Library Juice 2:30 - Library Juice is now a book and a blog

Library Juice 2:30 - August 4, 1999 "Distance Education" Contents: 1. World Wide Learn - Online Learning & Education 2. library services for distance education 3. Columbia Center for New Media Teaching & Learning (CCNMTL) 4. Palinurus: The Academy and the Corporation [frames] 5. UNC Metalab collection on Distanc Ed. 6. Educators for Social Responsibility 7. PLA Tech Notes 8. Steven Dunlap's Distance Ed. site 9. CIT Infobits 10. Educational Technology & Society 11. iMP: The Magazine on Information Impacts 12. JCMC Special Issue on "CMC & Higher Education" 13. On Selling Educational Software 14. WHY INFORMATION IS NOT ENOUGH 15. Poem - Public Library, R.I.P. Quote for the week: "True teaching and learning are about more than information. Education is based on mentoring,internalization, identification, role-modeling, guidance, and group activity. In these processes, physical proximity plays an important role. Thus, the strength of the future physical university lies less in pure information and more in college as a community. Less in wholesale lecture, and more in individual tutorial. Less in Cyber-U, and more in Goodbye-Chips College. In research, the physical university's strength lies in establishing on-campus archipelagos of specialized islands of excellence that benefit from the complementarity of physical proximity. This requires the active management of priorities. In the validation of information, the university will become more important than ever. As the production of information keeps growing, society requires credible screeners of information, and has entrusted some of that function to universities and its resident experts, not to networks. But to shield the credibility of this function requires universities to be vigilant against creeping self-commercialization and self-censorship." From "Electronics and the Dim Future of the University," by Eli M. Noam. http://www.columbia.edu/dlc/wp/citi/citinoam14.html Homepage of the week: Bill Gates: http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/ __________________________________________________________________________ 1. World Wide Learn - Online Learning & Education http://www.worldwidelearn.com A directory of continuing education courses available online. Browse by general subject area. Submitted by: The List Owner rjtiess[at]warwick.net ResPool - http://members.tripod.com/~rtiess/respool.htm __________________________________________________________________________top 2. library services for distance education From The NODE Technologies for Learning In June 1998, the NODE's newsletter networking ran a story on the difficulties inherent in providing library services to off-campus students. As a result of the feedback we received, the NODE hosted an online forum to explore these issues further. As a result of both of these events, and in response to an immediate and pressing need, we've decided to collect resources around this issue and offer them as a tfl topic. http://node.on.ca/tfl/library/ The NODE Learning Technologies Network is a not-for-profit electronic network facilitating information and resource-sharing, collaboration and research in the field of learning technologies for postsecondary education and training. The functions of the NODE are to gather and disseminate information in areas of need; to offer professional development activities; to facilitate collaboration among universities and colleges; and to commission projects and research in issues and practices in technologically-mediated teaching and learning. The NODE's website is a focal point for information and discussion forums on issues related to teaching, learning and technological development. http://node.on.ca __________________________________________________________________________top 3. Columbia Center for New Media Teaching & Learning (CCNMTL) http://www.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/ The primary mission of the CCNMTL is to support Columbia faculty in the use of digital technologies for teaching and learning. However, the Center also plans to share the successful technologies and curriculum models it develops with the wider university community. This new site is the first step in that direction. College educators and media lab staff will find a number of items of use, including a Web Publishing Guide and overviews of ongoing projects at the Center. Probably the most useful section of the site at present is the EdCITE Reference Database of over 230 research and case studies on the effective use of technology in education. Searchable by title, author, keyword, descriptor, and discipline, the database offers citations to journal articles, Websites, and other relevant information resources on technology in education. Citations include author, title, source, resource type, date, education level, discipline, an abstract, and whenever possible a link to the full text. [MD] >From the Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-1999. