Five
sorts of research:
•Macroeconomic
research showing that over the past several decades the US and global
economies have undergone a fundamental shift from a manufacturing
economy to an information economy, much of it driven by ICT.
•Microeconomic
research showing that individual firms are undergoing significant
changes in organizational structure and business practices, much
of
it facilitated by the pervasive presence of ICT in the workplace.
•Labor
market and workforce studies showing a significant shift in the kinds
of jobs and skills that are needed by our economy, skills that are
intimately connected to the use of ICT.
•Studies
showing patterns of the everyday ICT use in American life,
particularly use by young Americans, patterns that are closer to the
use of ICT in the business world than to that in schools.
•Studies
showing that American schools are not using ICT in a significant way
or providing youth with the experiences and skills they need to enter
the information economy.
Macroeconomic
Trends: shifting from manufacturing to information economy
Macroeconomic
studies – those that look at entire economies – show that the US
economy has undergone profound changes over the past several decades.
These changes have significant implications for how people work,
live, and play an
d,
most certainly, implications for education: for what is taught, how
it is learned, and how schools are organized. Many of these changes
have been fostered by the dramatic growth in information
communication technologies.
Microeconomic
Trends: changes in business organization and practices
ICT
has contributed to economic change not just through the growth of the
information products and services sectors. It has also fostered
fundamental changes in how business is done across a range of
economic sectors. Microeconomic studies – those that look at
individual firms – confirm the impact of ICT on business practice.
First, these studies show that the use of ICT has supported a
significant surge in US productivity. Stiroh (2003) analyzed
aggregate productivity data for 1987-1995 to 1995-1999 for three sets
of US industries: ICT-producing industries, ICT-using industries, and
other industries. ICT-producing industries showed a mean productivity
acceleration of 3.7 percentage points; ICT-using industries posted an
increase of 2.0 percentage points; all other industries showed an
average gain of only 0.4 percentage points.
Labor
Market Trends: need for a different skill set
As
intimated above, the restructuring of the economy, the reorganization
of work, and the uptake of ICT have corresponded to a need for
increased education and skill on the part of the labor force.
A
study by Carnevale & Desrochers (2002) found a significant
increase in the number of workers in the US economy who have at least
some level of higher education. Between 1973 and 2000, the percentage
of US workers with some post-secondary education increased from 28%
to 59%, and the proportion with bachelor’s degrees increased from
9% to 20% during that period. In terms of
demand,
this upward trend looks likely to continue. The Bureau of Labor
Statistics predicts that those occupational categories that require a
postsecondary degree will experience the most rapid growth between
2008 and 2018.
Social
Trends: everyday ICT practices
In
addition to its economic impact, the pervasiveness of ICT across the
country has had a significant social impact on America, such that
people access, use, and create information and knowledge very
differently than they did in previous
decades
– they are living in what is sometimes called the ‘knowledge
society’ (Mokyr, 2002). A recent study by the Pew Internet and
American Life project (Kennedy et al, 2008) found that more than
three-quarters (77%) of all US households own at least one computer,
and among households with children, 93% own a computer. A recent
study using US Census Bureau data (NTIA, 2010) found that 68.7% of US
households have Internet access, and 63.5% of them have broadband
access. However, broadband home use is correlated with a number of
demographic characteristics: higher-income households, White and
Asian Americans, urban residents, and those with higher education
levels are much more likely to have and use broadband at home than
lower-income households, Black and Hispanic Americans, rural
residents, and those with lower levels of educational attainment.
This gap remains a significant social issue in the United States, as
noted by Warschauer & Martuchniak.
Educational
Trends: the current state of US education
Given
the massive changes in the economy and society, the significant
technological resources available in American homes, and the
impressive
technological
skills and experiences that young people bring with them to school,
how well are schools preparing our youth for the information economy
and knowledge society that they will live in during the twenty-first
century? The answer is, not well at all.
The
Urgent Need for Educational Change
Of
course, not all businesses or workers will be engaged in the
information economy over the coming decades, any more than all
businesses were related to farming in the agrarian economy or than
all businesses were manufacturers during the mass-production economy.
Nonetheless, the prevailing economic paradigm has a pervasive effect
on all business and social endeavors.
Economic
historians (Freeman & Louca, 2001; Perez, 2002) describe waves of
economic and social change associated with the introduction of
transformative technologies. Each wave of technology – steam power,
electrical power, mass production, and now computers – spawned both
creative and disruptive forces that restructured the economy and
rippled throughout social institutions and practices.
The existing paradigm, tuned to a current set of technological
affordances, was not able to cope with or take advantage of the
potential
offered by new technologies and, consequently, uptake of the new
technologies was a disruptive force that worked against the current
paradigm.
Referencing:
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