From: utzoo!watmath!idhopper
Newsgroups: net.books
Title: Re: Re: Poor quality public education - (nf)
Article-I.D.: watmath.4724
Posted: Sun Mar 13 13:48:19 1983
Received: Sun Mar 13 23:49:00 1983
References: ucbcad.817

I, too, have wished many times for a good electronic library (especially when
I have spent hours walking up and down between the stacks and the card
catalogue, following the bibliography trail or my own meandering thoughts).
The best attempt at such a thing (read: the one that I would most like to
use) is the long-awaited Xanadu project, shepherded by Ted Nelson.  His most
recent book, "Literary Machines", outlines the project in a fair bit of 
detail, and a newsletter I received from him indicates that it is soon to be
released.  The basic idea of Xanadu is "hypertext" -- non-sequential writing,
writing with links and branches, and multiple co-existent versions of the same
document, and other nifty stuff.  The system is apparently running on the Sun,
soon to be released (when have I heard *that* before?).  The main drawback
will be that there will be no document base when it is released.

Off the nitty-gritty stuff, on to the more general issues.  When such a system
comes into existence, (be it Xanadu or something else), with sufficient
flexibility to handle pictures, movies, sound, and text with a single clean,
simple mechanism, what then?  How much of our society is dedicated to
distributing information, of all kinds? (record companies, film distributors,
radio, television, *schools*)  I think (and hope, here in an educational
system that is doing more to hinder my learning than help it) that the
biggest effect could be on the educational system -- and thereby on the
whole of society: since Plato, everyone has known that the educational
system is the most powerful means for social control around.  Imagine
Yehudi Menuhin's "Music of Man" or Jacob Bronowski's "The Ascent of Man"
television series' enhanced by the flexibility such a system would offer.
General discussions about, say, Newton's theory of light could lead on to
more detailed animations, then into the mathematics, into the new theories
of light, etc. *if the student's interest was sparked by the presentation*.
If not, he/she would continue until something interesting does come along.

I think that the potential is enormous; whether it will in fact be realized
is another matter.  The resistance to change can be enormous, especially from
those whose vested interests will be threatened by such a change -- and the
government falls into this category, as it gets from the educational system,
for the most part, nice docile citizens willing to let someone else do their
thinking.  Time will tell.
	--ravi

p.s.	Interesting books on the subject:

	Fuller, R. Buckminster.  "Education Automation: Freeing the Scholar
to Return to his Studies"
	Watson, Patrick J.  "Conspirators in Silence"
	Illich, Ivan.  "Deschooling Society"
	Nelson, Theodor.  "Computer Lib/Dream Machines", "The Home Computer
Revolution", "Literary Machines"