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/ __________________________________________________________________________top 4. Palinurus: The Academy and the Corporation [frames] http://humanitas.ucsb.edu/liu/palinurus/index2.html This pilot site, maintained by Professor Alan Liu of the University of California-Santa Barbara, author of the Voice of the Shuttle site (described in the Scout Report for May 30, 1997 -- http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/archive/scout-970530.html#3 ), was created by humanities scholars to examine the practical and intellectual challenges faced by higher education in a post-industrial world. In today's "information society," "knowledge work" in the business and academic worlds have begun to merge. As any tenured or aspiring academic will tell you, pressures on university departments to downsize and restructure have never been greater, and academia now ignores the lessons and laws of the business world at its own peril. This site reflects on these issues through a hypertext linked bibliography of Suggested Readings, Featured Controversies (Grade Inflation, Faculty Against IT, and others), and in the future, plans to link resources and courses "relevant to the role of higher education in contemporary society." The Discussion Topics and Gallery of Quotes sections offer suggestions on using the bibliography and a Discussion Board is provided for user responses. [MD] >From the Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-1999. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/ __________________________________________________________________________top 5. UNC Metalab collection on Distanc Ed http://metalab.unc.edu/edweb __________________________________________________________________________top 6. Educators for Social Responsibility Educators for Social Responsibility have a publishing project on Instructional Media, geared toward primary rather than secondary education: http://www.esrnational.org/media.html __________________________________________________________________________top 7. PLA Tech Notes Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1999 20:10:44 -0700 (PDT) From: "GraceAnne A. DeCandido" <ladyhawk[at]well.com> To: publib <publib[at]sunsite.berkeley.edu> Subject: electronic statistics! Thanks for all of your help: the PLA Tech Note, Electronic Statistics: Counting Crows was posted today. I am currently working on Wireless Networks. Here's the complete list of Tech Notes so far: http://www.pla.org/electronicstats.htm Electronic Statistics: Counting Crows http://www.pla.org/videoconferencing.htm Video Teleconferencing: Here, There, and Everywhere http://www.pla.org/intranet.htm Intranets: The Web Inside http://www.pla.org/metadata.htm Metadata: Always More Than You Think http://www.pla.org/doi.htm DOI: The Persistence of Memory Thanks all! GraceAnne GraceAnne A. DeCandido Blue Roses Editorial & Web Consulting, New York City ladyhawk[at]well.com http://www.well.com/user/ladyhawk/gadhome.html What's Ladyhawk reading now? http://www.well.com/user/ladyhawk/books.html To be involved with books is to live at the heart of light. Mary Cantwell __________________________________________________________________________top 8. Steven Dunlap's Distance Ed site >===== Original Message From Steven Dunlap <sad[at]crl.com> ===== My web page on distance education has a section on copyright as relates to libraries: http://internet.ggu.edu/university_library/disted.html#e Steven Dunlap Golden Gate University Librarian, Regional University Library Campus Services 536 Mission Street sad[at]crl.com San Francisco, CA 94105 Regional Campus Nomad's page: http://internet.ggu.edu/university_library/reg/ Intellectual Freedom page: http://internet.ggu.edu/university_library/if/ "If you accept his assumptions, even a madman sounds reasonable." ---Russian Proverb __________________________________________________________________________top 9. CIT Infobits http://www.unc.edu/cit/infobits/infobits.html CIT Infobits (formerly titled IAT Infobits) is an electronic service of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Academic & Technology Networks' Center for Instructional Technology. Each month the CIT's Information Resources Consultant monitors and selects from a number of information technology and instructional technology sources that come to her attention and provides brief notes for electronic dissemination to educators. To subscribe to CIT Infobits, send email to listserv[at]unc.edu with the following message: SUBSCRIBE INFOBITS firstname lastname substituting your own first and last names. Recent Contents: CIT Infobits November 1998 ERIC's New Document Subscription Service Technological Visions Conference Webcasts from EDUCOM '98 Conference Newsletter on Technology and Human Responsibility Corporation for Research and Educational Networking Tips for Improving Web Site Usability Scholarly Communications Resources Contact: Carolyn Kotlas, Editor, carolyn_kotlas[at]unc.edu [From NewJour-L] __________________________________________________________________________top 10. Educational Technology & Society http://zeus.gmd.de/ifets/periodical/p_archive.html ISSN 1436-4522 Educational Technology & Society is an electronic periodical of the International Forum of Educational Technology & Society, seeks academic articles on the issues affecting the developers of educational systems and educators who implement and manage such systems. The aim of the periodical is to help both these communities to foster greater understanding of each other's role in the overall process of education, problems faced by each and how they may support each other. The Educational Technology & Society is a quarterly periodical, but the articles will be published as soon as they are ready for publication (benefit of the electronic medium!), so that the issue will be built up and at any moment, one issue of the periodical would be available to accept the articles. The submissions are invited for the following sections: 1. Peer reviewed publications. All submitted articles for this category will be refereed by at least two reviewers with expertise in the relevant subject area. 2. Updates. This section includes book reviews, educational web site reviews, educational forum reviews, comments, vision