This article was orginally published at ETC Journal on May 30th, 2011.
 
There’s only one major trend in education, and that’s digital. The digital meter is all that really matters, and it’s running faster every second. The increments are in degrees of digitization. This process is transforming not only the classroom but the business of schooling. Paper and file cabinets are disappearing, just as books, bookshelves, and printers are. Increasingly, information is created, stored, and shared digitally. Landlines and faxes are being replaced by digital communications via computers and the internet.
 
Increasingly, offices are becoming dead zones. Educators are communicating more than ever before, but they’re no longer doing it from their offices. For example, students and colleagues are communicating with them via email and social media, and the interactions are no longer limited to weekdays, 8-to-4, in offices. The office is simply no match for 24-7, anytime, anywhere communications.
 
This digital sea change is not an isolated trend. It’s pervasive, happening everywhere on this planet, all at once. There’s no denying that there are and will be pockets that remain analog, like the payphone booth you sometimes see in an old neighborhood or out of the way location or an IBM selectric typewriter in a forgotten workroom or, even more rare, a desktop computer with disc drives and CRT monitor, connected to a printer with fanfold paper. Newspapers and TV news are going digital, too, just as books, movies, music, and sports are.
 
Perhaps the most dramatic evidence of this change is the library, where shelves, books, and file cabinets are going the way of card catalogs, reference tomes, and twenty-pound dictionaries and encyclopedias. In today’s college libraries, students aren’t poring over books or lecture notes in paper tablets. Their attention is on notebook screens that link them to all their sources of learning. Given a choice of hardcopy or digital, they’d choose digital simply because books are heavy and take up space in their backpacks. Books are also more expensive. However, the greatest advantage of digital texts is that they’re searchable. Readers can quickly find all the sections that deal with a certain person, theory, event, or concept. They can copy and paste from digital texts.
 
Students submit papers digitally and no longer need to purchase a printer, cartridge, paper, etc. Desktop PCs are also disappearing, being replaced by notebooks that can be taken and used anywhere. Internet cables, too, are going fast, being replaced by wireless networks and hot zones, just as power cables are giving way to battery packs.
 
Elementary school students in South Korea are going digital, bypassing not only hardcopy books and paper but notebook computers with their clunky keyboards as well. Their schools are opting for tablet PCs similar to the iPad. Through their tablets, they can access all the information in the world and communicate with classmates and teachers 24-7.
 
Educators who are planning for the future really need to look at what this trend toward increased digitization implies. The iPad, in its current form, isn’t going to replace the notebook computer, but it doesn’t take much imagination to realize that, in every incarnation, the tablet becomes more like a notebook. Just as the desktop PC finally gave way to the notebook, so shall the notebook succumb to the tablet.
 
If a person needs a theory to explain this trend, one that might do is that efficiency and sustainabilty will always win out. The tablet is smaller and lighter than a notebook while also providing personal communications, social networking, and live video sharing features. It’s as “simple” as that.
 
So where should the smart education dollar go?  On the one hand, a simple rule is that if it’s not going to fit into the tablet PC environment, don’t put money into it. On the other, if it seems to be in sync with tablets or their projected development, then go for it. If the investment is in digital resources, then it’ll be tablet-oriented. Investment in face-to-face, lecture-based technology runs counter to the tablet so these should probably be avoided. There are numerous digital alternatives to the lecture, and these are already being used in innovative, exciting, and effective ways.
 
Some will stand in the middle of the digital surge and try to stop it, arguing that this technological change doesn’t necessarily mean that test scores will improve. And they’re right. But they’re not getting it. The point isn’t higher test scores. It’s ease. Going digital makes the business of education, teaching, and learning easier. And easier, in and of itself, is a good enough reason to go with the flow.
 
But I’m an optimist. I believe that anything that makes teaching or learning easier, i.e., more efficient and sustainable, is good for education. Our current tests may not be suitable for the evolving digital world, and low test scores may be a symptom of this mismatch. Perhaps it’s time for us to develop tests that are in sync with how students are actually learning. This might mean tests that no longer rely on memory but on the ability to find and apply information from the web or to work collaboratively with others in solving real-world problems.