize an archive solution that best meets your specific requirements.  Research teams can now fully utilize their digital information while reducing cost and complexity.

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I was thinking about the changing tides in software buying trends and how these changes can be such a huge win for education.  Education professionals have always known the value of collaboration and sharing of ideas.  It just took the technology industry a bit of time to catch up.  The good news is it is happening. The days of expensive, proprietary software packages are ending.  The new way of collaborative, standards-based open source technology is here.  And with it comes, more development, more innovation yet for less money and much easier.

All IT professionals, especially those in education are being asked to do a lot:
• Do more with less
• Lower risk and achieving greater interoperability
• Ability to access more advanced, better quality technology
• And meeting compliance requirements

Sun and its open source partners offer a number of solutions designed specifically for the needs of educational institutions. Sun Open Network Systems offer open data storage, which leverages standard technology that enables IT departments to mix and match components from different providers. Sun also offers its Open Solaris operating system as well as Open Archive, a cost-effective, scalable, sustainable infrastructure for storing one of an educational institution’s most valuable assets—its data.

Additionally, there are some excellent ISVs offering open source applications to help education IT professionals achieve these lofty goals.
•    Kuali/rSmart offers a platform solution for financials and administrative needs
•    Moodle provides a learning management platform
•    Sage provides a math platform solution for both SPARC and Intel
•    MySQL and PostgreSQL offer open source database solutions

These technology solutions are real and working today.

I previously wrote about Bradford schools in southern England who are using open source software from Sun and others like Moodlerooms.

The Mission Heights New Zealand school has deployed SunRays and only open source software for the classrooms.

Another example is, the Roman Catholic diocese of Boise, Idaho who were looking for a cost effective software/storage solution to preserve their historical records, student information, employee data, and their financials.  The organization needed to increase their capacity, minimize their costs and simplify the management and administration while increasing their server utilization.

They ultimately chose a Sun Open Storage solution built on OpenSolaris and two Sun Fire X4500 servers.  The diocese IT group installed one Sun Fire X4500 server and used Solaris ZFS in OpenSolaris to configure each drive as an iSCSI target in a virtual storage pool. The whole process took about 15 – 20 minutes.

Today, not only does the diocese now have the power and 24 terabyte of storage to enable new projects, but it is also saving money.

These are just a few of the examples of how open computing is a game-changer for education and how we can change how education is designed, delivered and supported...together.

There was a great interview in the Spring 2009 Converge Magazine with Dr. Neil de Grasse Tyson. Some key quotes are: 

- What is scientific literacy? "When you hear information, you have to understand: What is the context in which that information is being delivered?"

- "Creativity is seeing what everyone else sees, but then thinking a new thought that has never been thought before and expressing it somehow."

- With science, creativity means "Since everyone has nature to answer to, you’re creativity is simply discovering something about the natural world that somebody else would have eventually discovered exactly the same way. They might have come through a different path, but they would have landed in the same place."

- "The best educators are the ones that inspire their students."

- The problem with schools is "There remains a culture that equates high grades with success in school and correlates success in school with success in life."

- Most talented people did not get straight 'A's. "The education system is deeply flawed because it’s only trying to get straight A’s out of people. There’s got to be some other way to measure who’s going to succeed and who isn’t."

I just suffered through my first American Airlines flight.  Its amazing how they make United look like a friendly airline.  I don't know why these old line airlines take their frustration out on their customers.  My favorite domestic airlines are JetBlue and Southwest.  They get you where you're going on time and they actually don't resent their customers.

This started me thinking that I'd like to get some direct feedback from our customers about your views on Sun.  Surveys are one thing.  We get feedback from surveys - but those always seem too general.

I'm not sure this blog is the best way to document best practices and if I don't get sufficient input, I'll seek other avenues as well.  I'd like to ask for your feedback though, simply respond with a comment to this post or email me directly.

