From: tsmvs@acad3.alaska.edu
Newsgroups: alt.uu.future
Subject: Re: [misc.education] Re: In-school networking
Date: 11 Oct 92 23:20:30 GMT
Organization: University of Alaska Fairbanks


In article <1992Oct5.133838.18883@nntp.hut.fi>, jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala) writes:
> A repost from misc.education,sci.edu,comp.org.eff.talk:
> 
> From: andy@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Andrew Hackard)
> Subject: Re: In-school networking
> Message-ID: <80995@ut-emx.uucp>
> Date: 3 Oct 92 19:20:41 GMT
> References: <80992@ut-emx.uucp>
> Followup-To: misc.education
> Organization: Attack of the Quayle Potatoes
> 
> In article <80992@ut-emx.uucp> some hoser writes:
> [my article deleted]
> 
> I'm going to start by assuming a reasonably potent computer network is
> being considered for placement in a school district and go into what I
> would like to see.  Some ideas are applicable at all levels, some may be
> more specific.  I'm not overly concerned with practicality: think of
> this as my wish list.
> 
> -- I think one thing which would be possible would be the virtual elimination
> of the centralized library as a feature in the school.  If a district
> were to buy OCR technology, they could collect all the books from all the
> schools, scan them in, and let the students browse them from workstations,
> instead of being forced to wait to check them out.  We have encyclopedias
> on CD-ROM today, so integrating them into the system shouldn't be too
> hard.  We could build a hypertext "card catalog" which would enable students
> to browse books and articles by title, author, subject, genre, or a host
> of other categories. (Note that UT currently has an online catalog nearly
> that sophisticated, and they have recently started indexing journals and
> have integrated an online encyclopedia into the system.  With a little
> hacking, it would approach precisely the catalog I envision.)
> 
> Students could, presumably, download and print articles and, perhaps,
> even books (or excerpts thereof) in the class or at home.  This way,
> if they wanted hard copy to look at (or mark up), they could have it
> without removing other students' access to it.  If the school network
> were accessible 24 hours a day (and why wouldn't it be?) they could
> even browse the library on their own time.  I don't think the online
> library will replace printed books -- there's something about the solid
> feel of bound paper that electrons can't duplicate -- but, from a
> student's perspective, it's infinitely more convenient.
> 
> -- Networked computers, with individualized lessons, would enable students
> to work on what they wanted to, when they wanted to.  One of the major 
> problems I have with current instruction is that you have to chop a subject
> into bite-sized pieces; if a point requires two or three hours to develop,
> you have to find breakpoints in the middle, and you risk losing students
> who can't pick up from the day before.  With student workstations, if they
> felt like spending two hours to go through the proof in its entirety,
> they could; they aren't tied to a bell schedule. (Conversely, they could
> avoid things they don't wish to learn about.  Depending on your point of
> view, this is either good or bad.)
> 
> This also allows students to work at their own pace, which obviates the
> problems with putting students at many levels into one classroom; some
> are racing to keep up, and some keep trying to drag the class along even
> faster.  When instruction becomes individualized, students no longer are
> pushed or pulled into someone else's rate of learning.
> 
> -- Making the network available 24 hours a day, and making it callable from
> home, lets the student continue something he couldn't finish during the
> school day, or lets him go back when he has a new insight.  It blurs the
> line between "school" and "life", which IMO is a fantastic thing to have
> happen.
> 
> -- Hypertext.  Of all the innovations to come out of the last 20 years,
> hypertext has me the most excited.  The possibilities for this medium 
> are absolutely infinite, and the way hypertext can be used in schooling
> ties directly in with interdisciplinary teaching.
> 
> My favorite hypertext idea is a history course which allows the student
> to zoom in or out, to get a bigger or smaller picture.  It allows the
> student to switch to another region of the world.  It has pointers to the
> great scientists, artists, writers, politicians -- to the great PEOPLE --
> of any given time.  It is wonderfully flexible.  It even allows to move
> forward or backward in time in one country, though that's an awfully
> traditional way of thinking.  ;-)
> 
> If you think I'm dreaming big, well, you're right.  But that's the whole
> point of hypertext, IMO.  It brings big dreams closer to home.  There are
> some things hypertext can't do well -- it won't teach you to fold your
> laundry.  But it CAN point out the links between what you're wearing and
> what you parents wore, and what people around the world are wearing now.
> (Note to readers: This, more than anything else, is what I want y'all to
> respond to, as my familiarity with hypertext just isn't what it should
> be.  I also am curious about the ideas y'all out there have about how it
> could be used.)
> 
I too get excited about how new technologies can prepare students for 
the 21st century.  In a small district in Alaska we want to put 
children's assessment portfolios on CD-Roms.  Money is what is 
stopping us even before we can get started.  I know grants are out 
there, but that takes a full time person locating them and writing 
them.  Any solutions?> ----
> 
> It may seem, from some of what I have written above, that I'm advocating the
> abolition of the schoolhouse.  No.  I have read stories in which children
> wake up, shower, and logon to the school; I simply don't think it will happen
> any time soon.  School is, apart from a learning environment, a social one,
> and that aspect won't be removed just because we change the way education
> happens.  In addition, it's my experience that students get more comfort
> from having a teacher come LOOK at what they've been doing, rather than
> just accessing the log file.  :-)
> 
> This is turning out to be a very long article, but I still have more ideas
> that simply aren't surfacing right now. (Mostly, they revolve around the
> way that networking affects interactions between students and the ways we
> could use hypertext to alter the traditional methods of teaching -- I only
> scratched the surface above.) Right now, however, I'm going to shut up and
> let the net have a go at me.  Tell me what you think.  Tell me where I'm
> being a dreamer.  Tell me where I'm not dreaming enough.  Thanks for your
> time and your thoughts.
> 
> --
> --Andrew Hackard                                 If I spoke for UT, this post
>   andy@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu                        would make even less sense.
> 
>                            Hank for President '92:
>                        Because ten years later, dammit,
>                logic is *still* the chastity belt of the mind.