statements, wish lists, description of implementations, software reviews and any other material of interest to the forum members. The items in this section will not be reviewed, but the editors reserve the right to reject or (with the approval of contributors) to edit copy. Details regarding submission procedure and authors' guidelines are available at: http://zeus.gmd.de/ifets/periodical/p_archive.html e-mail: Dr. Kinshuk, kinshuk[at]ieee.org Mr. Ashok Patel, apatel[at]dmu.ac.uk Prof. Dr. Reinhard Oppermann, oppermann[at]gmd.de [From NewJour-L] __________________________________________________________________________top 11. iMP: The Magazine on Information Impacts The June issue of iMP: The Magazine on Information Impacts, which is published on the web by the Center for Information Strategy and Policy (CISP) of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), has been posted. You can find the magazine at: http://www.cisp.org/ [follow "visit imp"] or http://www.cisp.org/imp/june_99/06_99contents.htm In this issue, we are featuring stories and editorials on the theme of IT and education, several of which have digital library connections. Our contributors include: Stretching the Zero Sum Paradigm with a National Digital Library for Science Education, Frank Wattenberg Education at a Distance: How Demography and Technology Are Creating a Worldwide Learning Revolution in Higher Education, Claudine SchWeber E-Learning: A Catalyst for Competition in Higher Education Walter Baer Cyberspace, Deviance, and Children, Terry Gudaitis It Takes an (Extended Internet) Community to Teach a Child, Daniel Bobrow Schools Don't Want Technology, Schools Want Curriculum, Elliot Soloway and Cathleen Norris Broadband Networking and the Future of Graduate Education, Clifford Lynch. Wattenberg, SchWeber, and Lynch address the contributions of digital libraries to more equitable resource distribution, and digital library technologies are implicit in nearly all of the other stories. Of more general interest are our columns, "What's Happening" and "Calendar", in which we identify new reports, journals, funding opportunities, upcoming conferences, and developments on the Hill and in the courts. The scope is primarily USA but we attempt to cover the major international developments, as well, and expect to broaden our focus as this new magazine matures. We have an opt-in policy. If you wish to receive notices of each new release, please let us know via the subscribe page at the site [http://www.cisp.org/imp/june_99/subscribe.html] or by sending us a message to subscribe[at]cisp.org. We apologize for any cross-postings or multiple mailings that you may have received. Joining our subscription list only provides you with notices of new iMP releases (10 per year). Information provided to us will neither be given nor sold for use by any third parties. We encourage you to review our terms and conditions statement, which includes our policy on privacy. We encourage you to forward this notice to others who may be interested in iMP. Our double summer issue (release date: July 22, 1999) will be devoted to Y2K. In September, we will resume publication with an issue on infrastructure protection followed by one on IT and the environment. iMP is an adventure. We hope that you will read it, share it with your friends, and tell us what you think. Amy Friedlander Editor, iMP Magazine AMY.E.FRIEDLANDER[at]cpmx.saic.com [From IFLA-L] __________________________________________________________________________top 12. JCMC Special Issue on "CMC & Higher Education" Abstracts Special Issue on "CMC & Higher Education" Part I. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication Volume 4 Issue 2 December, 1998 http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol4/issue2/ http://jcmc.huji.ac.il/vol4/issue2/ In this Issue: Audiographic Telecourses for the Web: An Experiment Robert LaRose Jennifer Gregg Matt Eastin Michigan State University Prior research on instructional media effects suggested that an audiographic approach to World Wide Web based courses would optimize educational effectiveness along with cost effectiveness, although with a possible loss of teacher immediacy that could adversely affect student attitudes. An introductory telecommunication course was converted to an audiographic Web telecourse in which students listened to pre-recorded audio classroom interactions while viewing a detailed course outline and illustrative sites over the World Wide Web. Forty-nine subjects were recruited from a live lecture class and randomly assigned to either the experimental (Web course) group or a control group that took the class in a traditional lecture section. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) showed that the experimental group had test scores and student attitude and teacher immediacy ratings equal to those of the control group after controlling for student gender, class level, grade point average and attendance. Open-ended interviews were also conducted to assess qualitative dimensions of student satisfaction. The results supported the audiographic telecourse model as a potentially cost-effective approach to distributing courses over the Web. New directions in research on instructional media effects and teacher immediacy were formulated from an analysis of the unique characteristics of the World Wide Web as an instructional medium. The Crossroads between Lifelong Learning and Information Technology: A Challenge Facing Leading Universities Michal Beller The Open University of Israel Ehud Or Consultant & Projects Manager in Technology Mediated Learning Technology-Mediated Learning and Distance