Normally, this is the time of year that we plan for next fiscal year, with our year beginning in July.  This, of course, is not a normal year with the announcement last week of Oracle acquiring Sun. 

Regardless, I'd like to hear from customers about what we do well and what you'd like to see change in the future.  For those of you who don't know, Sun has had a dedicated sales organization for Education since 2000.  Over the years, our charter has grown to include Healthcare and Government around the world. (It varies from country to country.)  

Comments can included everything from the salesforce you enage with, our partners, our solutions, our communities, our events, our processes.  What do we do well? What do we not do well?  Even with the Oracle acquisition, the feedback can help improve our interaction. Thank you and I look forward to reading your commentary.

At the Business Higher Education Foundation (BHEF) meeting, I had the pleasure (terror) of facilitating a discussion about whether the U.S. should increase investment in education innovation. The terror comes from facilitating a discussion of university presidents and corporate executives. It was kind of like that nightmare in college of being called on by the professor for an answer that you just don’t have.

The U.S. Education system could not be designed any less efficiently if we tried. But, I don’t see our voters giver more power to Washington to control schools so we will have to deal with the inefficiencies of fifty State’s education departments and thousands of school districts from the foreseeable future.

Education standards are a perfect example. Why not have national standards that are research-based and validated as relevant to career and college success?

Such a system may exist from ACT. Apparently they test millions of students every year and it’s not just for college admissions. In order for a student to be successful - (success being defined as a ‘C’ level grade in a course; a low standard as far as I’m concerned) - ACT has also apparently profiled the tasks of over 15,000 jobs in the U.S. and have tests that measure competency for these skills. 41 states already use these tests for schools. They tie their academic standards for schools to these tests.

It seems that now it’s the employers turn to exert influence. Perhaps we can’t get to a national standard for fear of too much control from D. C. But what if the employer community adopted these standards?

In much the same way, someone can become “certified”. Java, Microsoft, or Cisco programmer…perhaps the same concept could apply to all job roles.

Colleges and universities could also openly publish their admission criteria as well. I’m certain that if we organize our talent selection around commonly understood criteria of skills that schools will organize their curriculum to deliver to that standard.

By the way, back to that panel I was facilitating…the surprising thing to me is that we do not know how much money is spent on R&D for education in this country.  We may be able to quantify what the U.S. Department of Education spends on R&D but that is a small amount and one piece of the overall R&D expenditure. If you Google this subject, you’ll find that there’s all kinds of information about how much governments and corporations spend on R&D. For example, Sun spends roughly $2B on R&D annually.

The U.S. spends over $1 Trillion on education. How much do we spend on education R&D? Is that too much or too little?

Step 1 is to quantify this investment and then determine as a nation whether that amount is too little. When one considers that we are in a knowledge economy, clearly education is the foundation of the economy because it builds knowledge capacity. When you consider that higher education costs have risen at a higher rate than any industry, including healthcare, you realize we need education R&D to figure out how to more effectively and efficiently education our citizens. According to ACT, only 4 out of 10 8^th graders are prepared for college (defined as able to a ‘C’ grade in college) and that number drops to 2 out of 10 by 12^th grade.  We need for education R&D to figure out how to change these trends. The high school dropout rate is 9.3%. The productivity cost to the economy is staggering.

Step 2 is to then decide what the percentage of R&D expenditure that our economies can provide.

Step 3 is raising the money to conduct the research through government, business and foundations.

Step 4 is to engage in the research and apply findings as soon as possible. Using Christensen, Johnson and Horn’s guidance from Disrupting Class, we need to ultimately answer “not simply what’s implementable and what works, but what is implementable and what works for whom, where and why”.

The Business Higher Education Forum (BHEF) brings leaders together twice a year in a face-to -face meeting to pursue an agenda of shared issues. It’s a two day meeting and I’m always impressed by the dedication of time the forum gets of CEOs, University Presidents and representatives of key foundations.

