WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.379 I want you to close your eyes for a second. We're 00:00:02.379 --> 00:00:05.960 going to do a little time travel. Imagine a sound. 00:00:06.280 --> 00:00:09.679 It is a very specific, mechanical, rhythmic grinding 00:00:09.679 --> 00:00:13.359 clunk, whirr, clunk. Oh, man, I know that sound. 00:00:13.880 --> 00:00:16.359 That is the sound of deep -seated digital anxiety. 00:00:16.519 --> 00:00:19.960 It really is. It is the sound of a plastic floppy 00:00:19.960 --> 00:00:22.199 disk being shoved into a drive. And that heavy 00:00:22.199 --> 00:00:26.179 lever snapping down. Exactly. And then the agonizingly 00:00:26.179 --> 00:00:29.219 slow hum of a machine trying to read magnetic 00:00:29.219 --> 00:00:31.739 tape. You finally get your word processor open, 00:00:31.899 --> 00:00:34.840 you type three sentences, and then tragedy strikes. 00:00:35.159 --> 00:00:36.840 you need to save. Right, and you realize you 00:00:36.840 --> 00:00:38.920 left your data disk in your locker. Or even worse, 00:00:38.920 --> 00:00:40.920 you have to pull the program disk out, find the 00:00:40.920 --> 00:00:42.899 data disk, shove that one in, and just pray the 00:00:42.899 --> 00:00:44.719 whole system does not freeze while it writes 00:00:44.719 --> 00:00:47.359 the file. It is a sensory memory that defines 00:00:47.359 --> 00:00:49.359 a whole generation of students. It definitely 00:00:49.359 --> 00:00:53.380 does. But today, we aren't just reminiscing about 00:00:53.380 --> 00:00:55.920 clunky hardware or the good old days of green 00:00:55.920 --> 00:00:58.479 screens. We are going to unpack how we got from 00:00:58.479 --> 00:01:02.020 that frustrating mechanical process to the seamless 00:01:02.020 --> 00:01:05.159 cloud -based classrooms of today. Because it 00:01:05.159 --> 00:01:08.159 is a much bigger story than just computers getting 00:01:08.159 --> 00:01:11.819 faster. It is actually a timeline of how we learn, 00:01:12.180 --> 00:01:14.900 how schools are physically built, and ultimately, 00:01:15.340 --> 00:01:17.659 who gets left behind when the technology moves 00:01:17.659 --> 00:01:20.420 faster than the sociology. To guide us through 00:01:20.420 --> 00:01:22.900 this evolution, we're doing a deep dive into 00:01:22.900 --> 00:01:26.000 a really comprehensive history titled, A Brief 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:28.659 History of Computers in Schools. It was written 00:01:28.659 --> 00:01:31.359 by Gary Ackerman for HackScience .Education, 00:01:31.579 --> 00:01:34.560 published in January 2026. It is a fantastic 00:01:34.560 --> 00:01:37.040 piece. Ackerman does not just list the gadgets. 00:01:37.299 --> 00:01:39.739 He traces the structural changes in education. 00:01:40.239 --> 00:01:42.540 He makes the argument that every time the technology 00:01:42.540 --> 00:01:44.859 shifted, the actual shape of the school day and 00:01:44.859 --> 00:01:47.299 the role of the teacher shifted right along with 00:01:47.299 --> 00:01:50.060 it. So our mission today is to trace that line. 00:01:50.439 --> 00:01:52.180 We need to understand how we went from paying 00:01:52.180 --> 00:01:54.599 long -distance phone charges just to run a single 00:01:54.599 --> 00:01:56.959 line of code to a world where every kid has a 00:01:56.959 --> 00:01:58.959 Chromebook and the classroom technically never 00:01:58.959 --> 00:02:02.040 ends. And to do that, we have to go back way 00:02:02.040 --> 00:02:04.019 further than the floppy disk. We need to go back 00:02:04.019 --> 00:02:06.340 to an era where the idea of a personal computer 00:02:06.340 --> 00:02:08.800 was basically science fiction. Okay, the pre 00:02:08.800 --> 00:02:12.539 -desktop era. So we are talking late 60s, early 00:02:12.539 --> 00:02:15.590 70s here. Exactly. And this is actually the first 00:02:15.590 --> 00:02:18.789 big misconception people have. They assume schools 00:02:18.789 --> 00:02:20.689 did not have computers until the Apple II or 00:02:20.689 --> 00:02:23.090 the Commodore arrived in the 80s. But Ackerman 00:02:23.090 --> 00:02:25.689 points out that schools had terminals. Now, for 00:02:25.689 --> 00:02:27.370 anyone who did not live through this, we should 00:02:27.370 --> 00:02:29.490 probably define what a terminal actually was 00:02:29.490 --> 00:02:31.909 in this context, because it was not a screen 00:02:31.909 --> 00:02:34.629 sitting on a desk, right? Well, in rare cases 00:02:34.629 --> 00:02:37.250 later on, you might see a very small green screen. 00:02:37.590 --> 00:02:40.930 But in the earliest days described here, no, 00:02:41.469 --> 00:02:45.139 it was a teletype. picture a heavy, incredibly 00:02:45.139 --> 00:02:48.180 noisy electric typewriter. So there was no monitor 00:02:48.180 --> 00:02:50.900 at all, just paper. Just paper. You type a command 00:02:50.900 --> 00:02:53.099 on the keyboard, that command travels out of 00:02:53.099 --> 00:02:55.800 the machine over a wire and goes to a mainframe 00:02:55.800 --> 00:02:58.379 computer that might be 50 miles away. Wow. Yeah. 00:02:58.680 --> 00:03:00.759 And then the mainframe does the math. and sends 00:03:00.759 --> 00:03:03.120 the answer back, which the typewriter then physically 00:03:03.120 --> 00:03:04.900 types out onto the paper in front of you. So 00:03:04.900 --> 00:03:07.259 you are essentially text messaging a supercomputer. 00:03:07.599 --> 00:03:09.340 That is a great way to put it. You are having 00:03:09.340 --> 00:03:12.500 a very slow, very expensive text conversation 00:03:12.500 --> 00:03:15.979 with a machine the size of a room. And actually, 00:03:16.080 --> 00:03:18.199 speaking of location, the source brings up a 00:03:18.199 --> 00:03:20.099 fascinating point about the geography of this. 00:03:20.580 --> 00:03:22.840 When we think early tech, where do we usually 00:03:22.840 --> 00:03:25.500 think of? Silicon Valley. You know, garages in 00:03:25.500 --> 00:03:28.430 Palo Alto. Naturally. But Ackerman highlights 00:03:28.430 --> 00:03:30.810 that the early hubs for school computing were 00:03:30.810 --> 00:03:33.069 actually places like New Hampshire, Minnesota, 00:03:33.289 --> 00:03:35.389 and Illinois. Which is definitely not the map 00:03:35.389 --> 00:03:38.669 I would have drawn. Why there? It was all about 00:03:38.669 --> 00:03:42.389 proximity to the big iron, the mainframes. You 00:03:42.389 --> 00:03:43.949 had Dartmouth and New Hampshire, the University 00:03:43.949 --> 00:03:46.050 of Illinois. These were the centers of computer 00:03:46.050 --> 00:03:48.729 science research. Local schools in those specific 00:03:48.729 --> 00:03:51.129 areas could physically or telephonically connect 00:03:51.129 --> 00:03:53.189 to those university mainframes Okay, but you 00:03:53.189 --> 00:03:54.889 mentioned telephonically this brings us to what 00:03:54.889 --> 00:03:56.969 feels like the biggest constraint of this era 00:03:56.969 --> 00:03:59.389 It was not just that the machines were rare. 00:03:59.409 --> 00:04:02.050 No, it was the cost of the connection itself 00:04:02.050 --> 00:04:04.729 This is the part that blows my mind when we look 00:04:04.729 --> 00:04:07.490 at it through a modern lens to connect that teletype 00:04:07.490 --> 00:04:11.069 to the mainframe You were using a standard copper 00:04:11.069 --> 00:04:13.990 telephone line plain old telephone service exactly 00:04:13.990 --> 00:04:18.529 and in 1972 You did not have unlimited data. 00:04:19.230 --> 00:04:21.829 You often did not even have unlimited local calling. 