Shift Happens

Did you know . . .

Sometimes size does matter.

If you're one in a million in China . . .

There are 1,300 people just like you.

In India, there are 1,100 people just like you.

The 25% of the population in China with the highest IQ's . . .

Is greater than the total population of North America.

In India, it's the top 28%.

Translation for teachers: They have more honors kids than we have kids.

Did you know . . .

China will soon become the number one English speaking country in the world.

If you took every single job in the U.S. today and shipped it to China . . .

China would still have a labor surplus.

During the course of this 8 minute presentation . . .

60 babies will be born in the U.S.
244 babies will be born in China.
351 babies will be born in India.

The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that today's learner will have 10-14 jobs . . .

By the age of 38.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor . . .

1 out of 4 workers today is working for a company they have been employed by for less than one year.

More than 1 out of 2 are working for a company they have worked for for less than five years.

According to former Secretary of Education Richard Riley . . .

The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 didn't exist in 2004.

We are currently preparing students for jobs that don't yet exist . . .

Using technologies that haven't been invented . . .

In order to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet.

Name this country . . .

Richest in the World
Largest Military
Center of world business and finance
Strongest education system
World center of innovation and invention
Currency the world standard of value
Highest standard of living

England. In 1900.

Did you know . . .

The U.S. is 20th in the world in broadband Internet penetration.
(Luxembourg just passed us.)

In 2002 alone Nintendo invested more than $140 million in research and development.

The U.S. Federal Government spent less than half as much on Research and Innovation in Education.

1 out of every 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met online.

There are over 100 million registered users of MySpace.(August 2006)

If MySpace were a country, it would be the 11th-largest in the world (between Japan and Mexico)*

The average MySpace page is visited 30 times a day.

Did you know . . .

We are living in exponential times.

There are over 2.7 billion searches performed on Google each month.

To whom were these questions addressed B.G.? (Before Google)

The number of text messages sent and received every day exceeds the population of the planet.

There are about 540,000 words in the English language . . .

About 5 times as many as during Shakespeare's time.

More than 3,000 new books are published . . .

Daily.

It's estimated that a week's worth of New York Times . . .

Contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century.

It's estimated that 40 exabytes (that's 4.0 x 1019) of unique new information will be generated worldwide this year.
That's estimated to be more than in the previous 5,000 years.

The amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years.

It's predicted to double every 72 hours by 2010.

Third generation fiber optics has recently been separately tested by NEC and Alcatel . . .

That pushes 10 trillion bits per second down one strand of fiber.

That's 1,900 CDs or 150 million simultaneous phone calls every second.

It's currently tripling about every 6 months and is expected to do so for at least the next 20 years.

The fiber is already there, they're just improving the switches on the ends. Which means the marginal cost of these improvements is effectively $0.

Predictions are that e-paper will be cheaper than real paper.

47 million laptops were shipped worldwide last year.

The $100 laptop project is expecting to ship between 50 and 100 million laptops a year to children in underdeveloped countries.

Predictions are that by 2013 a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computation capability of the Human Brain . . .

By 2023, a $1,000 computer will exceed the computation capability of the Human Brain . . .

First grader Abby will be just 23 years old and beginning her (first) career . . .

And while technical predictions further out than about 15 years are hard to do . . .

Predictions are that by 2049 a $1,000 computer will exceed the computational capabilities of the human race.

What does it all mean?

Shift Happens.