Two special guests at the meeting this week were Russell Hulse and Kathy Sullivan. At one point I was in a conversation them about Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). This is what the National Science Foundation (NSF) calls the focus on advancing education in these disciplines. I pinched myself a little bit. Where else could I, a guy who really majored in “Student Life”, talk to a Nobel Laureate (Russell Hulse) and a former astronaut (Kathy Sullivan)? BHEF create the community space for people who care about education to converse from very diverse backgrounds / perspectives. Education is just too fundamental to the economy to be left to a single constituency.

Hopefully I’m not violating any confidentiality pacts as I share my thoughts from the meeting here. I’ll only attribute quotes to meeting attendees where it makes sense to the story.  My two direct quotes come at different times. Bill Swanson, CEO of Raytheon has expended a significant amount of time to BHEF and a STEM initiatives called the STEM Research and Modeling Network (SRMN). (These organization names and acronyms are an awful alphabet soup).

Raytheon, of course, is a defense contractor who makes missiles and rockets. Therefore, they’re filled with systems engineers and the proverbial but real “rocket scientists”. 

The purpose of the STEM model is to attempt to look at education as a system of inputs (people) and outputs that flow from birth through ultimately death. It’s an incredibly complex system that for all we spend on education as a country or a world for that matter, the research about what works or not in education is pretty poor.  (Chapter 7 of Disrupting Class by Clayton Christensen, Curtis W. Johnson, and Michael B. Horn does a good job of summarizing the problems with education research.

Systems’ modeling is what companies like Raytheon use to design and build missiles. It’s a heck of a lot simpler and less costly to model or simulate rockets on a computer than in real life.

So after about four hours of discussing the challenges of education research and modeling, Bill Swanson said “Building rockets is easy. Education is hard.” I got a kick out of this observation given the popular phrase, “It’s not rocket science…” He also said, “Models are easy; Implementation is hard.” And to underscore the limits of modeling, the chief systems engineer said, “All models are wrong; some are useful”. Bill Swanson summarized with, “The model helps highlight where research needs to be done. It is a tool to help make choices”.

At dinner, Sandy Weill spoke. Sandy was He former chief executive officer and chairman of Citigroup Inc. He served in those positions until October 1, 2003 and April 18, 2006. He’s subsequently written a book called The Real Deal: My Life in Business and Philanthropy  and he probably wins the award for best ever timing since he stepped down 3 years ago. He didn’t really answer my question of what should the government’s position be if, as we’re learning, there are companies too big for the government to let fail. He thought I was advocating government takeovers. But he kept repeating a phrase that is much better put than I was able to do in my posting about the financial mess (Maybe Bill Joy Was Right). He said, “If you don’t understand it, don’t do it”. That should be every investor’s mantra from now on. There will be more government regulation instead of less coming out of this mess. But I’m convinced that legislation and regulation gives investors a false sense of security.

If there was no regulation and only the motto, “If you don’t understand it, don’t do it”, we investors might be better off.

Sandy Weill also had some great advice about leadership. Someone asked for lessons learned about leadership. He said that leadership is about accessibility and a willingness to work harder than anybody else. He also spoke on how he tried to create a family environment at Citi; one where people knew you were willing to work hard as a result. For a titan of the financial world he seemed very down to earth. He said leadership is about loving what you do and leading by example. He shared how there were a lot more cigar smokers at Citi when he smoked cigars. When he gave the habit up, he noticed others doing the same.

It’s all about keeping high ethical standards and making the world a better place.

Take a peek into The Sun Center-of-Excellence for Project Wonderland and Immersive Education at Saint Paul College, USA  

A next-generation "mixed-reality" teaching and learning laboratory that is designed to combine virtual worlds and learners in remote locations with live classroom activities.

One of the students present at the ribbon at the Sun Center of Excellence at St. Paul College in Minnesota cutting was Lance Daven. In his introduction, Lance mentioned he became Java certified in high school. I asked how he did that and he replied he’d attended St. Paul as a high school senior. I was familiar with the placement programs where high school students earn college credit by attending classes at their high school and then passing the test but this was something more.