00:04:22.410 --> 00:04:24.790 If the university was in the next county, that 00:04:24.790 --> 00:04:27.009 was a long distance call. Oh, I see where this 00:04:27.009 --> 00:04:29.050 is going. Every minute you are coding, the meter 00:04:29.050 --> 00:04:31.910 is running. Ackerman notes that one of the single 00:04:31.910 --> 00:04:35.129 largest line items in early educational computing 00:04:35.129 --> 00:04:38.569 budgets was not the hardware. It was the phone 00:04:38.569 --> 00:04:42.569 bill. You were paying AT &T per minute just to 00:04:42.569 --> 00:04:45.220 learn basic code. That creates a massive barrier 00:04:45.220 --> 00:04:47.639 to entry. Just imagine if a school today had 00:04:47.639 --> 00:04:50.120 to pay a surcharge every single time a student 00:04:50.120 --> 00:04:52.579 googled a fact. You would bankrupt the district 00:04:52.579 --> 00:04:55.079 by second period. It made computing a highly 00:04:55.079 --> 00:04:57.240 scarce resource. It was something you did for 00:04:57.240 --> 00:04:59.579 a very specific reason, for a very short amount 00:04:59.579 --> 00:05:01.759 of time, and usually only if you're in the advanced 00:05:01.759 --> 00:05:04.240 math club. It was not for everyone. It was for 00:05:04.240 --> 00:05:06.920 the elite few who could be trusted not to waste 00:05:06.920 --> 00:05:09.079 the connection time. Which perfectly explains 00:05:09.079 --> 00:05:11.800 why the arrival of the desktop in the late 70s 00:05:11.800 --> 00:05:14.420 and early 80s felt like such a massive liberation. 00:05:14.680 --> 00:05:17.240 This is phase two in our timeline. The standalone 00:05:17.240 --> 00:05:20.040 era. Suddenly you did not need the phone line 00:05:20.040 --> 00:05:22.339 at all. The brain was right there on the desk. 00:05:22.439 --> 00:05:25.240 You owned the compute cycle. Well, brain might 00:05:25.240 --> 00:05:28.160 be a generous term. We are back to the box of 00:05:28.160 --> 00:05:31.180 disks reality that we started with. We are. And 00:05:31.180 --> 00:05:33.639 Ackerman paints a very vivid picture of this 00:05:33.639 --> 00:05:36.879 workflow in the source. It is important to understand 00:05:36.879 --> 00:05:39.480 this because it dictated exactly how classrooms 00:05:39.480 --> 00:05:42.259 were managed. These early machines, your Apple 00:05:42.259 --> 00:05:45.560 IIs, early DOS machines, mostly did not have 00:05:45.560 --> 00:05:47.839 hard drives. Right. The computer was essentially 00:05:47.839 --> 00:05:50.459 just a shell. The operating system, the software, 00:05:50.720 --> 00:05:53.180 your personal files, they all lived on floppy 00:05:53.180 --> 00:05:55.540 disks. So just walk through the user experience 00:05:55.540 --> 00:05:57.540 for a second. You sit down. You want to write 00:05:57.540 --> 00:06:00.139 an essay. You insert the word processing disk. 00:06:00.540 --> 00:06:02.199 You turn the machine on. It boots up into the 00:06:02.199 --> 00:06:04.699 writing program. You take that disk out. You 00:06:04.699 --> 00:06:06.779 put in your my homework disk to save your work. 00:06:07.120 --> 00:06:09.199 But then let us say the teacher says, OK, now 00:06:09.199 --> 00:06:11.230 we're going to do a math drill. You cannot just 00:06:11.230 --> 00:06:13.470 minimize the window. You have to shut the machine 00:06:13.470 --> 00:06:16.029 entirely off. You find the math blaster disk. 00:06:16.170 --> 00:06:18.310 You insert it. You turn the machine back on. 00:06:18.569 --> 00:06:21.250 It was an intensely physical, incredibly slow 00:06:21.250 --> 00:06:24.490 process. And this inefficiency is what led to 00:06:24.490 --> 00:06:27.050 a major structural invention that I think almost 00:06:27.050 --> 00:06:29.529 everyone listening will remember. The computer 00:06:29.529 --> 00:06:33.310 lab. Yes. This is a classic case of logistics 00:06:33.310 --> 00:06:37.149 driving pedagogy. Schools looked at this situation. 00:06:37.899 --> 00:06:41.180 expensive machines, boxes of fragile disks, long 00:06:41.180 --> 00:06:44.379 boot up times, and realized they could not just 00:06:44.379 --> 00:06:46.899 put one in every classroom. It was way too chaotic. 