By Jeb Bush
redefinED
June 15, 2012
With the creation of The Jetsons in the 1960s, Hanna-Barbera projected what 100 years into the future could look like. Set in 2062, The Jetsons lived in an automated, push-button world. Long distance conversations took place face to face through a television screen, groceries were ordered on-line and delivered to your doorstep, and household chores are performed with the click of a button. What Hanna-Barbera missed was the time horizon. It wouldn’t take 100 years for these changes to occur, it would happen in half of that time.
Little did they know, at the beginning of the 21st century soldiers across the ocean would be able to read their kids a bedtime story via Skype or Facetime. Questions would be answered with a simple Google search. Music would be downloaded straight to your phone with the click of a button. And kids in rural Nebraska would learn physics from engineers in Japan without leaving their 11th grade classroom.