Jim,
Just encountered your article in Vision, May 1998....
http://horizon.unc.edu/TS/vision/1998-05.asp
...while preparing for a possible meeting with Jim Spohrer, whom you interviewed
for the article......
The Educational Object Economy Project:
An Interview with James Spohrer
First, thanks for a well written and lucid account of efforts to use technology
for education.
The big issue is how to lift learning ability by an order of magnitude for a
wide mass of people, which is essential for moving civilization ahead. This
requires improving alphabet technology, which is the foundation of civilization,
see for example the "alphabetic mind" reviewed on 991108.....
http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/99/11/08/191947.HTM#L451114
Engineers have not yet unlocked the secret of converting information into useful
"knowledge" that uses an "intelligence" process to track and organize cause and
effect for making successful decisions, under the rule that past is prologue.
Lately, there has been re-newed interest in Charles Peirce's work, who posited
that "knowledge" is grounded in experience......
http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/00/05/15/011512.HTM#L260904
Unfortunately, technologists overlook this basic fact, and rush ahead to build
topical maps and conceptual graphs, because we now have tools that make it fast
and easy to draw pictures and graphs. Andy Grove at Intel points out that
people like to work on familiar things in familiar ways, so everyone is missing
the key idea of automated integration of time and information. Grove also
points out that to avoid ambiguity of mental maps we must analyze our
experience, i.e., take copious notes. So far, that is the only tool we have to
emulate, in an objective form that can be improved, the mind's power to assemble
small meanings into larger understandings, and apply them consistently over
time. That is why Gutenberg was honored for having contributed the most to
advance civilization over the past millennium, i.e., he found a way to improve
alphabet technology. see the record on 991010.....
http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/99/10/10/202239.HTM#3056
To take another step like the alphabet, developed in 700 BC, and advanced by
Gutenberg in 1455, we need a new kind of technology and architecture that
integrates "information" produced by the alphabet, with the sequencing of time,
and the structure of DNA that organizes life. Work over the past 15 years
indicates SDS may be a strong first step. My guess is this that education can
be substantially strengthened by adding this capability to current curriculum,
along with learning the alphabet and math, as a basic learning tool set.
SDS based on POIMS technology is explained at.....
http://www.welchco.com/03/00050/01/09/01/02/00030.HTM#6221
Sorry, for a late response. This is an important subject.
Rod
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