00:06:47.019 --> 00:06:49.100 So they corralled them. They aggregated them. 00:06:49.459 --> 00:06:51.339 They took a spare classroom, stripped up the 00:06:51.339 --> 00:06:53.660 regular desks, installed distinct rows of tables, 00:06:53.899 --> 00:06:56.360 and put all 20 computers in one room. I remember 00:06:56.360 --> 00:06:58.740 this so vividly. It was a whole event. Tuesday 00:06:58.740 --> 00:07:01.699 at 10 a .m. was computer time. You lined up, 00:07:01.800 --> 00:07:03.879 you marched down the hall, you sat down, you 00:07:03.879 --> 00:07:06.379 did your 45 minutes of Oregon Trail or typing 00:07:06.379 --> 00:07:08.779 drills, and then you left. But think about what 00:07:08.779 --> 00:07:10.660 that actually does to the concept of learning. 00:07:11.160 --> 00:07:13.660 It separates computing from the actual subject 00:07:13.660 --> 00:07:16.519 matter. You were not using the computer to analyze 00:07:16.519 --> 00:07:18.879 history during history class. You were not using 00:07:18.879 --> 00:07:21.019 it to write a report during English class. You 00:07:21.019 --> 00:07:23.339 went to a special room to learn computer literacy. 00:07:23.620 --> 00:07:26.139 It made the computer the subject itself rather 00:07:26.139 --> 00:07:28.639 than the tool to learn other things. Precisely. 00:07:28.759 --> 00:07:32.279 It became a destination. And that model, the 00:07:32.279 --> 00:07:35.319 lab model, dominated education for nearly two 00:07:35.319 --> 00:07:37.899 decades. It worked perfectly for the hardware 00:07:37.899 --> 00:07:40.220 constraints of the time, but it was terrible 00:07:40.220 --> 00:07:42.730 for integration. So how did we finally break 00:07:42.730 --> 00:07:44.750 out of the lab? Well, the walls started to come 00:07:44.750 --> 00:07:47.389 down in the late 90s. This is phase three, the 00:07:47.389 --> 00:07:49.649 infrastructure boom. And according to Ackerman, 00:07:50.029 --> 00:07:51.949 this is when the federal government decided to 00:07:51.949 --> 00:07:54.329 get involved in a massive way. We are talking 00:07:54.329 --> 00:07:56.689 about the Clinton era here. The source mentions 00:07:56.689 --> 00:07:59.970 two specific programs, the Technology Literacy 00:07:59.970 --> 00:08:03.529 Challenge or TLC and the E -Rate. These were 00:08:03.529 --> 00:08:06.550 absolute game changers. The TLC was essentially 00:08:06.550 --> 00:08:08.889 a massive grant program provided billions of 00:08:08.889 --> 00:08:11.620 dollars to states. But it had a condition attached 00:08:11.620 --> 00:08:13.800 to it that was really smart. It did not just 00:08:13.800 --> 00:08:15.980 pay for the beige boxes, it paid for professional 00:08:15.980 --> 00:08:18.040 development. Because they realized teachers actually 00:08:18.040 --> 00:08:20.040 did not know how to use them. Yes, and we will 00:08:20.040 --> 00:08:22.079 get to that Apple Classroom's finding in just 00:08:22.079 --> 00:08:24.579 a moment. But the bigger logistical hurdle was 00:08:24.579 --> 00:08:27.180 the e -rate program. This is the Universal Service 00:08:27.180 --> 00:08:30.160 Fund. The goal was simple, connect every single 00:08:30.160 --> 00:08:32.799 school and library to the Information Superhighway. 00:08:32.980 --> 00:08:36.559 I love that term, Information Superhighway. Very 00:08:36.559 --> 00:08:40.159 90s. Very 90s. But here's the problem that Ackerman 00:08:40.159 --> 00:08:42.460 highlights, and it is one of those things you 00:08:42.460 --> 00:08:44.419 do not really think about until you are trying 00:08:44.419 --> 00:08:47.340 to physically do it. The government paid for 00:08:47.340 --> 00:08:50.279 the computers. The government paid for the internet 00:08:50.279 --> 00:08:53.600 connection to the building itself. But who pays 00:08:53.600 --> 00:08:56.700 to get the internet from the front door of the 00:08:56.700 --> 00:09:00.120 school to the actual classroom? Ah, the cabling 00:09:00.120 --> 00:09:02.779 problem. Right. Schools are built of cinder block, 00:09:03.059 --> 00:09:05.720 brick and concrete. Most were built in the 50s 00:09:05.720 --> 00:09:08.080 or earlier. They were definitely not designed 00:09:08.080 --> 00:09:11.039 with hollow walls for running CAT5 ethernet cables. 