Learning (TML/TMDL), and particularly asynchronous learning through the Internet, are becoming major vehicles for fulfilling the needs of Lifelong Learning (LLL). A hybrid model of studies using technological means is leading to the development of a new pedagogy of learning and teaching. Various new models of higher education are evolving in North America and around the globe, in response to LLL needs and to the new opportunities that are becoming available through the integration of learning technologies. These models are described and discussed in this paper, for the benefit of those who are interested in or are partners to higher education, and in particular the policy makers. Traditional universities can adopt some of these models, while other models may call for the creation of new types of institutions of higher education. Most institutions will find that a joint effort is necessary for reaching the critical mass required for providing their educational system and their faculty with a generalizable, scalable and sustainable TML solution. Creating such coalitions will turn out to be a challenge in and of itself. Online Teaching: Encouraging Collaboration through Anonymity Andrea Chester Gillian Gwynne Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology This paper describes our experience as tertiary teachers (and learners) in cyberspace. A brief evaluation of the literature on computer-mediated communication (CMC) is presented, together with a review of the major theoretical positions explaining online interaction. The filtered-cues and social information processing perspectives are compared in the light of more recent formulations of the hyperpersonal. With a desire to facilitate and critically evaluate a hyperpersonal learning context or online learning community, we developed a range of strategies including the use of aliases. The subject is described together with our observations of the benefits and disadvantages of pseudonymity for education. Staying Connected: A Case Study of Distance Learning for Student Interns Diane F. Witmer California State University, Fullerton This paper reports a pilot distance learning course that was launched in response to a number of concerns regarding an existing internship program at a Midwestern university. Not surprisingly, student reactions to the program were somewhat inconsistent, as their experiences varied widely, both in terms of the technology and the internship site, and the new course needed considerable debugging. Comments ranged from very negative to very positive. However, most of the students (63.5%) highly recommended or recommended without qualification that communication technologies be used for summer internships. Another 20.5% of the students recommended the use of communication technology with suggestions for improvement. A major improvement in the general quality of student report writing also was noted. The data indicate that a distance learning approach to internships has great potential to enhance synthesis and integration of classroom learning with on-the-job experiences. Media Temporalities in the Internet: Philosophy of Time and Media with Derrida and Rorty Mike Sandbothe Friedrich Schiller University Jena The essay comprises four sections. The first section provides a survey of some significant developments which today determine philosophical discussion on the subject of 'time'. The second section considers the question of how time and the issue of media are linked with one another in the views of two influential contemporary philosophers - Jacques Derrida and Richard Rorty. Finally, in the third section, the temporal implications of cultural practices developing in the new medium of the Internet are analyzed and, in the fourth section, related to the named philosophers' theses. The Sacred and the Virtual: Religion in Multi-User Virtual Reality Ralph Schroeder Chalmers University, Sweden Noel Heather Raymond M. Lee Royal Holloway, University of London This paper explores the social interaction among participants in a church service in an online multi-user virtual reality (VR) environment. It examines some of the main features of prayer meetings in a religiously-oriented virtual world and also what sets this world apart from other virtual worlds. Next, it examines some of the issues of research ethics and methods that are raised in the study of online behavior in virtual worlds. The paper then analyzes the text exchanges between participants in a virtual church service and some of the ways in which these compare with the content of a conventional church service. Finally, the paper draws out some implications for our understanding of the relation between interaction in the virtual and in the "real" world. Special Issue Editor: Eli M. Noam, Columbia University JCMC Editors: Margaret McLaughlin, University of Southern California Sheizaf Rafaeli, Hebrew University of Jerusalem __________________________________________________________________________top 13. On Selling Educational Software From NETFUTURE #79, edited by Stephen Talbott http://www.oreilly.com/~stevet/netfuture/ Dr. Jane Healy, in her new book, *Failure to Connect: How Computers Affect Our Children's Minds -- for Better and Worse*, tells of attending a "technology in education" conference in the midwest. She stopped at a prominent display for a multimedia package designed to teach reading and writing "all in one iridescent package with countless components and a huge price tag". The salesman started up the demo, which resembled nothing more than "a loud, gaudy Saturday morning cartoon". As she tells the story: "You interested in our great new system