- 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
CONCLUSIONS
"I am often told that I rush ahead to promote things that will only be possible 30 or 40 years from now. But that is not the case, because I commend that which is current and urgent, which already exists in more advanced countries, while my detractors are unaware of such things because unknowingly they are 30 or 50 years behind the times".
Bernardo A. Houssay (Nobel Prize for Medicine, 1947)
Having arrived at this point we will attempt to summarize the central concepts of digital education and reach a few conclusions. We hope to have demonstrated that the digital era does not await us in some distant future but that we are already living it. However, many people are unaware of this elementary fact and persist in their old habits. We are not moving ahead of the times or invoking some utopian future. Quite the contrary, we have tried to establish here and now what is already available in modern minds and machines. A brief summary follows.
From a practical point of view, especially for those readers that have not yet started out in the digital world, we suggest that they begin as soon as possible, without fear or anxiety, following a few recommendations derived from our experience with hundreds of students and teachers. A start should be made with a course on word-processing (trying different machines and platforms until the most suitable is found). Clarity and personalized courses without technical jargon should be insisted upon. Advantage of the practice with computers should be taken to use programs in English, the universal language of the Internet which will be essential in branching out into the digital world. Once the word processor has been mastered the time has come to purchase a computer. Seek sound advice, as it will be an investment, not an expense. Don't become reliant on one type of equipment and system. Change machines fairly frequently, and be guided by your common sense. There is no age limit on entry to the digital age. As Negroponte says, each generation is more digital than the last. Technology is continually simplified. Primary school children can learn with adolescents and adults, at their own rate and on different projects. Digital education does not discriminate, but schools cannot create a digital habit if teachers do not manage to incorporate information technology and communications into their daily lives.
From a theoretical point of view we can state that knowledge is not deformed as it is transmitted from one point of the planet to another, as in the digital world everything is "transformed" to preserve the unvarying nature of the original message. As long as it is received in bits, the receiver decides how the message will be processed. For this reason digital education is a style for transmitting knowledge that has been freed from means of communication that obliged us to suffer the limitations corresponding to each medium, forcing us into the often brutal competition between them. On the contrary, in the digital world there is just one medium, the digital medium.
We have thus recovered the unity of the educational message. This central if still misunderstood concept, obliges us to reconsider the absurd centrifugality of disciplines, to question the very basis of current education. For centuries we have lifted up impenetrable barriers between knowledge, between arts and sciences, at the same time as cultures and peoples have remained separated and in isolation. Such artificial segregation has inflicted severe damage on educational theory and practice.
These artificial barriers built by ignorance and pride have started to come tumbling down thanks to the tremendous impact of digital communications. We are witnessing a return to the theories of Leibniz, forerunner of the new digital age and an enemy of frontiers between knowledge and peoples. All digitized messages can be transmitted without impediment anywhere in the world. These new digital networks will be able to transmit the enormous cultural wealth of a new frontierless society. A better-educated world will be fairer and more caring world.
