1996: NEW WAYS OF TEACHING
[Overview]
With more and more computers available in schools and at home, and more and more internet connections, teachers began exploring new ways of teaching. Going from print book culture to digital culture was changing their relationship to knowledge, and the way both scholars and students were seeing teaching and learning. Print book culture provided stable information whereas digital culture provided "moving" information. During the September 1996 meeting of IFIP (International Federation of Information Processing), Dale Spender gave a lecture about Creativity and the Computer Education Industry, with insightful comments on forthcoming trends.
[In Depth (published in 1999)]
Going from print book culture to digital culture began changing our relationship to knowledge. Book culture provided stable information whereas digital culture provided "moving" information. During the September 1996 meeting of the IFIP (International Federation of Information Processing), Dale Spender gave an interesting lecture about Creativity and the Computer Education Industry.
Here are some excerpts:
"Throughout print culture, information has been contained in books - and this has helped to shape our notion of information. For the information in books stays the same - it endures.
And this has encouraged us to think of information as stable - as a body of knowledge which can be acquired, taught, passed on, memorized, and tested of course.
The very nature of print itself has fostered a sense of truth; truth too is something which stays the same, which endures. And there is no doubt that this stability, this orderliness, has been a major contributor to the huge successes of the industrial age and the scientific revolution. (…)
But the digital revolution changes all this. Suddenly it is not the oldest information - the longest lasting information that is the most reliable and useful. It is the very latest information that we now put the most faith in - and which we will pay the most for. (…)
Education will be about participating in the production of the latest information. This is why education will have to be ongoing throughout life and work. Every day there will be something new that we will all have to learn. To keep up. To be in the know. To do our jobs. To be members of the digital community. And far from teaching a body of knowledge that will last for life, the new generation of information professionals will be required to search out, add to, critique, 'play with', and daily update information, and to make available the constant changes that are occurring."