[Edu-sig] Postmortem of my OSCON talk

[ajsiegel@optonline.net]

Kirby , 

Bottom line - 

and it sounds like a terrible thing to say -

I am disturbed by your enthusiasm on these subjects.  

Because I am continually feeling myself asked to accept enthusiasm as a replacement for jugment - in the area of technology and education.

Enthusiam may be necessary, but it certainly is not sufficient.

I am not voting up or down.

I am trying to be an enthusiastic vote for skepticism on these matters.  Because that, frankly, is where I perceive the hole in the politic to be - at least at the moment.

Can we provide future generations with the realistic possiblity of pursuing *all* options.

Let's say we are on the same side.  The side of options. 

The option of concluding that technology is unimportant in the educational process is the one I see closing fastest and most irretrievably.

So I concern myself with its advocacy.  At least until there is something
more reasonable and substantial to discuss.

I think I state this concern fairly, reasonably - and sometimes - even without
hysteria.

But I think I am nonetheless sounding somehow strange.

Which I find strange.

Art


"One of my foreign colleagues gives classes on the esthetics of programming.
I advised him to throw away the overhead projector and return to the
blackboard. It made him find again the joy of teaching".

Edsger Dijkstra