- 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
VI. DIGITAL TRANSITION
Educational frontier posts
In progressing towards educational globalization we will encounter numerous obstacles to the freedom to learn and teach. We must cross over these "educational frontier posts" that submit students and teachers to arbitrary regulations, many of which are ridiculous and anachronistic. It will not however be easy to lose current bad habits to reach this open digital society.
We will no doubt encounter restrictions similar to those of classroom education, which carries with it many spatial and temporal conditioners. As an example, when regulating the school timetable we can state that the chrono-biological demands of students (and teachers) are not always taken into account. Why do we require small children to arrive at school at a given time, generally very early, counter to what we know to be the neuro-biological rhythms of a growing organism? Why do we not respect the differences between disparate psycho-physical characteristics, between the owls that prefer to study at night and the early birds who perform better in the morning? Classroom education does not provide answers or practical solutions to these questions. On the other hand digital education, essentially non-invasive and asynchronous, helps us to respect internal rhythms and offers greater freedom of choice to make best use of the alertness and attention of both teacher and student. Also, why should a student always be with companions of the same age, or take vacation at the same time of year? Why is study required to be carried out using specific books or manuals? These same questions will be transferred to the digital era. Recognition of more flexible timetables will not be immediate, nor will the move towards joint tasks between students of different ages. It will also be difficult to develop the mis-named "educational software", as rigid as the system it intends to replace.
For their part current institutions must fulfill a series of external impositions (ceremonies, salutes, ornaments) which have little to do with education. Much of this is done with the demagogic intention of providing "the same education for all", but who said that everyone wants the same education? In the digital age personal choice could be given more consideration, but there is nothing to guarantee that this will happen naturally. Genuine digital education will imply the daily conquest of new spaces for learning, spaces of which we are at present unaware. Our desire is that one day we will have an education that is free from regulations imposed by bureaucracy, with learning flowing freely between minds without frontiers, passports or intellectual customs posts. We reject the concept of a single type of education.