00:09:11.600 --> 00:09:14.259 And drilling through concrete is incredibly expensive. 00:09:14.779 --> 00:09:17.139 Prohibitively expensive. A lot of schools had 00:09:17.139 --> 00:09:18.879 the internet sitting in the principal's office, 00:09:19.220 --> 00:09:21.379 but absolutely no budget to run the wires down 00:09:21.379 --> 00:09:23.860 the hall to the kids. The source mentioned something 00:09:23.860 --> 00:09:26.720 called net days. This sounds almost like a community 00:09:26.720 --> 00:09:29.559 service event. It effectively was. It was basically 00:09:29.559 --> 00:09:32.620 a barn raising for IT. Because the budgets fell 00:09:32.620 --> 00:09:35.700 so short, you had these net day events where 00:09:35.700 --> 00:09:39.299 local volunteers, parents, local electricians, 00:09:39.440 --> 00:09:42.320 tech enthusiasts would literally show up on a 00:09:42.320 --> 00:09:45.279 Saturday with spools of cable and power drills. 00:09:45.679 --> 00:09:48.000 That is such a cool image. Just parents crawling 00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:50.519 through drop ceilings and crawl spaces just to 00:09:50.519 --> 00:09:52.960 get a classroom online. It really shows you how 00:09:52.960 --> 00:09:55.519 desperate the drive was to get connected. But 00:09:55.519 --> 00:09:58.259 amidst all this drilling and wiring, there was 00:09:58.259 --> 00:10:00.879 a very sobering realization happening on the 00:10:00.879 --> 00:10:04.100 educational side. Ackerman cites the Apple Classrooms 00:10:04.100 --> 00:10:06.480 of Tomorrow research here. This was the study 00:10:06.480 --> 00:10:08.220 that looked at what actually happens when you 00:10:08.220 --> 00:10:11.139 just dump computers onto teachers' desks. Yes. 00:10:11.639 --> 00:10:15.139 And the finding was, well, chaos. Or, more accurately, 00:10:15.679 --> 00:10:17.879 underutilization. They found that if you take 00:10:17.879 --> 00:10:20.340 a teacher who has spent 20 years using a chalkboard 00:10:20.340 --> 00:10:22.600 and textbooks and you put a computer on their 00:10:22.600 --> 00:10:25.120 desk without any training, nothing changes. The 00:10:25.120 --> 00:10:27.240 computer just becomes a very expensive paperweight. 00:10:27.580 --> 00:10:29.340 So the hardware is basically useless without 00:10:29.340 --> 00:10:31.360 the software of the teacher's brain being updated 00:10:31.360 --> 00:10:34.139 first. Exactly. You have to teach the teacher 00:10:34.139 --> 00:10:37.179 how to teach with the tool. This triggered a 00:10:37.179 --> 00:10:40.500 massive shift in the IT role. Suddenly the computer 00:10:40.500 --> 00:10:43.110 guy at the school could not just be a technician 00:10:43.110 --> 00:10:46.090 fixing broken wires, they had to become an instructional 00:10:46.090 --> 00:10:48.830 coach. They had to start saying, here is how 00:10:48.830 --> 00:10:52.129 you use this software to teach fractions, not 00:10:52.129 --> 00:10:55.570 just here's how you turn the monitor on. So we 00:10:55.570 --> 00:10:57.649 wired the buildings, we trained the teachers, 00:10:57.889 --> 00:11:00.690 and that brings us into the 2000s and the gradual 00:11:00.690 --> 00:11:03.009 death of the computer lab. It was the death of 00:11:03.009 --> 00:11:05.710 the lab by necessity, really. Once high speed 00:11:05.710 --> 00:11:08.110 internet reached the classroom, the entire logic 00:11:08.110 --> 00:11:10.600 of the lab fell apart. If you want to use the 00:11:10.600 --> 00:11:12.960 internet to look up a primary source for a history 00:11:12.960 --> 00:11:15.399 debate, you need to do it now, right in the middle 00:11:15.399 --> 00:11:17.779 of the debate. You cannot say, hold that thought 00:11:17.779 --> 00:11:19.720 class, we are going to the lab next Thursday 00:11:19.720 --> 00:11:21.559 to check those facts. Right, so the computers 00:11:21.559 --> 00:11:23.860 started trickling back into the regular classrooms, 00:11:24.220 --> 00:11:26.679 which sets the perfect stage for the modern era, 00:11:27.039 --> 00:11:29.519 phase four. The one -to -one era. Meaning one 00:11:29.519 --> 00:11:32.559 device for every single student. And the device 00:11:32.559 --> 00:11:35.960 that definitively won this war, according to 00:11:35.960 --> 00:11:39.100 the source, is the Chromebook. Ackerman estimates 00:11:39.100 --> 00:11:41.940 they make up over 60 % of all school devices 00:11:41.940 --> 00:11:44.759 now. Why the Chromebook though? Why not iPads 00:11:44.759 --> 00:11:47.000 or Windows laptops? Price and management are 00:11:47.000 --> 00:11:50.220 huge factors, but mostly it is about the shift 00:11:50.220 --> 00:11:53.120 to the cloud. And this is the critical distinction. 00:11:53.340 --> 00:11:56.179 Think back to that desktop with the floppy disks. 00:11:56.440 --> 00:11:58.879 That was a local machine. Everything happened 00:11:58.879 --> 00:12:01.039 inside that physical box. Whereas a Chromebook 00:12:01.039 --> 00:12:03.360 is basically just a window to the internet. Correct. 00:12:03.519 --> 00:12:06.919 It has almost no local storage. It is just a 00:12:06.919 --> 00:12:09.570 browser with a keyboard attached. But that means, 00:12:09.929 --> 00:12:11.710 if a kid drops their Chromebook in a puddle, 00:12:11.990 --> 00:12:14.009 it is not a disaster. You hand them a new one, 00:12:14.269 --> 00:12:16.730 they log in and poof all their essays, their 00:12:16.730 --> 00:12:18.970 history projects, their emails. It is all there 00:12:18.970 --> 00:12:20.750 oaktily. Because it lives on Google servers, 00:12:20.929 --> 00:12:22.870 not in the machine itself. Exactly. It turned 00:12:22.870 --> 00:12:25.629 computing into a utility. And it fundamentally 00:12:25.629 --> 00:12:27.690 changed the job of the school IT department yet 00:12:27.690 --> 00:12:29.929 again. They're not installing software updates 00:12:29.929 --> 00:12:32.570 on 500 individual hard drives anymore. No, because 00:12:32.570 --> 00:12:35.070 the software is just a website. Right. So the 00:12:35.070 --> 00:12:38.370 IT role shifted to managing accounts, figuring 00:12:38.370 --> 00:12:41.730 out who has access to what, and most critically, 00:12:42.389 --> 00:12:44.250 maintaining the Wi -Fi infrastructure. Because 00:12:44.250 --> 00:12:46.950 if the Wi -Fi goes down now... School essentially 00:12:46.950 --> 00:12:50.190 stops. In the mainframe days, if the phone line 00:12:50.190 --> 00:12:52.759 was busy... You just opened your textbook. In 00:12:52.759 --> 00:12:55.120 the desktop days, if the internet was down, you 00:12:55.120 --> 00:12:58.259 could still type your essay. Today, the textbook 00:12:58.259 --> 00:13:00.919 is online. The essay is in Google Docs. The grade 00:13:00.919 --> 00:13:03.519 book is on the web. Without the connection, the 00:13:03.519 --> 00:13:06.360 Chromebook is a brick. This complete reliance 00:13:06.360 --> 00:13:08.940 on connectivity leads us to the final and I think 00:13:08.940 --> 00:13:11.259 the most profound part of Ackerman's analysis. 00:13:11.639 --> 00:13:13.960 The digital divide. We hear this term all the 00:13:13.960 --> 00:13:15.480 time, but I really love how the source breaks 00:13:15.480 --> 00:13:18.059 it down. He argues it is not a static thing. 00:13:18.159 --> 00:13:20.759 It has actually evolved in three distinct generations. 00:13:20.940 --> 00:13:22.700 It is a brilliant framework. It helps us see 00:13:22.700 --> 00:13:24.860 that we keep solving one problem only to immediately 00:13:24.860 --> 00:13:26.799 reveal the next one. So let us run through them. 00:13:26.960 --> 00:13:29.759 Generation 1. Generation 1 was purely about hardware. 