Information Age Education Blog

Technology Use
in Manitoba, Canada Schools

a new free book by

The purpose of this IAE Blog entry is to introduce you to The Download, a free newsletter from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that I enjoy reading (MIT, n.d.). One of the interesting aspects of this free newsletter is that you can specify the areas you like to keep up with, and the weekly newsletter you receive will then focus on the topics you specify. The list of topic areas is:

1. Business Impact
2. Connectivity
3. Sustainable Energy
4. Rewriting Life
5. Intelligent Machines

Samples from a Recent Issue

IBM is one of a large number of companies that are deeply engaged in developing uses of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help solve problems and accomplish tasks (Moursund, 2017a). In 1997, an IBM computer system named Deep Blue defeated the reigning world chess champion in a six-game match. In 2011, an IBM computer system named Watson handily defeated former Jeopardy! winners Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings.

A recent interview of Ginni Rometty, Chief Executive Officer of IBM, discussed what that company is currently doing (Murphy, 9/25/2017). The interview began with Rometty explaining why IBM now uses the terminology Cognitive Computing rather than AI. Quoting Rometty:

Today’s children have grown up routinely viewing computer-generated video and playing computer games. The state of the art in computer graphics includes animated animals and people who are indistinguishable from the “real things.” In recent years, there has been considerable progress in the development of research-based computer games for use in education (Moursund, 2016).

Many companies are developing computer simulations and other computer materials designed to help learners learn. I use the term Highly Interactive Intelligent Computer-assisted Learning (HIICAL) in discussing this type of instructional materials (Moursund, 2002). Quoting from this 15-year old article:

Most days I spend quite a bit of time browsing educational and technical websites. Today, this led me to reading about the early history of transistor radios and transistors.

The transistor was invented in 1947. In many electronic circuits such as in a radio, a transistor could be used in place of a vacuum tube (Wikipedia, n.d.a). The transistor is smaller, much more rugged, has a much longer expected life, and uses much less electric power.