- 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
VII. MEANS AND ENDS
Values for today and for always
We recognize that there is no such thing as a "neutral technology", in the same way as there is also no science that is independent or moral values. Both science and technology are human activities linked by a dense network of interests and motivations of all kinds. Some instances or relations are more valuable than others, many are individually incompatible; in short there are different scales of values that order the body of means and ends. Identification of these values is a basic requirement for the undertaking of a coherent and harmonious educational action. These ethical considerations are also necessary to undertake long-term programs, decide on the purchase and distribution of equipment, research their implementation, develop new forms of communication, train teachers, propose programs and useful and creative courses.
Contemporary education is an enormously complex technological activity. Many types of conceptual systems, tools and equipment are involved. New information technologies on their own will be of no use unless they manage to integrate with the global educational process, which in many cases means a substantial re-adaptation to the new field of application. The history of education provides many examples of adaptations of a strictly technological nature. All of them required effort and created tension among the components of the delicate educational system reigning at the time. The same happens today, only more intensely.
Modern information technology has been applied on a widespread basis in education for barely a decade. In the countries that began this technological revolution, penetration was filtered downward from senior levels, universities and research centers. University students were the first to benefit from the vast resources of large computers, through terminals available for all kinds of scientific disciplines. With the advent of personal computers this closed system limited to only a few centers of excellence opened outward and extended progressively to all educational establishments, reaching kindergartens in only a few years. At present the distribution of these new technologies is defined by the economic dynamics of each society. In certain advanced countries it is not possible to contemplate a university career without owning a personal computer system at home connected via Internet. However, this condition has not yet become widespread in primary and secondary education. The trend towards a massive distribution of these new computer technologies is slow, not only because of their cost, which continues to be very high, but also for the pedagogical prejudices that tie us to obsolete models.
This fluctuating history has left its mark on the implementation of new technologies. In the early stages computers for education were dependent on professional programmers, giving birth to the educational software industry. Many engineers and computer technicians began to participate in this new field. Many educators, teachers and administrators also joined the stream. Evidently the impact of such novel technology caused serious disturbances in the sphere of education. Early programs applied in education were far from satisfactory. Some reduced human learning to the level of mere training in skills. This was the time of the rise of "computer-aided instruction". Others followed the same ideas as traditional courses, transferring them almost unchanged to diskette or CD-ROM. This was mostly "new wine in old bottles". Very few dared to sponsor true innovation in teaching practice.
As a result a new technocracy sprang up, and institutions hired technical personnel from non-educational backgrounds, in particular at primary and secondary school level. Some of these "experts in computers for education" managed to take over full responsibility for the administration of the equipment, the design of the courses and even the distribution of the timetables of the students. They implicitly (or explicitly) imposed improvised teaching methods without solid foundations. Failures multiplied, caused teachers great concern and to a large extent frustrated most students. This was a period of confusion that still exists in many places. We have often perceived in schools that the psychology of education in the nineteenth century being applied to twenty-first century technology.
As we provided our advice to educational establishments and businesses, in the fields of human resources or training, we have often found that those who take decisions on information technology and communications are the experts in the technical or systems area themselves. It ought to be the other way around. The machine should be at the service of the user, the manager and the employee, the teacher and the student. We were also surprised to note that many "computerized" companies and educational establishments now have more administrative personnel than before. This is matter for concern. When digitization is incorrectly implemented, the bureaucracy increases rather than diminishing. To reach the digital world it is necessary to dispose of all bad habits.
