- Preface
- I. A new era
- • Globalization, the first sign of change
- • English - the new planetary language
- • A change in the scale of education
- II. Education and its context
- • Education and business
- • Education and the state
- III. The digital habit
- • The new digital culture
- • Digital projects
- • Time for assimilation
- IV. The extended school
- • Education at a critical moment
- • A definition of the extended school
- • Yesterday: concentrated knowledge
- • Today: knowledge disseminated
- • Tomorrow: knowledge connected
- V. New tools and old
- • Chalk and blackboard
- • The spinning globe
- • Microscopic life
- • Desk and work
- • The computer garden
- • Slides and liquid Crystal
- • Projectors and projections
- • Dry and digital copies
- VI. Digital transition
- • Continuing education
- • Cultural exchange
- • The mental switch
- • Critical thought
- • Internal communication
- • Educational frontier posts
- • Technological updating
- • Creativity and deregulation
- VII. Means and ends
- • Values for today and for always
- • Technocentrality and consumerism
- • Software in the public domain
- VIII. The digital library
- • Atoms versus bits
- • The dual book
- • Digital quality
- • Reading and writing
- • Text and hypertext
- • Consult and navigate
- IX. The home computer
- • A new piece of furniture or a new instrument?
- • Playthings and electronic toys
- • Robots for assembly
- • The silent printer
- • The community network
- X. New instruments of thought
- • Word processors, a new way of writing
- • A friendly mouse
- • More portable learning
- • Designing with computers
- • The golden link in communications: the modem
- • Electronic mail always arrives at its destination
- • Fax, a threatened species
- • WWW: three magic letters
- • Reliable and accessible data bases
- • Tables, abacus and spreadsheet
- • The Scanner, a bridge between two worlds
- • New interfaces and old keyboards
- • Presentation aids
- • So-called multimedia
- • Digital cameras without film
- • Digital videos in schools
- • Music for all
- XI. Presence and remote presence
- • Features of distance education
- • The three generations
- • Synchronous and asynchronous moments
- • Spaces for meeting
- • Classrooms open to the world
- • The advantages
- • New educational niches
- • A new type of teacher and student
- XII. Talents and handicaps
- • The right to communication
- • The obstacle of the keyboard
- • The obstacle of the screen
- • The expression of individual talent
- Conclusions
X. NEW INSTRUMENTS OF THOUGHT
New interfaces and old keyboards
Computers use the same keyboards as old typewriters, designed a century ago for slow and cumbersome mechanisms. A PC keyboard line begins with the letters QWERTY, and is something akin to a fossil of the industrial age in the era of bits. It is a convention that has lasted, as is the case of many standards that have become universally accepted without necessarily being the best. We must admit that this book was typed on a QWERTY keyboard.
Fortunately there are other interfaces for communicating with digital machines. Certain voice recognition equipment allows text to be read directly into the machine, a dream come true for the electronic secretary. We must however resign ourselves to the fact that dictating is not the same as writing. The mental processes are different, and perhaps for this reason these systems have not yet become widespread. Nevertheless, they are a blessing to those with manual disabilities that prevent them from using a keyboard.
Digital graphics tablets have also been developing at an astounding rate. They now allow us to use a digital pencil and combine hundreds of tools for drawing or painting. We can adjust precision and control the pressure of our hand on the pad at will, placing ourselves in direct physical contact with our work. This is a way of taking advantage of the wonderful sense of touch and pressure that has been developed by our human species to enable individual talent to be expressed through the tips of one's fingers.
Graphics tablets now make it possible to simulate a water-color or an oil painting, with the advantage that the digital water-colors and oils are perfectly recyclable, transmittable, scaleable and reproducible. In other words a digital copy is indistinguishable from the original, can be reproduced countless times without losing quality, is communicated over the Internet and reaches an art-lover's computer in the size and format wished. Every digital artist's studio should have such a tool for daily use.