Minnesota has a program called Post Secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO); this program allows high school students to attend class at a junior college and earn credit towards both high school and a college degree. This is a great idea to expand opportunity and access more disciplined approaches then may be available at a local high school. It reminds me of a recent article I read by Newt Gingrich in ‘Time’ magazine. In the article Newt Gingrich argues high school is too long and that we should start students in college much earlier. Maybe he's right - at least some classroom success demonstrates possibility.

Another thing I thought was cool was someone was wearing a red “The Power of You” shirt. This program promises scholarships to fill the financial gap between educational tuition, expenses and other financial assistance programs. They put the average cost per student at $900.  $900 is money incredibly well spent to advance the skills and employability of citizens. The ROI on tax collections from the future earnings of those students is probably just a couple of years. It sounds similar to a program in Georgia called the “Hope scholarship”, but due to budget constraints “The Power of You” is under threat in Minnesota.

Finally one more note from the road. I curled while I was Minnesota. Not my hair. You know - the Olympic event you’ve probably seen at least once where people throw what looks like a round clothes iron on the ice towards a target, preceded by folks who want to make sure the ice is really clean by sweeping it. It's kind of like Bocce ball, only you quickly learn there's more physicality because of the penchant for clean ice, i.e. sweeping the ice ahead of the stone while running toward the target. (This makes the stone go faster and straighter.  Also, I was never sore the following day after playing Bocce like I was after curling. Who knew housework was so much work?  Minnesota was great. The air was cold but the people were warm, there was excitement all around regarding the opportunities for education and I look forward to St. Paul being a model for the next generation of students.

I worked from home on the Monday following the New Year holiday and noticed that my 14 year old seemed down when he came home from school. He wouldn't say what was bothering him.  At bed time I again tried to get him to talk. He said "school is boring".  I thought, Now we are getting somewhere". We had just learned prior to winter break that he has 13 missing homework assignments, but over the break he winnowed this down to five.

He proceeded to give me very specific complaints and recommendations about school. Halfway through our conversation, I started taking notes (which made him nervous)  because I was amazed at how similar his complaints and recommendations were to the recommendations in the book I'm currently reading called "Disrupting Class".

He said, "They don't make school work exciting or creative". When I asked for an example he mentioned history. He is learning U.S. history right now, and he said instead of focusing on exciting stuff like military strategies and battles, he said they put the focus on economics.  He also gave an example that instead of simply stating that Jefferson had to make cuts when faced with a massive budget deficit he thought they should have turned it into a game or role play of 'what would you do if you were Thomas Jefferson?'.

He also mentioned that he feels he is a visual learner - but they don't seem to teach him in the way that engages his learning style. I don't know who told him he was a visual learner or that there are different styles, but that is what honestly what he said.

"There needs to be a better reward system," he said. He gave examples by saying he wasn't necessarily motivated by a grade (which is why I am trying to motivate him or bribe him with an iPhone if he gets on the honor roll). He said he wants more immediate rewards or feedback the way that video games do.

A better feedback system, accommodating multiple learning styles and simulations are all things that Clayton M. Christensen and coauthors Michael B. Horn and Curtis W. Johnson discuss in the book "Disrupting Class". The widespread use of such technologies and approaches can't happen soon enough if I am going to keep my son excited about learning at school.

I realize using pig sayings has proven controversial in the U.S. political season, but I couldn't help think of this old saying last night as I was helping (nagging) my son with his homework.  For his history class he has to answer 3 questions at the end of each chapter.  I was reviewing (for the thousandth time) that answers need to be complete sentences and the easiest way to answer a question is to first restate the question as an answer and then fill in the blank.  As I was reminding him of this technique, I noticed small numbers in parentheses at the end of each question.  I mistakenly made the comment that this was a clue for him to go look back into the chapter to find that reference.  He corrected me by saying that it wasn't a reference to the text, but rather it was a reference to the state standard that the question is indexed to.  I couldn't believe it and thought my son had misunderstood.  So I looked at the beginning of the book, you know part no one ever reads, called "How to read this book".  Sure enough, he was right.

