Prologue
We are living at a time of unprecedented change with technology advancing faster, and producing more new opportunities than ever before [1]. Information Technology (IT) has not only created the mechanisms to do more with less, but also the means of storing, accessing and transporting information on a scale inconceivable just 10 years ago [2]. Technology feeding technology, with machines used to design better machines, is the evolutionary process responsible for the exponential capability growth now driving society [3]. In contrast, our wetware (the brain between our ears) has seen no significant change during the past 15,000 years, and in evolutionary terms mankind is in stasis [4]. So if we are to survive in a technologically driven world that is changing faster than we can biologically accommodate, we have to use the very technology that engendered our predicament to help us cope, it is our only course of action. Going back to earlier, and in many respects, simpler times is not an option - no matter how distortedly attractive it may appear [5]. The progress of our species has always been, and remains, irrevocably linked to innovation and technology - and it is one way only! We just could not support the world's population of over 5Bn without the technology we have come to take for granted [6].

Fig 1 Information Growth

Human-Technology Perspective
Only 2,000 years ago most of mankind lived in tribal communities of just a few hundred individuals meeting and knowing less than 1,000 people in a lifetime. For this life as the hunter-gatherer or farmer, we were well equipped, with all of the tribe's knowledge contained in the human brain, and passed on from father to son, mother to daughter. For most, all the information they ever required was within the tribe. Libraries did exist for a select few - the information elite: the ruling class.

Fig 2 Waves of Change in Society

Civilisation, cities and trade changed all this and in a period of less than 200 years the transition from the farming and rural existence to the Industrial Age was completed [5]. During this transition, the ability to transport large quantities of goods and people across the planet emerged, creating a demand for good telecommunication. It is interesting to reflect that colonisation and supremacy in war was the primary motive for the development of much of our industry, and has led directly to today's revolution in IT. More impressively, we have created a new era in much less than 100 years. When De Forest invented the thermionic valve in 1915 he could never have guessed the revolution that he was starting. The next major step was the invention of the transistor in 1946 by Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain to be followed by the integrated circuit in 1958, the laser in 1960, and optical fibre in 1966 [3].

Fig 3 Transmission Capacity Growth

In the last 50 years we have seen the world become dominated by electronics (chips) and optical fibre. As a result, computers and communication are now ubiquitous, and we have created more information, achieved and understood more than all of the past generations since we first discovered fire. This pace of change will not only continue, but accelerate: and the trajectory is now clear - it is exponential! Every year (or thereabouts) sees optical fibre transporting twice as much traffic [9], memory chips storing twice as much data, and computers twice as fast [2]. Many people consider English to be the planet's primary language, and speech to be the most sophisticated and dominant form of communication. Well, they are wrong! The dominant form is now binary, and it is between machines having more conversations per day than mankind has had in it's entire existence [8].

We can now wear more computing power in a wristwatch than provided by a commercial computer the size of a domestic washing machine 30 years ago. In 10 years the PC will be around 1,000 times more powerful than today, and in 20 years near 1,000,000 times more. By about 2015 super computers will have reached human equivalence in terms of information storage and processing, and by 2025 that power will be available on our desks. About 5 years [2,7] later computers will be wearing us! If we are to maintain a primary role on this planet, we must understand technology and use it to advance our own limited brain capacity. It is not possible to ignore these changes for they are inexorable, and will promote even more change [6, 10]. In short, you can opt out, but you cannot escape!

Fig 4 Moore's Law & Human Equivalence

Antagonistic Technology
There is absolutely no doubt that most IT interfaces seem to have been designed by people who feel we should all be computer scientists [11]. This is definitely the wrong approach. Most people have great difficulty driving a VHS video recorder let alone a PC. Unless we humanise (make devices extremely user friendly and easy to use) machines, a society divided by its abilities with machines will be born. This would be a disastrous society of IT €˜have and have nots', full of tension, and sub-optimal for our own productivity, progress and survival. It is vital, therefore, that technology is bent into people and people are not bent further into technology [2].

Today the primary interface is the button, switch, knob, mouse, keyboard, and screen. This can only be viewed as archaic, and something that should not survive. Fortunately, technology is now reaching a point where voice control and command, and even limited conversations between people and machines are possible [12]. This Star Trek vision is the first step in the journey to a symbiotic relationship between carbon (us) and silicon (chips) life forms. It is also the first example of directly linking the nervous systems of two different entities. The next extension will be our sense of touch, as fingertips, and other sensory areas are coupled directly into machines [13]. In the meantime we have to make do with sight and sound, head mounted screens, cameras, microphones, and earphones [14]. But even with this limited technology we can achieve a tremendous expansion and change in our abilities and society as we increase the access to, and throughput of, information and experience [15].