here?" he booms heartily. "I'm not sure. Can you give me a couple of reasons why I should use this instead of regular materials -- you know, books, pencils, teachers?" His eyes widen, and he stares at me as if I had just landed from outer space or, more likely, should be sporting a hoop skirt, bonnet, and bustle. "Well, I don't really have an answer for that", he fumbles through the promotional flyers. "No one ever asked me that before." "How long have you been selling this product?" I inquire. "About two years." "So how many educators have you shown it to?" "Oh, I don't know ... probably several thousand." "And I'm the first one who ever asked you why it is better than traditional methods?" "Yup. What do you do, anyway?" (I'll be reviewing Healy's book a way down the line. I can tell you right now, though, that it's an excellent antidote to software salesmen, whether they're on commission from Microsoft or the White House.) __________________________________________________________________________top 14. WHY INFORMATION IS NOT ENOUGH Lowell Monke (lm7846s[at]acad.drake.edu) Letter from Des Moines October 27, 1998 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * TALES FROM A HIGH SCHOOL COMPUTER LAB Recently, one of my students designed and managed a Web page for a project involving the comparison of cultures from various parts of the world. This student gathered and categorized hundreds of messages so that others could reference all contributions easily. For several months he did just what proponents of "Information Age Education" say we need to teach our students to do: he organized, selected, processed and even electronically published information that was sent to him every day. He did such a good job and was so proud of his work that we decided he should enter the Web page in a contest. But the entry form completely baffled him. He spent an hour pondering and asking me for help with the question, "What is the value of your project?" With all of his hard work he didn't seem to have any idea how to express why he had spent so much time developing this extensive body of information. Finally, I gave in and told him what I thought the value of his project was but it did little good. He soon came back, unable to remember the exact words I had used. This nice, hard-working young man, who can gather and process information off the 'Net so well, has nevertheless been failed by all of us in the educational system. His problem had nothing to do with technology or information and couldn't be fixed by them. His problem was lack of insight, the inability to discover meaning by finding relations between experiences and ideas. In a truly educational environment experiences and ideas interact to create knowledge and the insights that feed the seed of wisdom. This recalls T. S. Eliot's famous lament, "Where is the wisdom lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge lost in information?" (1963, 147). Still, our infatuation with technology has blinded us to this discrimination and resulted in data and information being lifted to exalted status. The promoters of information have inflated its definition to absurd dimensions (Machlup 1983). John Perry Barlow (1996), for example, claims that "Information is an activity. Information is a life form. Information is a relationship". As information becomes a "living" entity inhabiting the electronic grid, once-prized attributes of human life like wisdom and truth -- which technology cannot traffic -- have become empty terms almost embarrassing to utter. "Living in the bureaucracies of information, we don't venture a claim to that kind of understanding" (Birkerts 1995, 74). Even in education we no longer speak in those terms, and end up with students who have no idea how to find meaning in the information they process. As Theodore Roszak has pointed out, "An excess of information may actually crowd out ideas, leaving the mind (young minds especially) distracted by sterile, disconnected facts, lost among the shapeless heaps of data" (1986, 88). The Internet provides us with nothing so much as an excess of information. Trees and Spiders ----------------- How does a child understand trees? At various times I have watched my son Benjamin climb our trees, sit under their shade, pluck their leaves, break off branches, listen to cardinals singing in them, peel their bark, watch them sway in the wind. Without conscious attention to learning, he has come to know our trees and, by extension, the idea of trees. This is a depth of understanding that comes only from experience that employs all the senses within the context of a physically rich environment. The 'Net (or a CD ROM or an encyclopedia for that matter) can only teach Benjamin *about* trees. There is a huge qualitative difference here. The information obtained is fragmented, desensualized, decontextualized. Taken alone, its meaning to him will be obscure and lifeless. It will never be linked to refuge from a blistering sun, or the strength of an immovable living object. It will never carry the emotional force of first-hand experience. I recently participated in an Iowa Public Television panel discussion which focused on technology uses in the classroom. As part of the introduction a videotape was shown of a second-grade class that used the computer to produce an electronic book report on *Charlotte's Web*, the charming children's classic that teaches about living and dying, friendship and community. The teacher explained that her students were so enthusiastic about the computer project that they stopped going outside for recess, preferring to stay in their seats working on the report. (This echoes a