Lessons from Google Chrome and the Changing Landscape of Science Education

As we mentioned last week, we were very interested in what Google Chrome had to offer. Since it's release, it has essentially been our default browser. The user experience has so far been similar to that of Firefox or Safari, but perhaps a little faster, a little more stable, but since we don't really do anything fancy with our browser, it's basically the same. However, Google Chrome has nevertheless provided us with an "Ah-ha!" moment. As part of their backstory, they mentioned how the nature of what a browser does has evolved dramatically over the last few years, and the inherent structure of a web browser was designed to do something different. Imagine the efficiencies, Google asked, if you started from scratch, knowing all the current things a browser had to do.

That idea became particularly poignant yesterday for two reasons:

1. The District server went down yesterday and our office was stunned by how little physical work we had to do. All of our correspondence had transitioned to email,  all of our referring documents were hosted on the server. Once all the face-to-face meetings were over, and we caught up on filing, there was little else to do other than old-fashioned pen-and-paper planning for the upcoming week. It was shocking how much had changed - five years ago the office would have been far more functional in the absence of online connectivity. For teachers in the classroom, the effect was more muted, but there nevertheless.

2. As part of our job, we are tasked with providing the School District with equipment lists to stock all new schools before they open. Since the District opens a new school almost every other year, the Science equipment list is something of a running item. I inherited my list from my predescessor three years ago, who last had to revise her list the year before. It is, and was, a pretty basic list of material, posters, books, beakers, test tubes, thermometers, chemicals, pendulums and so forth. However, within even the last three years, the numbers of smartboards in our District has mushroomed, and bluetooth connectivity has appeared in printers, smartboards, projectors, and laptops. Looking at the school start-up lists, I wondered if it was time to go digital? 

Certainly such a change cannot be made without consideration: can digital equipment such as multi-sensor handheld probes over a more diverse student experience? Are there physcial skills from more "analog" equipment that students are still required to learn? What are the effects of Jr. High students working in an all digital environment as they transition to high school and post-secondary institutions that might not have made similar changes?