Notes from a Netmaker
By William J. Cadogan, Chairman and CEO, ADC Telecommunications,
Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota
Give a man a fish and he will
eat for a day.
Teach a man to fish and he will eat for life.
Chinese proverb
While the adage is true, it hardly begins to describe the challenge facing
today's teachers. Not only must they help prepare students for a vocation
with which to feed themselves, but they must also equip them to function
in—and hopefully contribute to—a complex, fast-changing world. The telecommunications
industry doesn't teach fishing; we leave that to the educators. We are,
however, working hard to provide new, more effective nets, which will make
the work—both teaching and fishing—more efficient.
A Disclaimer
History is full of foolish-sounding predictions made by "experts." We
can see them in our own lifetimes. The 1950 vision of the year 2000 was
full of domestic robots, flying cars, and mile-high buildings. None of that
came to pass, but the real errors were not what was seen, but rather what
they failed to see. Postwar pundits predicted that some day, computers would
weigh as little as one-and-a-half tons. No one imagined that computers would
fit in shirt pockets, that calculators would be free with a tank of gas,
or that megabytes of processing power would be found in a nine year-old's
toy box.
I've learned enough history to believe that, like a highway on a misty
night, the future can only be seen over a relatively short distance. You
may not see the destination, but if you drive sensibly, watch the road,
and trust that it will not lead you over a precipice, you will arrive safely.
I also suspect that the future of communications technology in education
will be determined, not by engineers or by the CEOs of communications companies,
but by educators.
The Role of Communications in Education
Reading has a dual role in school. It is both a life skill to be learned
and a medium through which we learn other skills. Today, communications
has the same role. I am not suggesting that reading has been replaced; simply
that it has been joined by a new potential learning technology.
I say "potential" because, while most American children watch cable television,
view movies on a VCR and play video games, some may go no further. They
may never have the opportunity to explore the Internet, take a class from
an expert in another school, or solve a problem via computerized simulation.
Those who are not so exposed, and who cannot somehow acquire the experience
on their own, will end up like kids of our generation who never graduated
from comic books. They will have a limited grasp of the skill, without recognizing
its real value.
Technology and Deregulation
Chances are, the Law of Gravity will never be repealed. Yet, strange
as it may seem, there are places where the Law of Inflation does not exist.
In telecommunications and data processing, inflation seems to work in reverse.
Due largely to technology, the purchasing power of a dollar, for both processing
power and data speed, is doubling every two to three years.
At the same time, technology exists that will allow some existing networks-and
most new networks-to carry voice, data, and video communication on the same
facilities. Recent deregulation opens virtually the entire field, increasing
the number of potential competitors. Competition, in turn, puts upward pressure
on choice of services and downward pressure on prices. Some service providers
are already modifying their networks to carry the broader range of services.
Most of these newer networks will use fiber, or a hybrid fiber/coaxial
cable (HFC) architecture, which mixes optical and electrical transmission
to carry a mix of signal types. These have tremendous carrying capacity,
and are very flexible. They can be implemented inexpensively and expanded
with demand. They can also be upgraded as new types of service are required,
making them extremely cost-effective. One force driving the development
of these multi-purpose networks is deregulation. Telephone and cable television
companies, long used to protected markets, find themselves suddenly threatened
with competition (or free to compete in new markets, depending upon your
point of view).
Cable companies already have large coaxial networks in place. They are
installing fiber and will add switching capacity in order to offer telephone
service. Phone companies have the switching expertise, already serve every
home and office in their areas, and are adept at recabling; they are already
hard at work converting to fiber, and offering data services.
Many of these service providers are more than willing to provide large-scale
network services to businesses and institutions. It gives them a chance
to try out their new, less regulated capabilities, and gives them a source
of revenue with which to support continued building. In other words, education
can have the benefits of state-of-the-art, private networking without building
a thing. This is what has been done in the Keystone Oaks school district
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Keystone Oaks
Installed in 1995, this district-wide system connects three elementary
schools and a high school/middle school. The private network uses facilities
provided by TeleCommunications Inc. (TCI), the local cable company. ADC
Telecommunications' Multimedia Systems Configuration Group (MSC) provided
design support, equipment, system turn-up, and training. The fiber-based
network provides analog and digital transport of voice, video and data.
Off-network voice traffic is consolidated at the high school, reducing service
costs substantially.
Consolidating services over a single network is cost effective. It allows
two-way interaction in distance learning applications among the schools,
and provides a district-wide Ethernet data network that is used for both
teaching and management tasks. The system delivers broadcast-quality video,
equivalent to commercial services, and provides high-speed access to the
Internet from all locations. The system also has been linked to a number
of other schools outside the district, up to 50 fiber-miles away, and to
a local university.
A Look into the Future
For most schools, an installation like that at Keystone Oaks is the future.
In fact, this is an application in its formative stages. I think I can safely
predict that we will see staggering changes in the next few years. There
will be experimentation, and some false starts, but also a great deal of
creativity and many bountiful harvests.