Education
In the slow moving world of the ancients, with writings and drawings in the sand, on clay and parchment, education followed the €˜Master-Disciple' model with only a select few chosen to be educated by a very few teachers. The world was a slow moving place with innovation and technology alternately promoted and constrained by war and religion [5]. With the invention of the printing press major changes evolved with this new means of propagating the written word, and more importantly, ideas. Mass education started to take off with formal systems, teachers and classes growing in size and number throughout the developing world. Up to, and throughout, the industrial revolution this €˜Sage-on-the-Stage" system of imparting knowledge was very effective. Regimented classes of 30 - 50 children, drilled by a single teacher, proved an efficient and essential means of educating the armies of people required to fuel the transition of society from agriculture and cottage industry to mass production and idustrialisation. Up to the end of this era, change was still relatively modest and within the grasp of the individual, and so was education! However, at the dawn of the information age, the system and individuals were beginning to creak under the pace of change and demand for more diversity [6]. Long held wisdom's of science, technology, economics and commerce started to shift or became increasingly challenged. In contrast, other topics such as mathematics, history, sociology and law, remained relatively stable for a further 30 years. Today, nothing is stable, nothing goes unchallenged, and certainly our accepted modes of education and training are under threat as the world accelerates into the information age [16]. Let us examine this change in more detail:

Thirty years ago the vast majority of children came from homes with few books and went to school for information, knowledge and education. Today, unfortunately, the reverse is often true. For many children with top end computers, access to CDs, and networks at home, they see school as having little to offer. Interestingly, in numerous programmes with children, it has become abundantly clear that the primary impediment to progress is not the young people. It is the older generation who are trying to impart their experience and knowledge who present the key limitation [17]. For the most part our society appears divided at about the age of 29, with those older computer illiterate, and those younger fully able. So it is not unusual to find a class dominated by a teacher who is IT illiterate, and feels threatened by a class full of capability. This problem is compounded by the lifestyle of children which is now partly governed by the games environment [18] of intuitive learning, and a "crash and burn" culture. They feel no inhibition in discovering by doing, and coming to grief in full public gaze, whilst the cultural background of their elders is the converse.

It is perhaps not surprising to find that many youngsters view university, college, and school as boring and uninteresting, where the teaching methods have not changed in aeons. These young people happen to come from a world of instant gratification, of IT, and rapid access and experience, of new and dynamic skills learnt in new ways [19].

Fig 5 Children Using Computers - An On Line School Session

Examples Of New Ways
Just two decades ago a young child would have learnt to tell the time on an analogue clock face, and the digital form would have been unusual. If they later developed an interest in science, engineering or flying, they would come to grips with the vernier scale and altimeter by a single step analogy with telling the time. Today, the converse is often the cas! They learn about flying very early, and you cannot fly an F16 simulator if you do not learn about cockpit instrumentation. So telling the time on an analogue display involves analogical reasoning in the reverse direction of 20 years ago!

Finding information has always been a social activity. The Dickensian library offered a degree of order and mapping that allowed a fair degree of success by the individual. However, much of the information retrieval process of this old world involved finding knowledgeable people; teachers, friends and colleagues could usually help steer us in the right direction. In the IT world we now have search engines and Gofers or Agents that serve the same purpose [20]. We can also communicate electronically with vastly more people to gain their assistance and steer. With such devices, students can search, find, sort and assemble information 100s of times faster than previous generations. Curiously, older people, especially teachers, often consider this as cheating! What a pity they cannot see their earlier paradigm for what it was - a waste of life!

There are now over 24,000 CD titles available for use with PCs containing everything from classic books, whole-body interactive encyclopaedias, scientific experiments, and university degree courses. The teaching of difficult topics in science and engineering can now be enhanced significantly through computer animation and visual representation. Instead of static words and 2D pictures on paper, students can interact with 3D entities on the screen to experience cause and effect first hand. There is an growing library of standard experiments and situations available, along with medical operations, Shakespearean plays and legal cases. In this regard, interactive multimedia is providing an often superior alternative [18] to individual teachers and books for large tranches of education.

It is now possible to illustrate and explain immensely complex systems and situations with the technology of visualisation and virtual reality [13]. Unlike Crick and Watson, students should not have to construct a model of DNA using cardboard and coat hangers [21]. Access to mathematical representations of a visual form that is both exciting, stimulating and edifying is now a given in modern industry. Leading manufacturers no longer construct prototypes, but the real thing in virtual space, and then go straight to the production line with the finished product [15, 22]. Education needs this technology too!

