On behalf of SNS Project Inkwell and EcoVerdance Inc., I send my heartfelt  thanks to  Principal Bob O’Connor and  the teachers and  700 students of Treasure Mountain International School in Park City, Utah, who attended the the SNS Project Inkwell Africa sister school connection  assembly at Eccles Auditorium on 3/27. This was followed by enthusiastic, well-considered presentations by teachers and students with fundraising ideas and student-created podcasts.

David Morris, CEO of project partner EcoVerdance; David Ssejinja, project partner and founder of the Ssejinja Children’s Foundation; and I spoke for an hour at this introduction, to an absolutely still and silent auditorium, filled with 700 middle-school students, until Q&A time. Unfortunately, there was not enough time to answer all of the questions, and dozens of students lined up to ask “What else can I do to help our sister school students?” The success, passion, and excitement the students have for this program was very apparent, and moving beyond words. Park City Mayor Dana Williams appeared to be equally moved, committing his full support to this program and offering to work with the students on raising funds for their new sister school students at the St. Johnson Orphanage School in Bira, Uganda.

Bravo to our own Treasure Mountain – which is about to change the lives of many children in Bira, who now know they are not forgotten, and who will have new hope for a brighter future.

Also great thanks to David Engle, Superintendent of Nebraska’s North Platte School District, for bringing forward the Lake Maloney and Osgood Schools as the corresponding U.S. Sister schools in this Sister School Program. The students of these schools in both Nebraska and Uganda have already exchanged photos, emails, soccer balls, and greatest of all: the curiosity, excitement, and enthusiasm to learn about each other and each other’s culture.

Member Company Microsoft has offered to assist with the technology segment of the SNS Project Inkwell Africa connection. We look forward to the highly valued participation of others as well.

Sharon Anderson-Morris
Director, SNS Programs

Students, Luis Echarte, and Mark Anderson at Plantel Azteca

One of the very positive results of our last Future in Review Conference www.futureinreview.com was an invitation from well-known Mexican business leader Ricardo Salinas-Pliego to come and visit the school, Plantel Azteca, he has funded through his Fundacion Azteca for the last decade.

My son and I had a chance to visit this amazing school, and a number of Ricardo’s other enterprises (and the data center at the heart of these modern operations) last week.  As many of you are already aware, these include (and are not limited to) TV Azteca and Azteca America, Fundacion Azteca, Plantel Azteca, Iusacell, Afores Azteca (pensions), Seguros Azteca (insurance), Banca Azteca, and Elektra (the largest specialty retailer in Latin America).

Our tour, led by Luis Echarte, Chair of  Azteca America and CEO of the Fundacion,  included a sit-down presentation about the school, and a chance to meet some of the faculty and students, the latter of which were hard at work in every class we visited.

One of the most moving aspects of this school is its charter: the poorest students from Mexico City, and the surrounding states, are tested, and the brightest are invited to come to the school, at the Fundacion’s cost, for the best education money can buy.  (The children test at the top of their grades in the country after attending, according to Luis.)  They board with relatives or friends in the city, wear handsome uniforms, and stand up when unannounced grown-ups walk into or out of their class.

(Kids don’t behave this well in my home town –)

They seem happy, and were eager to show off their English in helping my limping Spanish along as we visited their classes, including a special computer laboratory class we were able to see.

I imagine, at this point, most readers of this blog are picturing small, rowdy classes in Microsoft PowerPoint or Word.  Well, no doubt these are taught at some point, but what I found there was a group of about forty kids listening quietly to their instructor in a class designed to provide them, by graduation, with Cisco certification in working on networks (WiFi, LANs, and WANs), routers, and switches.

Want to sit in?  I did.  This is an incredible school.  Elsewhere, younger kids were learning using a Promethean electronic whiteboard linked to a computer, as a teacher taught them Mexican geography.

