- 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
XI. PRESENCE AND REMOTE PRESENCE
Spaces for meeting
Everything indicates that in the case of digital education meeting places and moments will take on key importance, although they will be very different from those at present. In a traditional school the heart of education, the sacred environment so to speak, is in the classroom. In a digital school the classroom is spread around the establishment thanks to the multiple connections between computers, and will be prolonged into the home, as we have explained previously. It will therefore be impossible to maintain the traditional distinctions between study and leisure, between closed and open spaces, between experimentation and playing. Times will change, the 50-minute class and the 20-minute break are the result of a conventional, pre-digital view of education. In the digital era these divisions no longer make any sense. The concept and practice of school vacations will also change, as education will be permanent and personalized.
Schools, in the widest sense, will become places for quality meetings, but not only for students and teachers. Meeting places should be public or semi-public, where people feel able to talk in a relaxed environment, rest, observe or wander. Examples include airport lounges, with comfortable seats, a theater entrance hall, a seaside promenade. In short, schools have little room for places for thinking, contemplation, exchanging ideas, researching and discovering. In addition, in an educational establishment there are few places open to outsiders. We propose creating more meeting places for visitors and certainly for all students and teachers.
A meeting place could be an art gallery within an institution, an open-air sculpture garden, an amphitheater with steps, a fountain or a pond with benches, a solarium on the terrace, a micro-cinema, a theater, a cafeteria, a pavilion, a music tent, a museum open to the public. In addition, little by little the windows of the school will be opened to the world and a new meeting place will be created, which will grow increasingly natural and welcoming: the videoconferencing room. This subject requires greater discussion. Although at present they appear remote and inaccessible, in a few years such places will be part of daily reality in digital education.
