Joe Rueff
May we be the one millionth party to wish you a Happy New Year. As with the other 999,999 well wishers we want to take a little time to review where we’ve been and where we hope to go. Come along, and if you wish to suggest additions or changes send them to us.
Eye2theWorld has two major purposes: 1) Reach as many people as possible who have an interest in educational transformation from the present model toward one that can better attend to the massive needs projected during the next several decades, and 2) to have a tool that helps to keep E2TW before the public so that it can become an important vehicle for discussion of educational issues.
Many people have commented positively on the site, especially the logo. Just recently I was talking with a person in Boca Raton who started our conversation ecstatic about our logo. Now if we could only attract as many followers as Coca Cola . . .!
The theme of this site probably will never lead to huge numbers, at least in the near future. Yet, when we talk about educational transformation, systemic needs for using latest thinking about the relationship of the brain’s operation to cognitive development, auditory problems related to learning, or Zulma Prieto’s thought provoking editorials on peace and love, we bring extremely important ideas to our audience. We think these things are important and we hope that we can gain a following that has these same concerns.
It’s similar to things Ray Kurzweil is doing. Ray is a world renowned inventor/ scientist/ futurist. We feature his book The Singularity Is Near in our book list. Not many people outside of academic circles are familiar with his work. I heard him give a keynote address in a symposium I attended at DePauw University three years ago. Ray has developed what he calls the Law of Accelerating Returns. He can show that since the beginning of time change has occurred exponentially rather than linearly. As we move into the 21st century we are at the brink of an explosion of changes that will lead to a world similar to science fiction scenarios. By mid-century people will be able to “live forever” (because of nanotechnology and breakthroughs in medical sciences); intelligence will have expanded many million fold (as computer technologies literally link our brains to both real and virtual worlds); etc. etc. etc. It’s all based on taking what is happening today, applying the pace of change we can predict, and imagining that our lives (‘our’ used generically) will become so radically different. The implications for education are tremendous. Even if he’s proven to be only partially correct we’re still going to have to make major shifts in our education systems, away from the ‘cottage industry mentality’ that still guides our schools and toward radically different learning environments.
My hope is that our Eye2theWorld can be a part of encouraging discussion about these changes. One of our goals is to secure licenses for Internet transmission in the Educational Broadband Service (EBS) spectrum. This and other Web sites that we could develop could become very important places in our future. But that will only happen if they become important places in the futures for you and others as well.