Quantcast
Channel: SparkFun Electronics Comments
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 44542

Karl Bielefeldt on Whatever Happened to The Future?

$
0
0

There are two forces working against “the future”: economics and education. Economics means the benefits of the new technology must outweigh the costs. Take self-opening doors, for example. We’ve had the technology for that since before I was born, but no one has it at their home, because the alternative is simpler, cheaper, and meets our needs just fine. Where is the technology used? Where the benefits outweigh the costs: at stores where you need to push a cart through the doors, and where it helps people with wheelchairs get around more easily. Same goes for flying cars, or ubiquitous electric cars. We’ve had the technology for a while that makes it possible, but it won’t become widespread until it is cheaper, safer, and more convenient than what we’ve got.

The other factor is education. Every once in a while Star Trek will show a junior high student complaining about calculus and warp core theory. The presumption is new technologies will get pushed earlier and earlier into curricula, but that is happening extremely slowly, if at all in real life.

If they’re lucky, kids will get some basic education in using computers as an office tool: writing papers, doing research, making presentations, etc. The programming knowledge needed to advance the technology is still only taught at an extremely basic level until you get to college. Electronics teaching is practically non-existent in our elementary and secondary school systems, even though kids have the aptitude for it at relatively early ages. What education does happen is done almost exclusively as extra-curricular activities. It’s a travesty that most kids graduate high school without even doing something as simple as blinking an LED using an Arduino.

The unfortunate result is the maker movement is largely inaccessible to people unless you have post-secondary education in it, or you personally know a maker who can mentor you, or you are extremely motivated to teach yourself using the Internet.


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 44542

Trending Articles