[39] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
"The End of School" & computer networks, Atlantic, May 1992
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Mattison)
Tue Apr 21 12:49:54 1992
Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1992 11:45:58 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
From: "David Mattison" <dmattiso%cue.bc.ca@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.MIT.EDU>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
PACS-Lites might be interested in this glowing tribute by George Leonard
("The End of School", Atlantic, May 1992, p. 24-32) to the impact of
computer networks (public and private access) on educational reform:
"When computers were first proposed as learning tools, some people were
concerned that children would become little robots, plugged in to their
machines, isolated from human contact. In most cases just the opposite has
happened. Actually, the conventional classroom, not the computer, is the
isolation cell, the lockup. Contemporary electronic technology, used not as
an adjunct to the conventional classroom but as something entirely new,
inspires cooperation, encourages learning teams, and builds student
confidence.
"Moreover, this technology can join students with a whole universe of
information, allowing them to reach out to other learners and teachers all
across the United States and overseas, and to link up with data bases that
eventually will contain a goodly chunk of all human knowledge. When these
connections are made, the classroom walls will dissolve, the egg-carton model
of education will become a memory, and the schoolhouse will become, in
effect, the whole world. Metaschool, a truly new educational entity, might
well be born from an imaginative combination of highly interactive
technology with the kind of nonfrontal, cooperative learning modeled at
Ko"ln-Holweide."
Paragraphs quoted on p. 28, 32.
David Mattison
Victoria, BC
Canada
Internet: dmattiso@cue.bc.ca