Shared Experiences
With telepresence technology it is now possible for a one to many, or one to one experience to be realised efficiently on a massive scale. The surrogate head is just one development where miniature television cameras above the eyes, and microphones above the ears, collect information in real space and time. This can then be transmitted and displayed on screen, or a VR headset, to one or more people in any location on the planet [23]. So a surgeon can perform an operation with a thousand students stood inside his or her head looking out. Conversely, when a protg performs the same operation, the surgeon can stand inside and advise in the closest possible sense [24].

Fig 6 Surrogate Head Surgeon

Within the next 15 years the addition of touch to such systems will make this human experience almost complete. This might sound far fetched, but it exists in the laboratory today, and has been used for real operations on humans over standard dial-up ISDN circuits [25]. This technology is applicable to a wide range of disciplines, and has the potential to completely change the education and training paradigm to just in time.

Half Life Education
In fast moving areas of technology many degrees now have a half life of less than five years. Moreover, the time when a single discipline degree was sufficient for a lifetime of work has long gone [26]. For example, it is not unusual to find electrical engineers now concerned with biology, sociology and genetics. So it seems time to create a new form of degree that is much lower, broader, more generic, and able to equip people for a world that will change rapidly over a working lifetime. In addition, a series of higher degrees are necessary that can be rapidly acquired as technology and work practices change. However, as business life and industry also accelerate and demand increases, then so does the pressure to hang on to the scarce well trained resource that is key to the success of the very enterprise itself [27].

Virtual University
It is partly in response to the above paradox that five years ago BT created a series of internal degree courses. Their organisation and running was under the auspices of several conventional universities banded together to create the desired profile and course content [28]. Interestingly, this content is increasingly dynamic as each year sees the course material change to meet the needs of a fast moving business. Everyone wins: the students who become empowered and capable, the company that has the work force it requires, and the universities that gain access to key people and activities in industry .

At first the courses were conventional, with students and teacher gathered in a lecture theatre for a few hours a week, followed by tutorials and assignments. More recently a new format began to unfurl with lecturers from North America and other regions teleported into the lecture theatre by suitably mounted cameras and ISDN dial-up lines. They appear on a three metre square back projected screen to give their lectures eye-to-eye. Only two years ago such a lecture was costing 60 for the communication connection, and today it is only 40, much less than the hotel charges for a real lecturer in a real hotel. There are those who would argue that this is not a real experience, and it is not as good as the real thing. Whilst this may be true, the choice is rather more stark: either you have the electronic experience, or none at all! On that basis, the students would sooner have world experts in front of them electronically rather than never getting their presence. More recently the next step has been taken! Teleporting the event to the desks of individual students so that they no longer have to break away from work, and they do not have to crowd into a lecture theatre. They can now attend courses, tutorials, and interact with each other directly on the screen.

Within BT this experiment has now been ratified as the primary model for future company education and training. The key discovery has been that the downside of apparent isolation at the desk can be overcome by a series of short communal periods where everyone on the course gets to meet and work together. To date technology presents a poor meeting environment for people. The images are small and distorted, often with sound and vision slightly disconnected. After a first €˜real' face to face meeting however, these deficiencies tend to be overlooked and the participants just get on with working together.

In the not to distant future new display and audio technology will provide life size images of near zero distortion and daylight brightness. This is expected to extend this education and training regime significantly, and may totally remove the current need for real interaction. Experiments on breaking down the social barriers [29] and establishing trust and relationships will thus form a primary target in the next phase of development.

Fig 7 The Virtual University

The Critics
There are very few of us who look forward to, or enjoy change on a large scale [6]. Ths is certainly true of the education establishment and many who are involved indirectly. The primary direction of criticism always seems to be, "that's not the way they did it in my day!" I suppose if we went back to the time of Archimedes and Aristotle, people were saying much the same thing about their methods of teaching. The reality is that just 50 years ago in British universities the lecturing and teaching practice was totally different. Today you can still see the benches at the front of lecture theatres where experiments on a grand scale would be conducted in front of an enthralled class. This was real experience, and teaching in a manner that is now long lost. Why? Because education has been squeezed and changed continually. This has resulted in small universities with very small departments trying to do far too much in too short a time. Students are being asked to subsume more and more information and experience in less time while staff - student contact time continues to decline [16]. Ultimately education is becoming impossible relative to the rate and breadth of change in a world of technologically driven progress [30]. By and large most active university staff have far too many research students, and far too many classes to teach. To exacerbate the problem, most university departments are sub-critical in the number of people that they have with the right abilities. No doubt, all of the abilities required to create a suitably well qualified, skilled, and able department are available in the country. However, they are seldom, if ever, available in one location - a university [27].