00:13:30.139 --> 00:13:33.519 This was the 80s and 90s. Simple inequity. Rich 00:13:33.519 --> 00:13:36.860 schools had computers. Marginalized or poor schools 00:13:36.860 --> 00:13:40.480 did not. The divide was strictly between the 00:13:40.480 --> 00:13:43.019 haves and the have -nots of physical boxes. Okay. 00:13:43.179 --> 00:13:45.259 And we mostly solved that with federal funding 00:13:45.259 --> 00:13:47.120 and cheaper devices like Chromebook. So what 00:13:47.120 --> 00:13:49.620 was Generation 2? Generation 2 was about instruction. 00:13:50.500 --> 00:13:52.080 This is what we talked about with the teacher 00:13:52.080 --> 00:13:54.559 training. You might have a school full of computers, 00:13:54.940 --> 00:13:56.799 but if the teachers do not know how to use them 00:13:56.799 --> 00:13:59.299 effectively, the students are still disadvantaged. 00:14:00.220 --> 00:14:02.379 The divide was between students who had tech 00:14:02.379 --> 00:14:05.179 -savvy mentorship and those who did not. Which 00:14:05.179 --> 00:14:08.179 brings us to Generation 3. The current divide. 00:14:08.419 --> 00:14:10.919 Connectivity. And this is where Ackerman introduces 00:14:10.919 --> 00:14:14.340 the cloud paradox. Walk me through this paradox. 00:14:14.659 --> 00:14:16.740 Well, ideally, the cloud is the great equalizer. 00:14:17.259 --> 00:14:18.980 It does not matter if you have a slow, cheap 00:14:18.980 --> 00:14:21.019 computer or a fast expense one, as the heavy 00:14:21.019 --> 00:14:24.240 processing happens in the cloud. Access should 00:14:24.240 --> 00:14:26.659 theoretically be perfectly democratic. But the 00:14:26.659 --> 00:14:30.019 cloud fundamentally relies on a pipe. We have 00:14:30.019 --> 00:14:32.919 built an entire school system where homework, 00:14:33.360 --> 00:14:35.899 research, collaboration, and submission all happen 00:14:35.899 --> 00:14:38.879 online. We assume the student can access these 00:14:38.879 --> 00:14:42.220 tools 24 -7. But when that bell rings at 3 p 00:14:42.220 --> 00:14:45.059 .m., the student leaves the school Wi -Fi. Exactly. 00:14:45.320 --> 00:14:47.460 If that student goes home to a house with fiber 00:14:47.460 --> 00:14:50.419 optic broadband, their learning continues seamlessly. 00:14:51.100 --> 00:14:53.580 If they go home to a rural area with no service 00:14:53.580 --> 00:14:55.740 or an apartment where the family just cannot 00:14:55.740 --> 00:14:58.080 afford broadband, they are completely cut off 00:14:58.080 --> 00:15:00.299 from their classroom. So the school day technically 00:15:00.299 --> 00:15:02.960 never ends because the resources are always available, 00:15:02.960 --> 00:15:04.940 but only for the kids who have the infrastructure 00:15:04.940 --> 00:15:08.000 at home. That is the modern divide. It is not 00:15:08.000 --> 00:15:10.399 about whether the school has a computer lab anymore. 00:15:10.860 --> 00:15:12.919 It is about the infrastructure in the student's 00:15:12.919 --> 00:15:15.480 living room. We have seen kids sitting in fast 00:15:15.480 --> 00:15:17.659 food parking lots just to submit their homework 00:15:17.659 --> 00:15:20.320 because they need the free Wi -Fi. That is a 00:15:20.320 --> 00:15:23.539 really heavy realization. We spent 50 years trying 00:15:23.539 --> 00:15:25.879 to get computers into the school building. And 00:15:25.879 --> 00:15:28.269 now that we finally have, we realize The school 00:15:28.269 --> 00:15:30.710 is not the container anymore. The network is 00:15:30.710 --> 00:15:33.669 the container. So let us recap this journey because 00:15:33.669 --> 00:15:36.429 it is a massive arc. We started with the pre 00:15:36.429 --> 00:15:39.669 -desktop era teletypes and those expensive long 00:15:39.669 --> 00:15:42.490 -distance phone bills where computing was a rare, 00:15:42.690 --> 00:15:45.370 highly costly event. Then we moved to the desktop 00:15:45.370 --> 00:15:48.330 era. The disk swap dance, where computing was 00:15:48.330 --> 00:15:50.970 a clumsy physical process that we sequestered 00:15:50.970 --> 00:15:53.629 into labs down the hall. Then came the infrastructure 00:15:53.629 --> 00:15:56.809 boom of the 90s. We wired the walls, we trained 00:15:56.809 --> 00:15:59.370 the teachers, and we finally connected the buildings. 