- 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
Technological updating
Technology changes so quickly that it is difficult to determine its course, its quality and its educational applications. Meanwhile education moves so slowly that the breach between technology and the educational process becomes wider every day. It is currently difficult to find sufficient persons in the field of technology who can guide us in the selection of the best educational instruments. Perhaps in the past the carpenter who designed and built bookshelves might have delivered them with the books he himself selected by size and color, arbitrarily as they appealed to his sense of design. It is unfortunate that in many educational establishments the technicians who sell or install computers are providing the advice. These technicians, ignorant of the most basic educational processes, are frequently charged with recommending the content of the technological support, and in some cases even dare to teach. Fortunately, there are more and more teachers and professionals training in this new technology, and it is they who will soon be able to select their own digital instruments for teaching and learning, without passing through any technocratic of commercial filter.
Permanent technological renewal is another matter to be considered. We must carefully determine when and why it is advisable to update a certain technology, what the costs are and what the educational impact will be of such a change. Each school should have a clear and flexible project that can be updated, rather than buying on impulse, according to fashion or recommendation of a friend. To this end it is essential to have a budget specifically for technology. We have seen many projects, even some international ones, fail calamitously because they were unable to renew technologically. The comparison that is often made with the cost of maintenance of school buildings is not valid. Building maintenance is only a fraction of the investment made in construction. In digital schools however, machines must be constantly renewed, they are not stable bricks but instruments in a permanent state of change that require constant updating and investments in accordance with an annual budget equivalent to the initial technological implementation. Education needs the best technology, tomorrow's technology. Education is a vector towards the future in all its aspects. It should never be necessary to accept discarded or outdated technology. The choice of new equipment to be installed should always be grounded on educational considerations. Often the best technology is not the most expensive.
