- 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
Electronic mail always arrives at its destination
This is one of the tools that is most used at world level and has seen the greatest growth in recent times. It allows messages to be sent to any person connected to the digital network, regardless of distance or number of bits.
Regardless of distance the message issued arrives immediately at any point on the network. The message travels in the form of packets of bits, like wagons in a train. The packets may travel separately along different roads, but when they arrive at their destination they join together in perfect order. The best electronic message is short and concise, but when the doors to communication are opened, as actually happens in a digital school for example, imagination flourishes without restraint. At the San Martín de Tours school, for example, it is common for students to send their messages using colored fonts, not usually seen in an academic environment used to ascetic and laconic transmissions. To think there are some scientists that consider that color adds no information to the message!
For the first time in the field of communications the amount of text involved is not a significant factor. Furthermore, the digital message can be sent to hundreds or thousands of people simultaneously with no increase in cost. Lastly, it is interesting to note that digital communications using the flat fee system have enabled a truly astounding growth in the use of electronic mail. If a flat fee is paid there is no payment per communication, per message. Fees are set for fixed periods, usually a month, and the use of lines is without charge at all times of day. This monthly fee system is ideal for digital schools. Depending on the country and the connection system used, the local telephone charge is only paid if there is no direct link to Internet. It is to be hoped that some day communications costs will be insignificant.
Electronic mail systems have gained in simplicity year by year, almost month by month. Recent versions allow sound, images and even videos to accompany the text or message. All types of message travel along the network, regardless of their "weight" in Kbits. This prodigious facility for transmitting of a simultaneous multiplicity of visual and audio messages will have an increasing impact on digital education. At San Martín de Tours the rate of communication grew exponentially when each of the users was given a personal electronic mail address on Internet.
Electronic mail has caused a qualitative jump in the concept of proximity between people. It unceasingly incorporates new cultural codes, new habits. Arthur C. Clark relates that when telephone communications were inaugurated between the USA and Europe an immigrant asked a telephone company employee if it was possible for him to speak in Italian from the United States to his family in Italy. Something similar happened to us with a user who was beginning to use electronic mail asked in all innocence if it was possible to send a message in French from Buenos Aires, as if bits had nationality and needed a passport.
In effect, electronic mail or e-mail has become an instrument of freedom for citizens to such an extent that its availability provides us with a good indication of the degree of freedom in a society. In China, with a population of over one billion, there are only a few thousand computers linked to a network, whereas in the United States there are many millions of users of electronic mail.
