I spent this morning at Collaborative Expedition Workshop #76, “Strategic Leadership For Networking and Information Technology Education,” at the National Science Foundation. The topic of the workshop was envisioning greater possibilities for strategic leadership in networking and information technology education. The premise was basically that U.S. competitiveness in information technology is declining.
Mark Regets a senior analyst at the National Science Foundation’s Division of Science Resources Statistics was this morning’s presenter. He gave a statistic-rich PowerPoint showing how science and engineering—specifically computer science—degrees and careers are declining in the U.S. while global demand for these skills, as well as international supply, are increasing.
I kept thinking,”what’s the real goal here?” Aren’t we really trying to understand to what extent our workforce is prepared to solve the problems and create the innovations of the future? Education and job selection are, indeed, two proxies for expertise and knowledge, but they don’t capture a number of critical variables.
First of all, today’s students do not learn like we did. They are Digital Natives are growing up in a non-linear, multidimensional world. They are multitasking from the get-go. Such simplistic, linear metrics as “selection of college major,” “graduate degree,” and “position held” cannot accurately represent their interests, experiences or careers. Using 1.0 metrics to measure the 2.0 landscape yields inaccurate conclusions.
Next, we need to ask whether “computer science degree” or “computer science jobs filled” are the right metrics for computer science knowledge? A degree or job is not the goal here, the expertise and skill set are. Could it be that students are learning computer skills informally? Perhaps they’re learning these skills through interactive gaming or perhaps they’re self-taught via online tools and resources.
Taking this one step further, maybe the increased collaboration that’s now possible enables the same levels of innovation and development without formal computer science education because people are leveraging the value of collective intelligence and training. This “shared expertise” does not show up in the statistics for individual degrees earned.
Fourth, it’s important to concede that there has been a shift in perception from computers as a discipline to computers as tools to achieve other objectives. We need to embrace this societal mindshift and incorporate that new realit—that it’s no longer about the tools, it’s about what the tools can DO—into our research and evaluation of a concept like “skill preparedness.”
Finally, it’s easier to create online solutions, programs and tools now than ever before. Many of the tools that exist online today, are, themselves sandboxes for creative problem solving that people want, without requiring formal education to use them. Yesterday’s computer scientists have created tools that enable creation and development by today’s non-computer scientists.
We need to think about educational policy and programs in the context of our constantly and significantly-evolving society. The key to successfully educating future generations is understanding, embracing and adopting a new paradigm that is centered, not on individual career paths, but on collaboration. Lend credence to games, interactive scenario building, hands-on problem-solving, social networking and other new and emerging educational tools. We need to teach the next generation and generations to come as they learn, where they learn and hold them up to new standards, rather than metrics that no longer make sense.
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Thanks, Maxine, for keeping it real. For asking those tough questions. For putting yourself out there and really thinking. Creatively. In and out of the box. To honor all of those students in the back of the room with their hands (still, after all these years!) down. For keeping the intellectual component alive in all that you approach, touch, do!
Maxine,
Thanks for the write-up of my presentation! I think you know from the discussion that I am in strong agreement with much that you say here.
One nuanced correction: Even in the IT area where there have been some declines in enrollment, there continues to be growth in the U.S. in the number of workers educated and working in IT-related field. However, the growth in the U.S. is both less than the growth abroad, and may be hard to sustain with current enrollment patterns.
Mark
What happens if the the next president and congress lift the caps on H1B visas? How will you create interest in the field then?
I think it’s silly to think that you can somehow have the same level of innovation from some new class of super users or that you can learn computer science from “interactive gaming.”
Mark-
Thanks for being so positive about my commentary, rather than hostile! 🙂 Thank you very much for clarifying the details about increased IT education and occupations in the U.S. I wish I could have stayed for the subsequent presentations.
Sam, thanks very much for your comments. I wholeheartedly support lifting the caps on H1B visas because I believe in the strength of the free market economy. While I am patriotic (& live in DC, & do a lot of work with the Fed), I believe in an “open source” model for talent (as well as for technology).
As I wrote in my post “The World’s Next Superpower,” (http://mixtmedia.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/the-worlds-next-superpower/), “The age of the superpower died with the advent of MySpace.” The concept that the U.S. will–or should–remain the world’s superpower forever is an antiquated notion.
Our culture is too centered around models of national border-driven competition and not enough around global collaboration as a problem-solving vehicle. Web 2.0/social media tools can change–and are changing–our interactions, and thus, our culture. We are coming together in ways never before possible. We should be able to leverage great minds across the world, regardless of their origin. I would hope that the educational stewards of tomorrow’s leaders–teachers, administrators, parents, game-developers–are instilling enough curiousity in students as to motivate them to participate in building the future, whether that be through computer science or in other disciplines.
As for alternative learning models, MIT Professor Henry Jenkins has a relevant and very interesting post(in 2 parts) this week entitled, “The Informal Pedagogy of Anime Fandom: An Interview with Rebecca Black.” http://henryjenkins.org/2008/09/an_interview_with_rebecca_blac.html#_login
Though this interview focuses on New Media Literacy in general rather than learning computer science, I think that it’s relevant here.
