- 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
Creativity and deregulation
The focusing of all the strength of education on the development of creativity in students is an objective of many years. Creativity must begin by being an explicit target of the institutions themselves and of their teachers at every level. The failure of so much of the technology used in education is simply due to having used computers in the same way as blackboards. Not only is this a sign of a lack of imagination, but also of elementary knowledge, study and up-to-date information.
Educational institutions at all levels are noted for their pyramid structure. There is little room for independent areas without strict control from a superior. This feature makes it difficult to carry out interesting, new and creative projects. More trust should be placed in the teachers dealing directly with the students. It is they that are directly responsible for educating with greater freedom and responsibility.
How will evaluations be performed in the digital age? Traditionally teachers are either not evaluated or resist evaluation. In the case of students final evaluations are too late for changes and generate adverse reactions and often frustration. The digital school will require us to imagine new forms of evaluation that are fairer and more sensible.
Educational deregulation in its strictest sense, that is to say reduction in external controls on contents and annual programs, will lead to a better distribution of knowledge and a greater personalizing of knowledge. New digital technologies are irreplaceable tools to help achieve this independence.
Every institution, every person involved in the educational process, should have sufficient freedom to design its own cycles of learning. The digital world, networks and computers allow us for the first time to develop a system of education that respects and encourages all styles of teaching and learning. Every educational establishment might have something to say and show to the world. The best way to learn from others is to be connected to them. Digital networks enable us to do so. And in particular they let us investigate, knowing that we will make mistakes.
In effect, in schools research is often not carried out seriously, rather students "play at research". We are often content to carry out a series of controlled experiments the results for which are known in advance. Genuine research cannot count on this guarantee, and is an adventure of the spirit. One of the most notable features of the digital world is that it opens up new spaces for unrestricted research. For this reason both teachers and students must be constantly using their computers and communications for investigation, documenting and broadcasting their discoveries, including their mistakes and failures. Such research should include participants of different ages and disciplines. Research and learning could thus merge until melding into a cognitive spiral in constant growth. And everything should be done with freshness and daring, taking risks. In the digital world, teachers must teach in the afternoon what they learnt in the morning.
