- 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
Software in the public domain
One of the greatest temptations to consumerism lies in the free availability of hundreds of hours of courses and programs of all types that educators have at their disposal. The encouragement to consume what is free, or very cheap, has a negative impact on the critical selection of such software. Some are really worthwhile, others are not. The usual situation is that a school administrator faced with the alternative of purchasing new educational software or using that to be found in the public domain could tend towards the latter without counting on sufficient grounds for judgment regarding its true educational value. This is akin to buying a book because of its price rather than its content. Certain technocentered mirages can also impact on the choice.
Much software claiming to be educational experiences the same fate as a toy, used intensively at the beginning and then forgotten. This maximum use curve is common in the case of toys and tools with a single purpose fixed in space and time. They are restricted to a context and cannot be properly expanded. One way of measuring the educational value of an application is its many-sided performance. For example, a single utility such as a word processor can be applied at various levels of complexity in various educational contexts, and is thus of great value. To conclude, educators must navigate prudently between the extremes of consumerism and technocentrality, preserving their independence and defending value criteria.
