- 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
Technocentrality and consumerism
Technocentrality is a pathology difficult to treat. It infiltrates all levels of teaching like a cancer and can even distort the very intimacy of the learning process. This is an inversion of values that makes us forget that in the dynamism of the teaching/learning process itself the subject is the student and the object is the educational content. In a way this content has both matter and form. The matter is knowledge, informed and received, the form is the means, support or format transmitting this content.
Marshal McLuhan was the first to detect the importance of form in the transmission of knowledge. His famous dictum "the medium is the message" is an extreme expression which at its limits identifies the form with its content. However, the digital revolution has inverted the terms once again, and if we follow the reasoning of Nicholas Negroponte we would of necessity have to conclude that the medium is no longer the message. In effect, when knowledge is broadcast in fully digital form the receiver can select the media, the support preferred on which to receive the message (text, voice or image). The metamorphosis takes place when the message reaches the computer. The information carried by the bits is converted into a human message only on arrival at destination. This freedom of choice has its greatest enemy in technocentrality.
Technocentrality currently derives from the invasion of form over content. New electronic technologies have created truly prodigious supports for the transmitting of all types of information and which were unimaginable in the field of education barely a decade ago. However, adaptation of new forms to new content is still ambiguous. The path proposed by technocentrality is to simply transfer the old content to the new forms. We are aware that such technocentered transfer has led to failure in many other fields. The only possibility is to renew the content of education, as its form is already well on the way towards new information and communication support. The latter should not be guiding the educational process. Quite the contrary.
The proliferation of computer equipment, peripherals, telematic networks, data banks, educational programs of all kinds (software and courseware) has led to the existence of a paradoxical situation in the market. There is no such thing as a lasting purchase guide or equipment catalog; renewal is so rapid that educators seem condemned to live with obsolescence. Users do not know where to begin and get lost in the growing labyrinth of the educational market. The best remedy for this paralyzing sensation is sound professional advice, and the worst is to blindly follow the interested counsel of the sellers of this new educational technology. The range of alternatives for the purchase of new equipment may be vast, as in leading producing countries, or very limited, as in most peripheral countries, but the same consumerism prevails in all. A "rich" version of technology consumerism is the useless accumulation of educational software, and a "poor" version is the use of inadequate equipment (for example, computers with limited memory, low resolution printers, etc.). One day consumers will be able to demand equipment better suited to education than those currently sold on the market. Machines and communications will be more accessible, and costs will be much lower. The existing distortion has no future.
