- 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
IX. THE HOME COMPUTER
The community network
The subject of connectivity is vital for a school that is open to the world, for an extended school that is linked to the homes of students and teachers. Investment in good digital connections is an essential component of sound administration of household and school budgets. Our actions are guided by the need to establish a true digital community on-line between school and home. Thus anything that facilitates integration between the two will have an educational function and in the long term will permit the much-desired globalization of education.
Above all the existence of a simple domestic telephone line opens up the home to the world, although this essential is often insufficient on its own. When a modem is added to the line, and a connection to Internet, the number of calls increases significantly and the length of telematic connection time begins to interfere with normal telephone use. Conflict is inevitable, as in the case of homes where there are various adolescents competing for the same telephone. Here there is an overlapping of functions which must be carefully clarified. On the one hand there is the habitual domestic use of the telephone, on the other the new use of the same telephone line to send and receive messages, navigate along Internet, etc.
In effect, a school well equipped with communications "radiates" information constantly, and the user, whether student or teacher, has access to the educational community as a whole at all times. It is necessary for homes to be equipped to respond to this new system of network communication, beginning by connecting all the computers within the home itself. To this end it would be ideal to install a new telephone line in each house for computer communications, followed soon by an ISDN connection for videoconferencing.