Why does it matter to my son what the state standard is?  How does it help him learn?  Most importantly, how does it help motivate him to want to learn?

This experience is on top of one earlier in the week at back-to-school night.   The science teacher provided us parents with a copy of a previous state science test that the teacher uses to teach to.  He's teaching to the test! (Albeit an old one)
He's not cheating the test.  He, and moreover the system that places weighing the pig above feeding it, is cheating my son.  Forget for a moment that the standard for 8th grade science in the state  now includes physics (a topic I never took in High School or College), the focus on testing is sucking the very interest and curiosity that my son and others like him have for the Sciences.

Learning matters.  Being a motivated learner matters.  Thinking about history matters.  Testing should be a by-product measurement of the learning system - not the central theme of the learning system.  Testing informs the teacher as much as the student about what is being learned or not, taught or not.  It's time to get back to school and out of the testing center.

Building Schools for the Future

In December of last year, I had the pleasure of visiting the city of Bradford, England. I wasn't quite sure before I got there that it would be a pleasure based on the "You're going where?" comments I'd get from the locals when I told them where I'd be going.  Bradford's heyday was two centuries ago, when it was known as the wool capital of the world and England was the international center of the textile industry.

Fast forward to today and you find a city redeveloping itself with many of the old factory spaces being converted into trendy lofts and other real estate ventures. Bradford has an ethnically diverse population of nearly 300,000 people, with one of the highest percentages of Muslims in England.

Building Schools for the Future: A Model for the World

As a result of economic challenges, Bradford's local schools have not performed well and the infrastructure has suffered. That is why it was one the first locations in the country to benefit from an innovative program called Building Schools for the Future (BSF), a U.K. education reform initiative focused on both infrastructure and information and communications technology for learning.

I think the BSF program should be copied throughout the world because it will result in the rebuilding or renovation of practically every secondary school in the U.K., and the introduction of technology to advance learning. As a partnership between the central government, local governments, private contractors, and schools, it fuels economic investment that no single group could accomplish on its own.
(The old school is in the foreground and the new school, still under construction last Dec is on the left)

More than Bricks and Mortar
Physical space is important. I toured one of the schools that was being replaced. It was old and oddly configured through decades of "renovations." Technology was isolated to noisy and hot rooms that felt more like greenhouses than classrooms because of the PCs and the heat they emitted. If you don't think PCs are hot and noisy, put about 30 of them in a single room. Even though it was December and cold outside, an in-room air conditioner was running to make the room more bearable.

I visited another school that was just completed. In fact, a claw backhoe was busily eating the old building as I toured the new one. The new building was incredible. It had the air of a small shopping mall with meeting spaces everywhere. Computers were spread throughout the campus in classrooms, the library, and the auditorium. The school also had an incredible music center and studio that were as professional as anything I'd ever seen.

(The building eating backhoe is on the left behind the green mini-bus)

The computers were not conventional PCs, but Sun Ray thin clients. Sun Ray clients enable virtualized desktop sessions to run on a datacenter server, which houses the applications and data. Because Sun Ray thin clients run coolly and quietly, classroom temperatures were comfortable and the only noise was from students and teachers. And as Sun Rays consume just 4 watts of electricity, compared to about 80 watts for a PC, the Bradford school stands to benefit with reduced energy costs.

More than Hardware

As the key technology partner to Bradford, Sun is not only providing the hardware, we're also designing the software that will facilitate learning. Using Sun's open source software as well as other open source educational software such as Moodlerooms, Sun has created an open source software environment for the school.

So it’s back to school throughout much of the world. I'm excited to go back to Bradford and see how the new physical space and the new technology has improved the quality of education there. I'm proud that Sun has been able to play a small role in this community's path to renovation and innovation.