recent advertisement by IBM (1997) which tries to impress the reader with the same message.) The teacher's enthusiasm was contagious, but I found it troubling that the scene of three students sitting completely still, narrowing their attention to a colorful but flat 10" by 12" screen, struck my colleagues on the panel as preferable to exercising (and most certainly educating) growing legs and arms, not to mention lungs, hearts, vocal chords, and, yes, fists and tear ducts. I also found it sad that the teacher chose to encourage her students to take pride in the jerky animated movements of a coarsely drawn oval with eight lines sticking out of it rather than help them develop a sense of wonder through observing real spiders spinning fluidly in a terrarium; that in studying a story that conveys dignity and meaning to the life cycle the children spent their time working with machines rather than visiting elders and infants in the community; that in a story that focuses on farm life they preferred to stay in their classroom rather than visit local farms. (This is Iowa, after all, where farms are not hard to find). On the one hand, the world can be represented as the same old decontextualized, abstract information, but with the added intriguing feature that the child can now manipulate the representations using the computer. On the other hand, we can encourage the child to relate directly to the people and things of the world. These are fundamentally different ways to approach learning. One stresses control and manipulation of objects, reduced to abstract images -- the world as information. The other forges connections between the child and his or her immediate, personal, concrete world, and invites the child to become involved with the tangible things and people that exist in it. Both approaches promise to spark interest in a child. But the former does so through mechanical maneuvering, while the other reaches the mind through the heart. The former can be fun, the latter can be deeply fulfilling. The former is ultimately dehumanizing, the latter helps the child to discover himself or herself in the world. This does not mean that information is not important in its own right. Gradually the time will come when abstract information about trees, elders and the world in general, will be valuable to learn. But that value will be in proportion to the amount of opportunity and time the child has been given to repeatedly engage the real thing. Information eventually becomes important in confirming and analyzing experience and providing a test for ideas, but to place it at the center of education is to build the search for meaning around a meaningless core. Give Kids a World First ----------------------- The issue here extends beyond just small children or learning about nature. In my field of teaching I constantly encounter students who possess a technological sophistication that astounds adults, but rarely do they display a strong social, political or even ethical maturity to guide it. Name your destination on the information superhighway and they will take you there; but ask them to tell you what it means when you arrive and, like the student mentioned earlier, they tend to be at a loss. Design a web page? No problem. But ask them, as I sometimes do, what "freedom of speech", "citizenship", "justice", "ethics", or "community" mean and their responses rarely rise above the level of the undigested sound bites they have consumed through other electronic media. My students, having been raised on TV, and later video games and computers, bring ever fewer first-hand experiences and ideas to my classroom, and find little to do with computers except what the computer itself offers. Joseph Weizenbaum warned twenty years ago that the computer "enslaves the mind that has no other metaphors and few other resources to call on" (1976, 277). Left without those other resources, many of my students default to the computer and make it their primary metaphor of thought and life. Ironically, these students generally have trouble thinking of projects to undertake even with the vast technical resources they have available in my lab. Their minds are full of skills, but empty of impassioned ideas. They have plenty of ability, but too little real-world experience on which to draw to inspire and guide its use. Certainly, not all of my students exhibit these qualities. But it is a growing problem. I find myself wondering how much these students' extensive computer education has prepared them for contributing to community life? How much has it distracted them from preparing to contribute to it? Given that prophets of technology like Barlow and Rheingold (1993) are heralding a new form of community engendered by the 'Net, it seems to me that we have a greater responsibility than ever to teach children what community can mean before dumping them into this disembodied form. How do we do that? By having them do on-line research on community, justice, equality, and so on? By participating in listserve discussions, where flaming is endemic? Or by first concentrating on helping them experience and eventually reflect upon the physical community in which they reside? Does this require high technology? No. It requires the physical and active presence of those most important to their lives. How the Quest for Power Displaces Learning ------------------------------------------ So why have so many embraced information as the cornucopia of education? It is my contention that it is, in part, because they have confused and substituted for the greater purpose of education -- the development of a responsible, thoughtful individual able to live