The Virtual University, an ethereal space in the information world, overcomes this problem, and allows groups of people with the right interests and skills to come together to work and be proactive. The problem is that it does mean a different mind set, and a different way of doing things [31]. Unfortunately for the traditionalists there is no other solution that will allow us to meet the challenge of technologically driven change in our society. It is, therefore, imperative that we embrace the technology, and experiment to find out what works and what doesn't [32].

The Virtual World Today
On a Saturday morning I can struggle into Ipswich, park my car, walk across town, buy some software at a high price and pay VAT. Alternatively I can go onto the net, access the software directly from the supplier in California, pull it down the network, and pay for it without even leaving my machine. The advantage is not only in the time and inconvenience saved but in the lower cost of a product that no longer requires a wholesaler, distributor, retail outlet or VAT. The same is true for the library, the bookstall and potentially for all forms of €˜soft products'. Such thoughts alarm many people when they ought to make them feel relaxed. For this virtual world is not an instead of, but an as well as technology. It opens opportunities for new ways of doing things, new forms of trading and enterprise, and new dynamic markets. Shopping, entertainment, education and training, from your desktop at home, at work, or wherever you happen to be, are now very real options [33].

Society & Change
Whilst technology changes our world irrevocably, there are some features of it that will remain for many decades to come - but not many! For example, consider such stable institutions as government, banking and the City of London. We currently have a governing mechanism that involves people sitting two sword's lengths apart acting like demented school children in lengthy debates eyeball to eyeball. The decision making processes of this system is orders of magnitude slower than counterparts in the virtual (electronic) world. Similarly, financial institutions are being touched by technology in ways that are changing them, and impacting on our society. The vast majority of bank branches are no longer required. It is possible to run the entire operation from one location or even no location at all! The same is true of the City as it now deals primarily with information rather than money, for gold has become an abstract concept, as is the pound, and other currencies.

If such solid institutions are being challenged [34] by technologically driven change, then the role of an education system is to prepare the population for the new world that will result. It is vital that the education and training sector produce the right people with the right skills. This will not happen by following the market, education [16] has to get ahead!

The difference between the old world and the new is exemplified by the typing pool. Only a decade ago most large organisations had such a resource staffed by young women, their sole purpose, to take hand-written or spoken text and transcribe it onto the typed page. The process could take several days depending on the queue length. The very thought is inconceivable today, who would operate in such a way? Things are now turned around in a matter of minutes, not days. Modern companies operate with telephone, fax, E-Mail, video conferencing, they have very low flat structures [31] with people empowered to make local decisions and get on with the job fast! Any form of delay is just inviting the competition to take away your business and markets. The same is increasingly true in education and training - any school, college, university or training establishment that sits back and continues to exclusively use the old chalk and talk methods is destined for extinction [26, 30, 35] We have to move forward with the technology if we are going to keep up with a world that is changing ever faster.

The Future
My father had a working life of 100,0000 hours; I can now do his work in 10,000 hours; my son will be able to do it in 1,000 hours, and so on [32 ]. The work that took me a whole morning as a young engineer is now completed in less that 15 seconds by the power of computer based automation. This level of progress is assured for at least another decade as we can see all of the techniques, and all of the technologies on the laboratory bench today. It is likely that this progress will continue for at least another two decades and probably three, but after that we reach the ultimate limit of using sub-atomic particles as components [8].

Fig 8 Enabling Technology Trends

There is little doubt, as history shows, that our innate curiosity, creativity, and inventiveness will generate even more technology [5] and cause more change beyond silicon and silica. However, we are at a unique epoch, and there is a new proviso; for the first time in our entire history, we have to keep up with the technology. We have to stay ahead, stay educated and trained, and somehow understand things that currently defy our limited wetware. Tapping the exponential power of the technology itself [36] appears is the only option if we are to live and prosper as individuals and a society [37].

Word Count = 4048

About The Author
Peter Cochrane joined BT Laboratories in 1973 and has worked on a wide range of technologies and systems. In 1993 he was appointed as the Head of Advanced Research. A graduate of Trent Polytechnic and Essex University he is also a Visiting Professor to UCL, Essex, and Kent Universities. As a consultant to numerous international companies and organisations he has travelled and lectured widely and has published extensively on technology and the implications of IT on society.

He received the Queen's Award for Innovation & Export in 1990; the Martlesham Medal for contributions to fibre optic technology in 1994; the IEE Electronics Division Premium in 1986, Computing and Control Premium in 1994, the IERE Benefactors Prize in 1994,and the James Clerk Maxwell Medal in 1995.

Word Count = 126

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