Lakeside doesn’t know how many messages each student sends, and it doesn’t know what the messages are about. Some e-mail relates to school studies and activities, but doubtless a lot of it, including much of Lakeside’s traffic on the Internet, concerns students’ outside interests. Lakeside doesn’t view this as an abuse of the electronic mail system, but as another way to learn.
A number of secondary school students, like those at New York’s P.S. 125, are discovering how the long-distance access afforded by computer networks can help them learn from students from other cultures, and participate in discussions all over the world. Many classrooms, in different states and countries, are already linking up in what are sometimes called “learning circles.” The purpose of most learning circles is to let students study a specific topic, in collaboration with faraway counterparts. In 1989, as the Berlin Wall was falling, West German students were able to discuss the event with their contemporaries in other countries. One learning circle that was studying the whaling industry included Alaskan Inuit students, whose Eskimo villages still depend on whales for food. Students outside the village got so interested, they invited an Inuit tribal elder to their class for a learning circle discussion.
One ambitious plan for students using computer networks is the GLOBE Project, an initiative pushed by Vice President Al Gore. GLOBE stands for Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment. The hope is that it will be funded by a variety of governments as well as by private contributions. It would ask grade-schoolers to collaborate internationally on collecting scientific information about Earth. Children would routinely collect statistics, such as temperature and rainfall, and relay them across the Internet and satellites to a central database at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Maryland, where the information would be used to create composite
pictures of the planet. The composites would be relayed back to the students, as well as to scientists and the general public. No one knows how much scientific value the data would have, especially the data collected by the very young, but gathering the facts and seeing the composite pictures would be a fine way for large numbers of children from many nations to learn about global cooperation, communication, and environmental issues.
The highway’s educational possibilities will also be open to the world’s unofficial students. People anywhere will be able to take the best courses taught by great teachers. The highway will make adult education, including job training and career-enhancement courses, more readily available.
A lot of parents, professionals, and community or political leaders will have the opportunity to participate in the teaching process, even if only for an hour here or there. It will be practical, inexpensive, and, I think, commonplace for knowledgeable guests to lead or join discussions, via videoconferences, from their homes or offices.
Having students connected directly to limitless information and to each other will raise policy questions for schools and for society at large. I discussed the issue of regulation of the Internet. Will students routinely be allowed to bring their portable PCs with them into every classroom? Will they be allowed to explore independently during group discussions? If so, how much freedom should they have? Should they be able to look up a word they don’t understand? Should they have access to information that their parents find objectionable on moral, social, or political grounds? Be allowed to do homework for an unrelated class? Be permitted to send notes to each other during class? Should the teacher be able to monitor what is on every student’s screen or to record it for later spot-checking?
Whatever problems direct access to unlimited information may cause, the benefits it will bring will more than compensate. I enjoyed school but I pursued my strongest interests outside the classroom. I can only imagine how access to this much information would have changed my own school experience. The highway will alter the focus of education from the institution to the individual. The ultimate goal will be changed from getting a diploma to enjoying lifelong learning.
10
PLUGGED IN AT HOME
One of the many fears expressed about the information highway is that it will reduce the time people spend socializing. Some worry that homes will become such cozy entertainment providers that we’ll never leave them, and that, safe in our private sanctuaries, we’ll become isolated. I don’t think that’s going to happen, and later in this chapter, when I describe the house I’m building, I think I make my case.
The house, which has been under construction for what seems like most of my life (and it seems I’ve been reading about the construction even longer), is full of advanced entertainment equipment, such as a small movie theater and a video-on-demand system. It should be an interesting place to live, but I certainly don’t plan to stay home all the time. Other people, when they have entertainment flowing into their homes, will also continue to go to theaters, just as they’ll visit parks, museums, and shops. As behaviorists keep reminding us, we’re social animals. We will have the option of staying home more because the highway will create so many new options for home-based entertainment, for communications—both personal and professional—and for
employment. Although the mix of activities will change, I think people will decide to spend almost as much time out of their homes.
In chapter 1, I mentioned dire anticultural predictions from the past that didn’t come about. More recently, in the 1950s, there were those who said movie theaters would disappear and everyone would stay home watching the new invention, television. Pay TV and, later, movie video rentals provoked similar fears. Why would anyone spend money for parking and baby-sitters, buy the most expensive soft drinks and candy bars in the world, to sit in a dark room with strangers? But popular movies continue to fill theaters. Personally, I love movies and enjoy the experience of going out to see them. I do it almost every week, and I don’t think the information highway will change that.
The new communications capabilities will make it far easier than it is today to stay in touch with friends and relatives who are geographically distant. Many of us have struggled to keep alive a friendship with someone far away. I used to date a woman who lived in a different city. We spent a lot of time together on e-mail. And we figured out a way we could sort of go to the movies together. We’d find a film that was playing at about the same time in both our cities. We’d drive to our respective theaters, chatting on our cellular phones. We’d watch the movie, and on the way home we’d use our cellular phones again to discuss the show. In the future this sort of “virtual dating” will be better because the movie watching could be combined with a videoconference.