I read a lot of broadband reports – a lot. I generally find them kind of interesting. But occasionally you run into a report – or even just a report description that captures your imagination.
Sputnik Moment: The Call for a National Broadband Policy is such a report. It costs about $3,000 so I won’t be reading anytime soon but I read the description last Friday and then over the weekend I bored several family members with the idea.
The gist is simple – when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957 is lit a fire under the US. I wasn’t around then but I suspect it kind of scared folks into budgeting money for NASA and getting things going. Well, the report authors suggest that we might be there again.
I hope they’re right. Well, I think they’re right and I hope that folks can be spurred into action.
Obviously I’d like to see a big boost in broadband. I think it would help keep us green and bolster economic development in all areas. But also I’d like to see the US do something really well. It just seems like it would spur more success.
I am reading “Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns” by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael B. Horn, and Curtis W. Johnson. In this book, the authors address how Sputnik changed our education system in the 1960s to spur America into greater competition in math and science fields. It seems broadband access would definitely have a role to play in today’s current push towards encouraging students to study science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) subjects. America is once again finding themselves playing “catch up” in a competitive global economy. Our low ranking among other countries in terms of broadband access might be a good place to start.
Mary,
I’ll have to check out that book – thanks! I couldn’t agree with you more. I just heard a bit today on Future Tense about how technology is changing our brains (http://www.publicradio.org/columns/futuretense/2008/10/is-tech-changin.html). It’s only tangentially related but it will be interesting to see how our brains compete with the global community. It seems as if it’s time for us to get on the boat for that reason as well.
In some ways I think that technology has made math and science easier (for those of us who do better with a calculator than paper and pencil). At least it has opened the door to a wider group of students. Perhaps our niche could be finding a way to encourage the traditionally arts-focused brain to get involved with STEM – that could help foster innovation.
Thanks! Ann