Here are some more photos of the visit:

Luis Echarte and Mark Anderson with the Cisco Crowd

Our certified Cisco instructor in WiFi, LANs and WANs

I come to realize that these kids will have no trouble with 1:1

Touring the grounds with son Evan and the administration

We’ll have some important announcements to make shortly, but I can tell you now that Plantel Azteca is a truly amazing combined effort between these gifted students, and the Fundacion Azteca, and that this would be a perfect place for the country’s first successful one to one computer learning implementation.

This meeting really represented the next phase of Inkwell, essentially going from research and planning into an accelerated, action-oriented posture. New members to the group were recognized, more signed up up during the meetings, and the focus was (internally) on moving from one to five working groups.

The domains of these groups is intended to completely cover the technology issues raised during a redesign of appropriate technology for teaching and learning in K12 (pre university) schools. These domains are:

I. The Teaching and Learning Device, now in Version 2.0.

II. Servers and Infrastructure.

III. Software and Content.

IV. Professsional Development.

V. Business Modeling.

The meeting also included an external focus: Inkwell’s new partnership with the State of Utah, through Governor Jon Huntsman. The Park Cit School District has been selected by both partners as the Phase One site for 1:1 implementation of computing in Utah schools, with Phase II to follow in a larger, statewide implementation.

The group was pleased to hear from Senator Howard Stephenson, Chair of the Education Appropriations Committee, on the State of Technology in Utah, who has shephereded $60 MM in technology purchases through the system last year, and who was working on a $50MM package for the coming year as the meeting took place.

A large group of leaders from the Utah technology landscape joined the Inkwell meeting, including the Park City School Board and its Chair and President, representatives of the Governor’s office, of the State Department of Education, and of various districts around the state.

Participants seemed to universally agree that Inkwell’s Phase Two agenda and style are what was needed at this time. Inkwell was first discussed in my speeches at Seybold San Francisco in 1997, and was launched in 2002/3, long before other charitable / emerging nation laptop efforts. Today Inwkwell remains the only group setting global standards for successful 1:1 implementations.

Project Inkwell will now begin its Certification Program, and is hoping to be able to certify one or more of the devices shown during this meeting, within the next few months.

I would also like to thank Rick Gaisford, from Inkwell and SETDA, for allowing me to say a few words Friday to a separate conference of Utah Technology Leaders. All in all, we’ve had a very effective week in bringing Inkwell to the next level.

Update: Listen to Project Inkwell CEO, Mark Anderson talking with KPLU’s Dave Meyer about Project Inkwell

Chuck House, most recently of Stanford’s Media X program, gave a smart, funny keynote today on what ubiquitous bandwidth and ongoing technology change will do to the world. His most provocative claim: the disappearance of Intellectual Property rights, or at least a drive in IP values to something approaching zero.

Though he later recanted a bit during private discussions, he got things going. Chuck believes, as I do, that much of the excitement today is to be found in the borders between disciplines, and he is running programs mixing ten of them at the university. I think we may dive into this program with Chuck and look for one or two program slots for FiRe 2008.

Did I mention that my good friend Bruce Sterling, sci fi author extraordinaire, will be at the next FiRe? Just found out. Nobelist Lee Hartwell is coming, too. Better catch the Early Bird discount before the 15th—

www.futureinreview.com

This is pretty exciting. Others have tried to make $100 computers (I had one twenty years ago), but this is the first time vendors, teachers, administrators, and many others interested in teaching and learning have gotten together to describe their ideal device for teaching and learning.

Those who are interested in getting more details can go to

www.projectinkwell.com

Meanwhile, we are already starting work on version 2.0. The first version was intended to come from existing (on the shelf) technologies, but the next version is not quite so constrained, and should be yet another quantum leap forward for global kids and teachers.

I should add that SNS Project Inkwell has just concluded its latest quarterly working session, this one in Arizona, with a guest visit from Governor Janet Napolitano. We think AZ may be a key state in 1:1 computing going forward, and we were happy to hear of the Governor’s support of Inkwell, and look forward to working with her to help AZ in its drive for renewal in science and education.

