Improving Education: The Inkwell Revolution
I’ve just spent the day with the Steering Committee for SNS Project Inkwell. For those of you who do not know about Inkwell, it is a global consortium made up of vendors, teachers, administrators, and an ex-governor or two, all dedicated to re-designing appropriate technology for k12 (pre university) classrooms, and then accelerating the deployment of these devices and systems into the marketplace.
You can read more about it at the site,
We have been meeting for two years now, and have just finished the first spec (requirements list) for a new computing device for the classroom; no doubt you will be seeing it on shelves, or in classrooms, sometime soon (you may already have seen the Spark prototype, created by IDEO, in Wired or PC magazine).
The SC is made of a great group of people, who have been listening to a much larger group of kids and adults. You may know some of them; they’re listed on the website, and come from all over the U.S. Every time I spend a day with these people, I find myself newly energized, and inspired by their intelligence and dedication.
Just a couple of years ago, this seemed like an impossible task (and many others said as much). Today it seems almost inevitable that we’ll succeed, in some way or other, in bringing one to one computing to the classroom, and doing it in a way that maximizes the chance of success for everyone involved.
You can tell that I have a passion for this project. It isn’t every day that I get to work on something that will really change the world, but that is exactly what this will do.
I’d love to hear your comments on the basic ideas involving Inkwell. If you think your company should become a member, let me know; you can also email me at
Tomorrow we go into the Working Group sessions, where a somewhat larger group will address questions of what kind of minimum software portfolio ought to be in K12 classrooms.