RE: OOW - Sour Grapes

Cherie,

Excellent points!

/* Luddite mode on */

In my opinion this discussion (once again) reveals the tendency toward spiritual disconnection and social/cultural isolation among technologists, which of course is just part of the great struggle from the beginning of time to rise up from the primordial ooze and attain awareness. :)

What a redwood forest (as opposed to going to OOW) might teach:

• nearness of "the sacred" to all life
• the values of interrelatedness and mutual reciprocity
• respect for the cycles/balances of nature
• the dangers of human arrogance and domination
• dynamics of transformation and emergent conciousness (evolution)

note: most of these things represent "female agency" (relation) in the world, and are required for balance, healing, psychic repair, peace and justice.

"nearness", "caring", "love" (compassion/altruism) are essential (core) human characteristics, whereas "rationality", and "cleverness" are described in all the wisdom traditions as being highly suspectible to deception, abuse and corruption (dehumanization/alienation/dysfunctionality).

---
(from another similar conversation:)
... my observation is that those who have become socialized into
a state of cynicism, despair and hopelessness  by the dismal state of the
world, and who buy into the dominant ethos of selfishness are in a
strangely insularized comfort zone from which their pain is typically
expressed as hostility to caring & truth, or generally to any challenging
idea that might actually lead to redemption, the healing/transformation of
wounded spirit and the development of compassion and altruism. 

(eg, http://www.tikkun.org/9803/9803edit.html , 
http://www.tikkun.org/9809/9809bader.html , 
http://www.tikkun.org/9905/9905thandeka.html )  

...
---


regards,
ep

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On 27 Sep 2000, at 5:55, Cherie_Machler_at_gelco.com wrote:

> It makes them seem more human.
...








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http://www.internet2.edu/

http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayNew.pl?/metcalfe/981026bm.htm

http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayNew.pl?/metcalfe/981109bm.htm


November 9, 1998 

      Let's build nextgen Internets to provide new opportunities for
      learning

      Everyone says education is the key to better living in the Information Age. But having just attended this
      year's Camden Technology Conference, I am not so sure.

      I am sure education is broken in the United States. There's no denying the increasing cost and decreasing
      performance of K-12 public schools for most of our 42 million children.

      I am also sure that technology alone will not fix our increasingly centralized, Soviet-style, anti-choice
      system of teachers, their colleges, their unions, principals, school boards, curriculum committees, textbook
      publishers, legislatures, judiciaries, and departments of education. The Internet is good, but it's not that
      good.

      But the decline of education is not why I'm doubting its paramount importance. What I learned in Camden
      is that education is losing share in the market for learning.

      Learning is paramount. And the fraction of learning that does go on in schools is decreasing. That's why
      we chose not to say our conference in Maine was about educational technology. Instead, we called it the
      Camden Technology Conference (CTC98) on the Transformation of Learning. See www.camcon.org.

      How much of what we need to know in life did we learn long ago as children in school? How much do
      children learn in school vs. at home, from their peers, in books, or on TV? How much more will we learn
      outside of school as the Internet reaches beyond 20 percent of households?

      Increasingly, parents are opting to school their children at home, because that's where, even before the
      Internet gets there, most learning goes on anyway, right?

      There was agreement in Camden that home and work, not school, are where we will find the future of
      learning. What isn't clear is whether this is mostly because of education's decline or the Internet's rise.

      The Internet presents new opportunities for learning. Many of these are being pursued outside of schools.
      Education entrepreneurs are focused, for example, on using technology for training in corporations.

      Why do entrepreneurs avoid schools? Is it because schools don't have much money? The 1998 worldwide
      market for corporate computer training is $18.5 billion. Is it because schools are in the grip of institutions
      bent on fighting change? Few technology entrepreneurs are so foolish as to take new ideas to teachers'
      unions or their school boards.

      Our public schools were designed back when most people lived on farms and needed the summer off for
      harvesting. Then our schools evolved into Industrial Age slice-and-dice education factories, with children
      segregated by age and subject, before being picked up in the early afternoon by their moms.

      Modern learning, in and out of schools, is tending toward more learning by doing (less by systematic
      memorizing), more learning just in time (less chance of being unmotivated long before the need), more
      customized learning (less one-size-fits-all), more integrated learning (less slice-and-dice), and more
      entertaining (less by holding young feet to the fire). There is also more learning about how to learn. Digital
      technologies, especially the Internet, are accelerating these trends.

      Many of those working on learning and education see great promise in the Internet. Having seen what it can
      do, they are quite articulate about what it can't. Better living in the Information Age depends on better
      learning, and better learning depends on better Internets. What better reason to hurry the Internet's various
      next generations?

      In the meantime, we have our children and their teachers. While working on better Internets, we better not
      forget to spend time on learning with our children. If you don't have any children, borrow some.

      Also, while breaking the stranglehold of education's current institutions, we better not forget to support
      teachers, who are as much victims of the current system as our children.

      For more on CTC98, see www.ligature.com/ctc/reports.cfm.

-

Internet pundit Bob Metcalfe invented Ethernet in 1973 and founded 3Com in 1979. 
...

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