I would like to thank Chair Don Budinger and the Rodel Foundations for their help in Arizona and worldwide, in achieving these shared goals.

I am very pleased to announce that Gateway Computers has just joined SNS Project Inkwell, and we look forward to their participation as we move to large-scale production of these new devices.

My friend and venture capitalist Sim Simeonov made some statements and suggestions about this subject in his most recent blog, and I thought this might provide a chance to highlight this important subject. Sim’s comments are here:

http://simeons.wordpress.com/2007/02/03/one-to-one-computing/

As many of you know, SNS Project Inkwell has been working on this problem for several years; you can learn more about this effort at

www.projectinkwell.com

Perhaps the first thing we learned does indeed confirm almost all of Sim’s comments: one to one computing can indeed provide a revolution in learning and teaching, but high likelihood of success is only achieved through appropriate training of teachers.

Although I have no doubt that improvement of curriculum is also critical, we understand at Inkwell that this will likely only come in large scale after we have achieved distribution of a large enough installed base of users for curriculum providers to pay attention and make serious investments.

Even so, it appears that properly trained teachers, when given the chance to teach students in a one to one environment, can achieve great things, even as the curriculum is improving. There are probably several reasons for this: 1) students in 121 often learn based on projects, doing their own research on the Net or in class; 2) students in 121 benefit from More teacher private time than those in non 121 classrooms; 3) teachers are more aware of individual student problems and learning needs in 121 classrooms; and 4) students have the opportunity to both learn in their own ways, and to go at their own (often quicker) pace, in 121 classrooms.

Many US and global leaders are extolling the need for a revolution in education today, while this revolution is already under way, and, essentially, happening under their noses.

There is no black magic involved in this process, nor is there an undue dependence upon technology per se; what we are learning at Inkwell is that these machines are enablers that allow students to learn more than their teachers often know, at a pace often beyond their teachers’ ability to take a whole class. This is not surprising, but, since it is happening for the first time in history, it is certainly revolutionary.

Those, like Gov. Angus King of Maine, who have pioneered and/or witnessed this approach, and the subsequent very positive responses from both teachers and students, know that is is not just a move for improved education in their states, but the most important step they can take in improving economic development for their region, state or country.

If you are interested in learning more about one to one or SNS Project Inkwell, please contact Inkwell CEO Bruce Wilcox, at bwilcox@projectinkwell.com.

Now it’s on to the races, lining up makers and buyers.�� With two states already declaring for Inkwell, I think we’ll have a great time during this next phase, while we simultaneously work on the software environment for K12.�� Ultimately, we will have specs or recommendations for five separate domains affecting the success of one to one computing.

You can read more about it at the site,

www.projectinkwell.com

We have been meeting for two years now, and have just finished the first spec (requirements list) for a new computing device for the classroom; no doubt you will be seeing it on shelves, or in classrooms, sometime soon (you may already have seen the Spark prototype, created by IDEO, in Wired or PC magazine).

The SC is made of a great group of people, who have been listening to a much larger group of kids and adults. You may know some of them; they’re listed on the website, and come from all over the U.S. Every time I spend a day with these people, I find myself newly energized, and inspired by their intelligence and dedication.

Just a couple of years ago, this seemed like an impossible task (and many others said as much). Today it seems almost inevitable that we’ll succeed, in some way or other, in bringing one to one computing to the classroom, and doing it in a way that maximizes the chance of success for everyone involved.

You can tell that I have a passion for this project. It isn’t every day that I get to work on something that will really change the world, but that is exactly what this will do.

I’d love to hear your comments on the basic ideas involving Inkwell. If you think your company should become a member, let me know; you can also email me at

sns@tapsns.com.

Tomorrow we go into the Working Group sessions, where a somewhat larger group will address questions of what kind of minimum software portfolio ought to be in K12 classrooms.