- 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
XII. TALENTS AND HANDICAPS
The right to communication
As indicated, unrestricted access must of necessity begin with the elimination of physical barriers, construction of ramps, bathrooms, special telephone booths, etc. but does not end there. The most difficult barrier to cross is the mental barrier, not the physical one, access to knowledge rather than access to the school itself. We are all aware of lamentable or even ridiculous curriculum demands which are obviously impossible for the disabled to meet on the basis of ordinary schooling. The use of digital instruments will help to resolve such situations that arise in traditional schools, so as to resolve problems on an individual basis and integrate disabled students in a natural manner. It is not a technical problem, but rather a question of solidarity and the right to the communication of knowledge.
Our own first experiences with telephone modems (which we soon complemented with a radio modem) were carried out at a school for hearing-impaired children, the Instituto Oral Modelo de Buenos Aires, in the early 80s. This was a clear example of the recovery of the telephone for use by the hearing impaired. In effect, when Alexander Graham Bell designed the telephone he excluded the deaf and hearing-impaired from the new world of telecommunications. This was an unhappy paradox, as Bell was a teacher of the deaf, was married to a deaf person and all his efforts were aimed at improving communication with the deaf. Analog telephones represented a step backward in this respect. Fortunately digital telematics have saved the situation, one hundred years after Bell's great invention. Now the deaf can use the telephone via modem, and it is essential that disabled children should learn to do so from an early age.
At the Instituto Oral Modelo results were impressive. At that time the teaching of a deaf child to use the telephone seemed like magic. We argued that the entire computer seemed designed specifically for a person with hearing disabilities. The modem proved the perfect link to the telephone, and in this way we carried out the first communications between schools for the deaf in the USA and Argentina, with great success (and at only 300 bps!), at a time it was hard to imagine a telephone conversation between the hearing impaired.
The principal that guides us is the need to adapt machines to users, and not the other way around. Often the user is burdened with the whole weight of adaptation when working with inadequate equipment. In reality computers are protean and can be transformed into any other machine adapted to the most subtle of intellectual needs and the most demanding ergonomic standards. Here again a profound change of attitude will be required by educators and rehabilitation experts, who are not always up-to-date in the latest technologies. What was impossible to imagine a few years ago is now in the market and can usually be applied successfully. Some examples of the barriers to work with computers that have been eliminated for good are as follows:
