Energy Constrained Learning: Part 5
Note: This post is part 5 of 6 in a serialization of Energy Constrained Learning.
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Peak Oil and Climate Change
Part 3: What’s the Concern?
Part 4: Scenario of Scarcity Industrialism
Implications for Online Learning
The way this works is that we take as fact the scenario of scarcity industrialism. We then try to imagine education and learning in such a future. What might it look like?
Here again space limits the extent to which I can explore this topic. A formal analysis might examine in detail one institution or even an entire education level and then play out implications. In another form, the analysis could start fresh and ask what forms of learning seem consistent with the scenario. If you’re interested in such analyses, I encourage you to undertake the explorations. In a time of transition, such work might prove invaluable.
What I’ll do here is consider only online learning in the energy constrained world of scarcity industrialism. Is online learning compatible with this scenario?
In a single word, no. If there is no Internet, there is no online learning. But a single word does not adequately answer the question. No future happens instantaneously; there is always a transition period.
So a better question is this: Is online learning compatible with the run-up to scarcity industrialism? The answer here is yes, but with qualifications. As long as the Internet is available, online learning for some people in some locations would exist. With generally rising energy prices, however, it would likely be expensive. Not exactly ideal conditions for anything bolder than a stop-gap effort.
This is still not a very satisfying exploration of the feasibility of online learning. With the limited transportation and relocalized economies of scarcity industrialism, some form of online learning might offer a compelling way to connect people and allow them to communicate, share, and learn from the world. This seems far preferable to a return to the one-room schoolhouse. But just because something is preferred doesn’t mean it will happen.
Morphing online learning into some form adaptable to scarcity industrialism will require resourceful and creative people willing to experiment, fail, learn from their failures, and try again. E.F. Schumacher offers some help here with his suggestion of “a technology with a human face.”[1] He describes this as:[2]
… making use of the best of modern knowledge and experience, is conducive to decentralization, compatible with the laws of ecology, gentle in its use of scarce resources, and designed to serve the human person instead of making him the servant of machines. I have named it intermediate technology to signify that it is vastly superior to the primitive technology of bygone ages but at the same time much simpler, cheaper, and freer than the supertechnology of the rich. One can also call it self-help technology, or democratic or people’s technology – a technology to which everybody can gain admittance and which is not reserved to those already rich and powerful.
What does this mean for online learning? Is an intermediate online learning technology feasible? Not having the technical networking and communications knowledge required, I’m not the person to best answer that question. But I can suggest a few projects that seem to be tentative steps in this direction. Here are some examples:
- Open Mesh
Open-Mesh creates ultra low-cost zero-config, plug & play wireless mesh network solutions that spread an Internet connection throughout a hotel, apartment, office, neighborhood, village, coffee shop, shopping mall, campground, marina and just about anywhere else you can imagine.
- Serval
Communicate anywhere, any time … without infrastructure, without mobile towers, without satellites, without wifi hotspots, and without carriers. Use existing off-the-shelf mobile cell phone handsets.
- Village Telco
The Village Telco is an initiative to build low-cost community telephone network hardware and software that can be set up in minutes anywhere in the world. No mobile phone towers or land lines are required. The Village Telco uses the latest Open Source telephony software and low cost wireless mesh networking technology to deliver affordable telephony anywhere.
- ahumanright.org
Our vision is to connect all people by creating and stewarding a freely available decentralized global system of communication.
- Village Base Station Project (PDF) and Demonstration Review
[T]he Village Base Station (VBTS) [is] a GSM base station designed to be deployed “off the grid” to locations without power or network infrastructure.
In an age of scarcity industrialism, we need something simple, cheap, small-scale, decentralized, and modular for easy scalability. None of the projects just mentioned was initiated with scarcity industrialism in mind, but they all seem cast in that spirit. If anyone is interested in pursuing the feasibility of intermediate online learning technologies, Greer offers seven questions he believes need answers when “triaging” technologies for the postcarbon transition.[3]
Notes
Context of Education Change | Gary Lewis, October 1, 2011 6:00 am
