From: andy@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Andrew Hackard)
Newsgroups: misc.education,sci.edu,comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: In-school networking
Date: 3 Oct 92 19:20:41 GMT
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.)

----

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.