[304] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Re: Child of Computerspeak
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jack Kessler)
Thu May 21 11:23:52 1992
Date: Thu, 21 May 1992 10:11:04 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
From: Jack Kessler <kessler@well.sf.ca.us>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
A point made by Jim Dwyer in the recent "Computerspeak" discussion here
deserves more attention than it has been given, I think. The discussion
itself went off into the ultimately-sterile direction of trying to
decide which of two alternatives -- books or online -- will "win":
Walt Crawford's "brother can you paradigm" response was the best, I
thought, that books and online will be complementary.
Dwyer's point, though, was that there is grave danger of creating
functional illiteracy through promoting networked information: that
the nets, which currently are the province primarily of folks who have
either six-figure incomes or a PhD or both, could exacerbate the
spreading gulf between rich and poor, to the extent that information
previously available to the latter becomes strictly the province of the
former through being loaded onto the nets.
I agree. I think there is this danger. I think that anyone who has
tried to read a computer manual or divine the mysteries of Unix would
agree as well. There are some good efforts being made to make sure
that the next generation at least knows how to access things online
once we fossils have been removed: EDUCOM has a K-12 project going, I
understand, and there are several state-sponsored K-12 projects under
way. But knowing how doesn't make things available. In Europe,
information, like health care, is considered a public right. Here we'll
have to pay for it, if we can get it all. I think Jim's well-taken
point is that, amid the "computerspeak", we have to begin the
translation and public access process quickly if we are to avoid adding
to the ranks of the information-poor.
Jack Kessler
kessler@well.sf.ca.us