00:15:59.570 --> 00:16:02.889 Leading us straight to today. The Chromebook 00:16:02.889 --> 00:16:05.909 era. The device is cheap, the software is free, 00:16:06.250 --> 00:16:08.830 but the dependence on the internet is absolute. 00:16:09.210 --> 00:16:10.809 You know, looking at this whole timeline, it 00:16:10.809 --> 00:16:13.029 feels like we have almost come full circle. How 00:16:13.029 --> 00:16:15.070 so? Think about the mainframe era we started 00:16:15.070 --> 00:16:18.289 with. The user sat at a dumb terminal, a screen 00:16:18.289 --> 00:16:20.929 with no brain connected to a massive supercomputer 00:16:20.929 --> 00:16:23.850 somewhere else via phone line. Right. And today, 00:16:24.009 --> 00:16:25.830 a Chromebook is essentially a dumb terminal. 00:16:26.169 --> 00:16:28.470 It is a screen connected to a massive supercomputer, 00:16:28.690 --> 00:16:31.350 the cloud via Wi -Fi. We have moved the intelligence 00:16:31.350 --> 00:16:33.570 back off the desk and entirely into the network. 00:16:33.799 --> 00:16:36.659 That is a fascinating parallel. The dumb terminal 00:16:36.659 --> 00:16:39.899 is back. It is just faster, it has a color screen, 00:16:40.120 --> 00:16:42.559 and it fits right in a backpack. And crucially, 00:16:42.840 --> 00:16:45.120 it requires a constant subscription to the network 00:16:45.120 --> 00:16:47.340 to actually work. Which brings us right back 00:16:47.340 --> 00:16:49.759 to the question of access. So as we wrap up this 00:16:49.759 --> 00:16:52.639 deep dive, what is the one big takeaway you want 00:16:52.639 --> 00:16:55.059 our listener to leave with today? I think it 00:16:55.059 --> 00:16:57.759 is that we need to start thinking of technology 00:16:57.759 --> 00:17:01.100 in schools as a subject or some special tool. 00:17:01.419 --> 00:17:04.759 It has become the infrastructure, just like electricity, 00:17:05.079 --> 00:17:07.380 heating, or plumbing. You do not learn heating, 00:17:07.660 --> 00:17:09.640 but you cannot run a modern school without it. 00:17:10.019 --> 00:17:12.400 The cloud is now the environment in which all 00:17:12.400 --> 00:17:14.799 learning happens. And if that environment fundamentally 00:17:14.799 --> 00:17:18.019 relies on connectivity, then equity is purely 00:17:18.019 --> 00:17:21.200 about access to that connection. Precisely. If 00:17:21.200 --> 00:17:23.440 you deny a student access to the cloud, you're 00:17:23.440 --> 00:17:25.920 effectively locking the school doors at 3 p .m. 00:17:26.019 --> 00:17:27.819 for them while letting other kids stay in the 00:17:27.819 --> 00:17:30.329 library all night. It leaves us with a provocative 00:17:30.329 --> 00:17:34.029 thought to chew on. If the modern school runs 00:17:34.029 --> 00:17:36.490 entirely on the cloud and the digital divide 00:17:36.490 --> 00:17:40.089 is now about home access, does the school's responsibility 00:17:40.089 --> 00:17:42.829 for infrastructure now technically extend into 00:17:42.829 --> 00:17:45.490 the student's living room? If homework is mandatory 00:17:45.490 --> 00:17:48.630 and the cloud is mandatory, then access must 00:17:48.630 --> 00:17:51.710 be mandatory. But who pays for that internet 00:17:51.710 --> 00:17:54.210 connection at home? The parent? The taxpayer? 00:17:54.470 --> 00:17:56.390 That is the billion -dollar question for the 00:17:56.390 --> 00:17:58.990 next decade of education policy. It really is. 00:17:59.230 --> 00:18:00.869 Something to think about the next time you see 00:18:00.869 --> 00:18:02.690 a kid doing homework on a smartphone at a coffee 00:18:02.690 --> 00:18:06.009 shop. That is it for this deep dive into the 00:18:06.009 --> 00:18:08.269 history of classroom tech. Thanks for listening. 00:18:08.529 --> 00:18:09.029 Catch you next time.