Prof. Jenkins writes,”One of the central animating idea behind the New Media Literacies movement has been the observation that young people often learn better outside of schools — through their involvement in informal communities, such as those formed around fandom or gaming — than they do inside the classrooms. Researchers have sought to better understand these sites of informal learning and the often unconsciously developed pedagogical practices by which they communicate skills and information to newbies. James Paul Gee has used the term, “affinity space,” to describe such sites of grassroots creativity and learning….”
Ok I understand where you’re coming from now. Don’t worry about a decline in students studying computer science in America. It’s not about America. We’re thinking globally now and there is no global shortage of computer scientists or engineers and therefore there is no reason to change the way we educate them. No one is complaining about the quality of computer science graduates from India or China and they certainly don’t have to use “interactive gaming” to create interest. As far as the United States goes, the idea that our standard of living should remain higher than the the developing world is an “antiquated notion” as well. Water seeks its own level and our standard of living will drop to meet the rising standard of living in the rest of the “globe.” As soon as wages, benefits, infrastructure, environmental laws, and labor laws equalize around the world, students in America will flock back to those techinical fields. This shouldn’t take long. The markets will solve everything (just ask the folks at Lehman Bros.) In the meantime, just “collaborate” with foreign programmers.
So why are we discussing this at all?
“So why are we discussing this at all”. Oh yeah, “The premise was basically that U.S. competitiveness in information technology is declining.” How Antiquated.
I apoligize.
After reading your “About Me”, I realized that you are uniquely unqualified to comment on either Computer Science or education. Where I went to school, if you were a computer science major and couldn’t pass the math, you became a business major. If you were a business major and couldn’t pass Cost Accounting, you became a Sociology major. If you couldn’t pass Sociology, you became a Dog Groomer. You are apparently an expert in social networking. So is my fourteen year old. Sorry I wasted your time as well as mine.
Sam,
Thank you for taking the time and energy to participate in the conversations that I’ve started here on my blog. I really do appreciate you challenging my ideas because this kind of dialogue is what brings our thinking to new levels at home and around the globe.
As for your last (rather snarky?) comment, no, I am not a self-professed expert in computer science or in education. I am a proud blogger and consultant with extensive business, media, innovation and sociology experience.
Where I went to school cross-discipline dialogue was valued because concepts from one field often spark new ideas in another field. I majored in sociology and did my graduate work in business. Those are the fields that I sought to pursue from the get-go because that is where my interests are: neither educational decision was the result of poor performance in computer science nor the predecessor to a future in dog grooming.
I am fascinated and engaged by social media because it is about respectfully sharing ideas across demographic facades.
Sorry for the “snarkiness”. I really do apoligize. I wrote that in the heat of the moment.
Bottom line: I think declining U.S. ompetitiveness in I.T. matters, but you don’t.
You can’t learn computer science by using facebook or by playing World of Warcraft. Anyone who has a degree in computer science will tell you the same thing. You can’t learn binary searches or linked lists or recursive programming or efficient algorithms from playing Second Life. It’s not about using Facebook, it’s about creating those applications and the next generation of applications. Can you learn multithreaded programming on one of the new multi core processor on MySpace?
There is a huge difference between computer science and “computer skills”. It’s about software. The software is the tool, not the computer. Without software, a computer is a doorstop. If the “perception” is that computers are just hammers now and we just need to learn how to swing the hammer, then the “perception” is dead wrong. Computer science is still in it’s infancy. The current “tools” are equivalent to sharpened rocks. We still have a long way to go.
One final rant and I’ll let this die. H1B visas, for the most part, are not being used by American tech companies to bring in the “best and the brightest” to create the next generation of computer applications. They are being used mostly by consulting companies like Accenture and by Indian companies like Wipro to bring in low level business application programmers and database administrators (many with dubious skills) who are used to facilitate more offshore I.T. work. There is no innovation involved here, just cheaper labor which drives U.S. students away from the field (of course, in your view, that doesn’t matter).
Someday your view of a collaboritive world without borders may come true, but it won’t be in your lifetime or your children’s lifetime. Maybe about the same time that Karl Marx’s “new socialist man” emerges (and that will be at about the same time that the “markets” actually solve everything.) Don’t hold your breath.
P.S.
The lady who grooms our dog doesn’t have to worry about an H1B taking her job and she probably makes more than my wife makes as a public school teacher. If Immanuel Kant were alive today, he’d probably be a consultant too.
Sam, sorry for my delay in responding this time around and thank you for your apology–I do appreciate it. Yes, I hear what you’re saying and agree with you about computer science’s importance and complexity. It is, indeed, quite different from computer skills–ver nice and clear distinction.
I do not know much about how American companies are currently utilizing H1B visas, but look forward to getting more info on this. Thank you for expanding my perspective–great to have dialogue on my blog that makes me smarter.