山高皇帝远

Last month, I visited China, Japan and Korea in the space of two weeks for various Sun and industry events, including Sun Education & Research Conferences in China and Japan. What I saw on this trip surprised me, on both a professional level and a personal one.

Even with as much world travel as I've done--including a trip to Beijing 10 years ago--I was apprehensive about this trip for several reasons. Just before I left, there was controversy about the Olympic torch runs through San Francisco with the unfurling of the “Free Tibet” flag on the Golden Gate bridge. There was the coordinated action by sub-Saharan African countries to bar the docking of the Chinese ship loaded with guns and ammunition intended for Zimbabwe.  (I've been receiving emails from friends in Zimbabwe that are downright chilling, but that's a subject for another post.) And there have been many stories in the news about the quality of Chinese goods, and about the great firewall of China impeding access to information on the Internet from inside China. Yet the purpose of my trip was to give a talk about the power of communities and social networking technologies at a conference co-sponsored by the Chinese government!

My first stop was Shanghai for that very event, the 2008 Sun China Education & Research Conference. This was my first visit to the city, and it was a mind-opening experience, to say the least. The skyline is massive and beautiful and modern and unrecognizable, at least to me. With every other large city I've visited, I've  had a picture of the place in my mind before I went. Not Shanghai. It was as if a city the size of New York had been built overnight and there were no pictures of the place to see before your visit. 

I felt very welcomed. The people I met made every attempt to speak English. Shanghai seemed very Western, but not as crowded as a major metropolitan city like Tokyo. I presented at conferences, met with customers, and visited some of Sun's university customers. The first day, I visited the beautiful campus of Fudan University, a large private educational institution that has an enrollment of over 35,000 full-time students across four different campuses. Here's a picture outside the main administration building. Ironic that this structure's Neoclassical facade looks more like it belongs in Washington D.C. than in China!

I began to realize that my initial apprehension about China was unfounded. At the risk of sounding like a shill for the Chinese government, I think China gets a bad rap in the Western press. I think there is a lot of fear that probably stems from the Cold War and the belief that China has a highly planned, highly centralized "command-and-control" government, society and economy. 

But I learned an old saying on this trip: “Shan Gao Huang Di Yuan.” This literally means, “Mountain high, emperor far."  In other words, the mountains are so high and the emperor so far away that we will do what we want in our local area. For example, you can't help but feel the sense of pride that Shanghai feels about itself and its economic success. There's even a five-story museum honoring Shanghai's development, with a full floor dedicated to a miniature replica of the city. Shanghai is very different than Beijing.  The local governments have a lot of autonomy from the central government, just as in the United States.

I don't think Americans understand the challenges that China faces, given its population size and land mass.  I'm reading a great book by Parag Khana called The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order. He does an outstanding job of comparing China and the United States. This book is where I learned about that in roughly the same land mass as the United States, China has five times the population, the majority of whom live in poverty. China, in my view, is less concerned about what is going on in the United States than it is just working to bring that large population into the modern economy as quickly as possible.

For example, my hosts told me that in China, as in many countries, admissions to the university is based on test scores; however, entering classes are sourced from all of China with test score quotas by region or province. It reminded me of the U.S. practice of encouraging diversity by maintaining quotas based on race--but instead of race, China uses geography. They want college graduates to return to their local towns and villages to help advance economic development throughout the country.

The misunderstanding flows in both directions, however. For one thing, the Chinese clearly don't understand how the press works in the United States, a problem made worse by the fact that the U.S. press does a poor job of covering China. (There are far bigger problems in China than what our press reports on, which is one reason I like reading and listening to Global Voices Online to get “real news” from citizen reporters around the world.)  For example, while I was in China, a controversy arose based on stupid remarks made by CNN reporter Jack Cafferty.  The story ran in China Daily every day I was there. The government demanded an apology, which CNN finally issued on May 15.