a fulfilling life -- its occasional consequence, power. The real significance of the Internet for students lies not in its educative capacities but in the power it confers. Look carefully at the hype swirling around the 'Net as a means of education and you will find that it is all about power, or what Perelman (1992) calls "intellectual capital": power to access information any time from any place; the power to "go" and communicate with anyone anywhere in the world; the power not only to access but to publish mountains of information. In short, the power to overcome time, distance and the limitations of our own physical bodies. Learning in the era of the 'Net tends to get degraded from comprehending ideas through experience and thought into enhancing personal power through the possession of information. All of the attributes of power cited above may be valuable in the world of business or politics, but in the realm of education they are deadening. They focus attention not on developing thoughtfulness and insights but on improving performance. In part because of the mindset encouraged by the computer, the words of Kenneth Keniston are, if anything, even more on target today than they were when he spoke them over a decade ago: we measure the success of schools not by the kinds of human beings they promote but by whatever increases in reading scores they chalk up. We have allowed quantitative standards, so central to the adult economic system, to become the principle yardstick for our definition of our children's worth (Keniston, quoted in Elkind 1984, 53). It is the pursuit of ever higher levels of performance that guides educational policy today, not a concern for developing strong, deep comprehension of the world. Students have to produce measurable skills at every rung of the educational ladder. With the emphasis on performance and the measurability of that performance, there is neither the time nor the payoff for letting children sink those deeper, less measurable roots of understanding from which meaningful knowledge can eventually emerge. Rather, we search for the vendor who can sell us the machinery with the necessary skill built into it to help the children meet decontextualized standards of performance. And already a disturbing trend can be observed: the more we rely on the ever increasing capabilities of the machinery, the more time and effort we invest in learning the technical skills necessary to get performance out of the machine. From the moment our children enter the school system we systematically sacrifice reflection upon ideas and experiences for the development of skills that will "empower" them. And more and more this empowerment is seen as coming through the computer-based accumulation and manipulation of information. References ---------- Birkerts, Sven. *The Gutenberg Elegies -- The Fate of Reading in the Electronic Age*. Faber and Faber, Boston 1994. Barlow, John. *The Economy of Ideas*, part 2. www.nirvanet.fr/bienvenue/cybergate-fr/cibrary-fr/economy2-xfr.html. 1996. Eliot, T.S. "Choruses from The Rock". *Collected Poems 1909-1962*. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1963. Elkind, David. *The Hurried Child -- Growing Up Too Fast Too Soon*. Addison Wesley, Reading, MA 1981. IBM. "IBM's Reinventing Education Partnerships," advertisement in *The New Yorker*, p. 125, October 20 & 27, 1997. Machlup, Fritz. "Semantic Quirks in Studies of Information" in *The Study of Information*, eds. Fritz Machlup and Una Mansfield. Wiley, NY 1983. Perelman, Lewis. *School's Out*. Avon Books, NY 1992. Rheingold, Howard. *The Virtual Community*. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA 1993. Roszak, Theodore. *The Making of a Counter Culture -- Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition*. Doubleday & Co., Garden City, NY 1969. Weizenbaum, Joseph. *Computer Power and Human Reason -- From Judgment to Calculation*. W. H. Freeman and Company, New York 1976. [ Also from NETFUTURE #79 - http://www.oreilly.com/~stevet/netfuture/ ] __________________________________________________________________________top 15. Poem - Public Library, R.I.P. This poem appeared in The Anderson Valley Advertiser, Vol 47 No. 26, June 30 1999 Public Library, R.I.P. Thieves are in the treasure house Ravaging, plundering, laying waste To everything beyond their taste And in the throes of mad carouse This ugly new breed of alleged librarians Stupid, incompetent, computer-obsessed Techno-yuppies, by ignorance possessed, Prove themselves the new barbarians. Where's "The Fox Woman" by Merritt and Pok? Discarded and dumped and sold For a pittance, because, they told Us, why should we stock A book not lately checked out? And so among the shelves they blunder, "Weeding," they call it, "discarding." No wonder The Battle for Culture ends in a rout. When boors like these are in power! By the time they are done No books will be left. Not one. Above the ruins, computers will tower, Buzzing in triumph, until they too, Perhaps in 2 years, themselves are outdated, To be replaced by others, created To offer still less, nothing old, nothing new. -Clark Dissmeyer __________________________________________________________________________top L I B R A R Y J U I C E | http://libr.org/Juice/ | | Except where noted, items appearing in Library Juice | are copyright-free, so feel free to share them with | colleagues and friends. Library Juice is a free weekly | publication edited by Rory Litwin. Original senders | are credited wherever possible; opinions are theirs. | Your comments and suggestions are welcome. | mailto:Juice[at]libr.org This page was created by SimpleText2Html 1.0.3 on 3-Aug-99.