::scr goldfish future

[Simon Batistoni]

On 12/10/01 04:38 -0700, matt jones wrote:
> 
> >She said: "Traditionally, what has primarily been an issue for education
> >has been putting knowledge into kid's heads. But now it will be about
> >showing them how to navigate in that world.

Hmm. See, I think she's wrong when she's rooted in the real
world, so I *know* she's gonna be on shaky ground talking about the
internet.

Education *should not* be about cramming kids full of facts. Facts
are completely fricking useless without a mindset which can do
wonderful things with them. Education is about stimulating a
child's curiosity. About furnishing it with the tools to explore as
much or as little of the world as it likes. Incidentally, the child
may be offered facts and information on which to use their tools.
Their curiosity may be piqued enough to go and dig up some facts by
themselves.

I think, if what she's saying comes to pass, the Internet may do a
wonderful thing for education - it may force more teachers to become
inspirational...

> And to be honest, is there really anything wrong with that? I mean, when
> I'm coding, I regularly refer to m'Perl CD Bookshelf just to check on some
> of the things I'm doing. Just 'cos I've delegated remembering that stuff
> to an electronic medium doesn't make me any worse a programmer (IMHO).  

The best maths teacher I ever had used a similar argument. He used
to get really frustrated by people who decried the fact that kids
used scientific calculators, and no longer learnt log tables by
rote. And I'm sure you've heard the (possibly apocryphal)
Einsteinism "never bother to remember anything you can look up in a
book".

I think it's absolutely essential that kids be taught primarily how
to get the most of the huge available resource base which the
internet now is. But I think they also need to be taught how to
contribute to it. Nettiquette, and careful teaching of typing,
puctuation and language skills are all also vital, if the net isn't
going to become crammed with incoherent conversations carried out by
people with no communications skills. That sounds snobbish, somehow,
but I think it's a real danger.

The one problem I have with absolutely relying on being connected
for information, is that being stuck somewhere without a connection
feels more and more like being blinded and having my arms cut off
these days. Eventually, if the mobile networks ever get their act
together (cue rant, muttley), we might have a pervasive data system
at our fingertips. But until then, I sometimes feel like I'm
scurrying from broadband connection to broadband connection in order
to keep together :)

> Mind you, can you really take anyone seriously when they say things like:
> 
> >"You are going to have kids who are going to have minds which are
> >fundamentally different to ours.That will cause all sorts of problems in
> >how they relate to adults."

Complete balderdash. I think certain social structures may shift or
change - the move towards programmers, designers and writers
becoming more highly valued as our valuing of knowledge and
communications increases, for example, but this won't change
fundamentals of interpersonal relationships.

Indeed, I think it offers great potential. I have a lot of very good
friends who I now know in real life, and who I found online. This is
A Good Thing.

> >She raised the spectre of human teachers being "sidelined by more
> >efficient knowledge manipulators" in cyberspace

And the problem here lies wherein? I mean, I think kids need human
teachers for personal development etc, but certain skills may well
be better taught elsewhere.

> >"We will get beyond the point where humans are needed to control the
> >technological structure so the question would arise of what place for
> >emotions like love, compassion and other uniquely human things."

Eh? Even if the structure can look after itself (and arguably, on
some scales, already does - the mailservers which will route this
message to all of you may have been set up by humans, but they work
24/7 without intervention), it is ultimately meaningless to us
unless it continues to function as a vehicle for human
collaboration, communication and expression.

> It's not just me, is it? This respected academic *is* a hysterical
> nutcase, isn't she?

It sounds to me as if, like a lot of respected academics, she's got
all excited by the idea of the Internet, and spouted forth on it
from the point of view of her normal discipline, without actually
understanding what it means, or how people use it.

Hmm. This post is long, and straying towards (void)iness. I think we
need more structure here. Issues others may want to comment on:

1) How do we best educate children today, in order that they can
take maximium advantage of the facilities of the net, with
particular reference to net!=web.

2) Nettiquette, and furnishing the next generation with the
knowledge needed to make the net a better and better place. How do
we teach it?

3) Is disconnectedness becoming an increasing problem for those of
us who are most entangled in the net? Is this a problem?

4) How long before we have pervasive access through some kind of
easily carryable device, or simply through highish-bandwidth mobile
networks which can support laptops?

5) How will the web change human relationships? Will it? Are there
changes for the better or worse?

6) How self-sufficient is the net? Will it become more so?
(self-configuring servers running things like DNS?), or is an
intelligent "data corpus" the stuff of Iain M Banks only? Straying
into wild abandon about machine intelligence is possible at this
point...

7) Academics jumping on the "talk about the net" bandwagon, just cos
it's the Latest Big Thing. Other examples of really odd, skewed
perspectives?

-- 

Simon Batistoni            Penseroso Ltd
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simon@penseroso.com     +44 20 7242 0570
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