What they failed to understand is that their actions kept the story in the news longer than it would have stayed there otherwise, thus compounding the insult. They also failed to understand that most Americans don't put much stock in Cafferty anyway (if they even know who he is), so what difference does it make what reckless and inaccurate statements he makes about China or any other story? In the United States, you consider the source, then move on.  In China, since the press is not free, I think the government believes that CNN speaks for the U.S. government and that the U.S. government should punish CNN for their reporter's comments.

So I left for China with a certain trepidation that was replaced by a desire to learn and a desire to teach, because I think our two countries have a long way to go before we understand each other.  Luckily education--through U.S. students attending Chinese universities and Chinese students attending U.S. schools--can help bridge that divide.

Of course, China has been in the news for another reason: last week's devastating earthquake. Even though this is a tragic time, another way that we can help bridge the understanding gap is through generosity. If you are a Sun employee, you know that the Sun Microsystems Foundation will match your contributions. There are a number of charities to which you can donate. Here are a few:

Sun Microsystems Global Disaster Drive: http://vad.aidmatrix.org/vadxml.cfm?driveid=1203
Shin Shin Educational Foundation:  www.shinshinfoundation.org
American Red Cross: www.redcross.org
MercyCorps: www.mercycorps.org
CARE: www.care.org
Save the Children: www.savethechildren.org
Salvation Army: www.salvationarmy.usawest.org

As you saw from my last post, Sun held its annual Worldwide Education & Research Conference (WWERC) two weeks ago. (Check out some of the coverage in the blogosphere, especially some of the blogs from our Sun Campus Ambassadors.) As I was preparing for my presentation at the conference, I rediscovered Revolutionary Wealth, a book by two of my favorite authors, Heidi and Alvin Toffler.  Back in the early 1980s, Alvin Toffler first coined the concept of "prosumers": the idea that consumers become involved in the production process.  As prescient as Toffler was, I'm sure even he couldn't have imagined how open source, community development and social networking technologies make "prosumption" possible on an unprecedented scale.  (It irks me that Donald Tapscott, who wrote Wikinomics, claims to have coined this term and concept, but I digress.)

Anyway, the Tofflers have written a beautiful chapter about education that everyone should read. Here's an excerpt:

"Mass education designed for the industrial age meets the needs of neither the pre-industrial village nor the post-industrial future.  Rural education—indeed , all education—has to be totally reconceptualized.  Today technology offers educators a tool for customizing education to the diverse cultures and needs of small groups and even individuals."

We are approaching a time when we will be able—inexpensively—to put in every village some kind of computer connected in some way to the outside world. A time when children, given the chance, can, as we saw in India, teach themselves to access the Internet. A time when multiplayer gamers can advance their own learning through distant online mentors.

This time isn't in the future. It's here now. At the ERC last week, I sawit. Aaron Walsh, director of the Media Grid Immersive Education Initiative, showed a demo of a virtual world in which students can meet at the Valley of the Kings in Egypt and explore the pyramids instead of just reading about them. They can walk through the tombs, look around, and even fly through the air to see things up close that they couldn't necessarily see in the real world.

The creators of this lesson have figured out how to bring multiple digital media sources together in the same virtual world, thus creating an even more interesting way to learn by accident and discovery instead of rote memorization and regurgitation.  This new way of bring the virtual world to the real world—and real worlds to the virtual—may be one of the best examples so far of providing the personalized and individualized learning that the Tofflers talk about in their book.

Organizations like the New Media Consortium are exploring ways to use these new technologies to advance learning. On February 24, NMC announced a $250,000 two-year collaboration with Sun to launch the Open Virtual Worlds Project, an effort that is aimed at making it easier to learn, work, and exchange ideas in virtual space. The project will develop a range of standards-based, portable open-source educational spaces, content, and objects, and use them to extend Sun's open source Project Darkstar and Project Wonderland platforms. It's an exciting time to be involved in education, that's for sure.