I realize that speculating about the future of education raises social
and political issues. Regardless of agendas, however, schools can only benefit
from the expansion of options. It is in that spirit, that I offer the following:
- It is easier to move information than to move students. Once a network
is in place, large amounts of information can be transported at very
little incremental cost. This may give new meaning to the idea of equal
educational opportunity.
- Telecommunications will make it possible to create virtual classrooms.
Rural schools could have access to the same resources as urban schools.
City and suburbs may share teachers. Some specializations may even be
shared across the country, e.g. the unique knowledge of a locale like
California's Silicon Valley, Minnesota's Medical Alley, or North Carolina's
Research Triangle.
- Specialized areas of study might not justify the commitment of local
resources; however, the combined demand across a number of schools,
or even districts might. This could enable undergraduates and secondary
school students to participate in the kind of specialized study that
is now only available to graduate students.
- Opportunities for completely individual work will be vastly increased.
What once had to wait for a field trip may be instantly accessible via
video. Research options at all levels will be greatly increased, via
the Internet. Students will find that "the world is their library."
- Teachers will be freed to spend more individualized time with students.
- School design, itself, may change. Within schools, some classrooms
may be replaced with smaller videoconference facilities. Auditoriums
may double as media centers. Other facilities may be specifically designed
to allow students to work individually.
- School locations may become more dispersed. Smaller local facilities
might replace some large central schools.
- Both students' and instructors' time will be used differently. Less
time may be devoted to getting to school or to class; more time will
be available for learning.
- The distinction between in-school work and homework may begin to
blur. As low-cost network access devices become available for home use,
and hybrid fiber/coax networking to the home becomes widespread, students
may be able to continue the day's work at home using the same resources
available at school.
- The entire issue of attendance might come to be viewed differently.
Some "sick days" could still be school days. Options for handicapped
students would be vastly increased.
- Administrative tasks will take relatively less of an instructor's
time and less of a school's resources. After all, administration is
another one of those information-intensive functions. For example, instead
of hand-writing information that must then be hand-entered into a system
at a central location, teachers may simply enter information at a keyboard.
From there, it could go directly into the central database without further
handling. Those who need the information could access it with a few
keystrokes. Security systems would ensure that information is available
only to those authorized to use it.
- Information technology will multiply opportunities for teacher education,
research, skill-building, and communication among colleagues.
Some Thoughts from the World of Business
For many companies, the rate of change in technology-and everything affected
by it-can contribute to a kind of paralysis. In organizations used to a
leisurely rate of change, there is always the hope for "a stabilization
of the technology." Frankly, I don't see any slowdown of change in the foreseeable
future. Some of today's technology will be superseded, but so will tomorrow's.
A business that fails to take advantage of the opportunities provided by
technology loses potential revenues and, with them, the wherewithal to change
in the future. At the same time, those competitors who embrace technology
gain an advantage.
In business, revenues help fund development, so small advantages tend
to increase over time. In other words, one of the primary stimuli for change
in corporate behavior is competition. A few years ago, all of this might
have been irrelevant to education. Schools did not have to deal with competition.
However, competition has become an issue for educators. There is widespread
talk of charter schools and vouchers. Even within districts, we see magnet
schools competing for students.
In a less obvious sense, schools compete with television and video games
for students' attention. Education also faces growing competition for funds.
Business increases revenues by finding ways to offer a more effective, more
appealing product. It reduces costs by designing internal systems to use
resources more efficiently. I am suggesting that, over time, telecommunications
technology in education could serve both of these ends. It will give students
direct exposure to the technology they will face in the workplace; it will
give them greater access to information and resources in all areas. Schools
will save by sharing resources and moving information less expensively.
Administrative tasks will absorb less overhead.
There is one final--and, in my opinion, very compelling--reason to embrace
technology sooner, rather than later: the students. The education they receive
today will be theirs for life. Those students who learn to accept and use
technology will be empowered, both to learn today and to adapt to newer
technology in the future. To the extent that they can be "taught to fish,"
they will leave school better prepared to fend for themselves, and to contribute
to our fast-changing society.
Making the Transition
Obviously, every district has its own needs and constraints. I offer
the following as a strategic framework:
- Allow the possibility. In business, it is often said, "When you're
waist-deep in alligators, it's easy to forget that you came to drain the
swamp." Day-to-day concerns may be pressing, but longer-term planning can
have big payoffs.
- Schools don't have to shoot the moon. Waiting for new, highly-touted-but-nonexistent
technologies could prove fruitless. The fiber and hybrid fiber/coax facilities
available today are fully capable of providing years of service. In fact,
there are no services being talked about for the future that could not be
supported on today's networks.
- Schools don't necessarily have to make large capital outlays. Many
local network providers (e.g., cable and telephone companies) are installing
facilities that can be leased. In some cases, all that would be required
is reallocation of existing communications funds.
- Networking offers tremendous economies of scale. The more services
sharing the network, the less each one costs. Resources that have to be
duplicated today could be shared tomorrow.
- Change is only painful when it is forced on you. When you choose it,
it can be exhilarating.
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