Eb90710 (1/6) Crisis and New Beginning

After July 4^th, with all the band music and fire works, we should be well of aware of freedom, democracy and entrepreneurial spirit as our power and our bedrock. Over the past 300 years we have used these systems to weather many crises. The following are on a Wikipedia’s list:

1719      Louisiana Land Bubble

1776      Revolutionary War

1792      U.S. Bank Run

1812      War of 1812

1837      Depression

1861      Civil War

1893      Railroad and Bank Failures

1907      Panic of 1907

1914      World War I

1925      Florida Land Bubble

1929      THE Great Depression

1939      World War II

1950      Korean War

1959      Vietnam War

1973      The Nifty Fifty Crash

1987      Stock Market Crash

1998      Long Term Capital Implodes

2000      Dot Com Boom

2001      9/11

2008      The Derivatives Debacle

2008      Sub Prime Mortgage Implosion

There are more to come. You will notice that as the centuries roll by the pace seems to be quickening. By each century we have had 3, 4, 10 and now, if we extrapolate the current episodes, 40 for the 21^st century. Recency of a crisis amplifies itsi significance. It seems we need to prepare for an increased rate of crisis driven disruptions of our vision of a steadily advancing civilization.

So what do we do?

The entrepreneurial code is highly secretive, but I will share with you one of the dictums “If you can’t fix it, feature it.” (Don’t tell anyone!) We certainly cannot fix the breakneck growth and resulting instability of global communication, information, technology and economics. But we can incorporate selected features to bring our disruptive innovation, eLearningi, into the main stream of legacy education.

The other aspect of crises is that they create the opening for new beginnings. Our governor and legislature will solve Arizona’s budget crisis. After a time for recuperation the focus will shift, as it always does, to building for tomorrow. This time the gaze must spotlight creating human capital for our state for that is where our future lies – our people. When the next, the next and then the next crises hit we must have the capability to withstand the buffeting and emerge stronger. This capability has only one source, the talented, trained and educated citizenry within the communities of our state.

Over the next week I plan to develop five post-budget crisis themes for Arizona in five two-page blogs:

Competency learning funding to complement seat time system;

Data driven reporting and decision support;

Broadbandi use by everyone;

Teacher transformationi for the digital age;

Global digital curriculum access with effective application.

I would like a bit of your time for critical or elaboration feedback. By the end of July eSATSi targets the draft of an integrated systems.