Here’s a fantasy view of how people will someday interact with their computers. The professor walks into his elegant pad, tosses off his jacket and opens his sleek silver computer (with no visible wires, of course). Then he chats with the helpful assistant who lives on the screen, They have a conversion about phone messages, the prof’s schedule for the rest of the day, journal articles that are relevant to his lecture topic, and some online data that he can use for the lecture (which he had put off preparing until the last minute). The assistant knows that the journal article was published by “your friend Jill”. He speaks in perfectly natural English.

I didn’t make this up, of course. This vision is taken from a video created by Apple Computer back in 1987, and widely shown at conferences and meetings for several years afterwards. It was called “Knowledge Navigator”. It blew me away when I first saw it and still does. So what’s going on here and why does this still seem so impressive, even years later?

On the one hand it’s just a talking interface for programs we are already comfortable with. The assistant was reading the phone messages, which a number of programs can already do. He described the schedule for the day, which could be stored in Outlook or another PIM. He searched through web pages based on a couple of keywords. On the other hand, it has some features that are still a long way off. The assistant paraphrased the content of the phone messages instead of reading them. His speech recognition is impeccable. Even more impressive, the speech synthesis is smooth and non-robotic. I wonder whether that might be the hardest nut for artificial intelligence to crack.

So why am I thinking about this in the context of teaching children to use computers? The reality is that the friendly assistant will not be here for a while. Most of what we input into our computers is still through typing and clicking. I teach children to learn keyboarding, to click on menus and buttons, and to double-click on icons, not to speak at their computer. Fundamentally I teach them that they are still smarter than computers, which is the opposite of the message of the Knowledge Navigator. By the way, you can watch the video on the Digibarn website, a wonderful museum of all things digital.

It's been the strangest winter. First it looked as though we weren't going to have any winter at all, with abnormally warm weather persisting through the holidays and into January. Then we got hit with the big ice storm last week. It only affected a narrow band of towns along the coast here in New Jersey, but it did tremendous damage, coating our trees with a thick layer of ice that pulled down branches everywhere. Our schools were closed for two days because the power was out. You can't run a school without power! The custodial crew did a heroic job of clearing the walkways so that we could all get in and out safely on Friday. Everybody pitched in to make the school day as normal as possible. Now we're still trying to catch up with the days we missed.

This is going to be a busy week. I like busy weeks. They keep me energized and involved with all the little pieces that make up my job. Updating the web site, troubleshooting problems, answering teacher questions ("My email is all messed up. How do I fix it?"), finding good prices on the web for hardware. And of course teaching my classes. The special piece for this week is writing grant applications. We are lucky enough to have an educational foundation here in our town that raises money for things that can't be fit into the yearly budget. In the past they've bought us tablet pc's, gym gear, musical instruments, a kiln, digital cameras and camcorders, a climbing wall in the gym, classroom books, and lots more. Since the budget failed last year, for the first time in over twenty years, our budget has been tightened and there are several things I want to ask the foundation for.
For those of you who might not live in New Jersey, I should explain about the budget process. In fact I should start with our odd patchwork of tiny school districts. In a lot of states, like Maryland where my cousin Terry works, the school districts are county-wide. He is responsible for the library system in over thirty schools. Here in New Jersey we like home rule. Every town has its own school district. Our town of seven thousand people has two schools, elementary and middle, that together make up the Rumson Elementary District. Our high school is regional with the neighboring town of Fair Haven. It's not very efficient, but that's how we do it here. Furthermore every year in April the voters of the town get to approve the budget at the same time they elect candidates for the school board. Our town is relatively affluent and most people know that the value of the schools upholds the value of their real estate, so the budget almost always passes. But last year we got a little complacent and it failed. When that happens the town council imposes a cut. The cut was not massive by comparison to the total budget, but it fell heavily on technology since that's an area where cuts can be made, unlike places like salaries and the heating bill which are largely fixed. So far the administration has avoided layoffs and that will apparently be the last resort.
So to wind up the story here, I am applying to the foundation for things that really should be in our budget, like network management software, but that aren't. So we'll see what happens. The foundation board is independent from the school system and they make their own judgment about what they want to fund.
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