View source for Technology for Learning (1995)

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<subtitle id='00:00:00'></subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:00:17'>my my father was a scientist and my mother was an artist and a musician so I</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:00:21'>grew up working both sides of the street in fact I could never see any real</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:00:26'>difference between the two so call sides of the seat the science side is actually</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:00:32'>an art as any scientist will will tell you and it's the newest of the art maybe</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:00:38'>the greatest of the art forms of the of the 20th century</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:00:42'>now I my awesome task here I was going to say I'm the only thing that stands</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:00:47'>between you and lunch but it's actually more dire than that I'm the only thing</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:00:52'>that stands between you and the bathroom</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:00:57'>so if you start fidgeting I'll realize I</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:01:01'>should speed up and get to my final point now in a half hour talk I think</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:01:10'>the best thing to do is to just bring up a few ideas to think about as the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:01:18'>introduction indicated I might sort of switched over from being a professional</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:01:23'>musician to being a full-time computer is when through looking at the work of</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:01:29'>Seymour Papert in the early six in the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:01:33'>60s 1968 or so I realized that what we</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:01:37'>had here was not just a tool like a screwdriver but we had a medium we had</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:01:43'>something like what the printing press was and it was going to have many</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:01:47'>degrees of freedom and the tools were going to be made inside of it now the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:01:52'>tools on the printing press are things like comic books biblical tracts romance</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:01:58'>novels political essays scientific papers in other words all the different</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:03'>forms of rhetoric that have been formed to express things and we realized back</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:07'>then that the destiny of the computer was going to be one of these things it</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:11'>was going to be a 500-year invention only one you only get one of these every</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:16'>five hundred years and that like the printing press that was going to completely redefine childhood and we</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:23'>were just starting to suffer back then through another technology that was</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:27'>starting to redefine childhood called television and I don't think television has</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:32'>redefined childhood for the better I think the printing press did and so</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:38'>the 60s ethic that we had back then is</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:42'>let's make sure the computer doesn't turn out like television let's make sure it turns out with the content carrying</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:49'>the argument carrying the range and depth for artistic expression that the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:54'>printing press gave us well the jury is</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:58'>still out on that and will be out for another 25 or 30 years and this group is</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:03:04'>part of that jury because there are lots of different ways of interpreting what a</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:03:09'>computer is and can do one of the ways that educational institutions sometimes</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:03:14'>sometimes look at it and parents often do as well is as something that is very</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:03:22'>important for their children's prospects of getting a job later on something</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:03:28'>every parent is very anxious about both for good reasons and also they make</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:03:34'>perhaps would like to be assured that the kids will move out of the house and a decent interval and I call this the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:03:41'>driver's ed theory of the computer</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:03:45'>everybody needs to learn how to drive particularly down here in Southern</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:03:51'>California we all know that we have driver's ed programs for it it's about</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:03:55'>getting from A to B that's what I call a to beam us a to beam us there's a</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:01'>problem so we've worked out some solution to it we'll teach the kids how</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:05'>to drive now nobody here I think would suggest that because the kids are going</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:10'>to learn how to drive when they're 16 or so that we should strap them into motorized vehicles at age 6 but think</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:17'>about it think of all of those extra years they would have learning how to</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:22'>steer all of those things that we could do but we would say no that's ridiculous</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:28'>we're going to completely stunt their</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:32'>muscular growth that's a terrible technology for children it's one that</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:37'>adults can use more reasonably because they can decide whether they're going to exercise or decide whether there</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:43'>going to go in a car but if we just</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:47'>strap the kids into that thing we are actually setting up a process that will</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:51'>atrophy something that's very important about a child so I think all of us would</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:55'>agree that if we were going to give a child to transportation technology we</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:59'>want it to be more like a bicycle because the bicycle allows the child to</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:05:04'>exercise flat out and it amplifies that right so I don't believe for especially</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:05:10'>for early childhood education that there's any necessary connection between</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:05:15'>the vocational aims later on and what we want to do with children in the early</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:05:20'>grades what we really want to do with children in the early grades is get them</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:05:25'>is help them build the Intuit Intuit intuitions the Intuit intuitive</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:05:30'>foundation that they're going to need to learn in CRISPR form later on this</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:05:36'>complicated century that are in and the even more complicated century to come so</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:05:41'>this is a very complex issue because there's a lot of anxiety and in fact one</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:05:47'>of the one of the most horrifying sites</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:05:51'>to me having been doing this now for 25 years is happening today when you're</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:05:57'>taken to a school to observe and you go into it and this the principal takes you</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:06:02'>into this classroom where there are lots of computers on the desk and the kids</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:06:07'>are happily working away and the teacher is happy and there's some parents observing they're happy the kids are</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:06:12'>happy and you know what nothing is happening nothing important is happening it's just</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:06:20'>like a bunch of illiterate sitting around being able to deal with a couple</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:06:24'>of words in a book and it only seems like a good thing if you don't happen to</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:06:31'>know what the real thing is that's just true in mathematics - it's my introducer</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:06:37'>said I have a degree in mathematics and I can't think I can maybe think of one</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:06:44'>classroom in 500 that I've been to in an elementary school in the last 25 years</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:06:49'>in which I've seen actual mathematics happen what's really going on is</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:06:56'>process called learning how to do the arithmetic of accounting and it happens</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:07:00'>to be called math just like junk food as</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:07:05'>label hamburgers now if you think of there being a dictionary police around</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:07:10'>they would get after people who use old labels for things on stuff that's just</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:07:16'>plain crap but in fact if you can get millions of people to accept that as the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:07:22'>standard and you do that by simply flooding the marketplace with both</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:07:26'>advertising and exemplar of this stuff people adjust their norms accordingly</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:07:31'>and so what is likely to happen with computers is that the easiest problem to</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:07:38'>solve is putting a computer or 50 of them in every classroom it's just stuff and</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:07:44'>there's nothing easier to make in the 20th century than stuff and the easiest</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:07:49'>stuff to make in the 20th century happens to be made out of silicon and it's going to be easier and easier as we</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:07:54'>go through years from now the accurate prediction of what was going to happen</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:07:58'>to silicon was made in 1965 by Gordon Moore who then went on to found Intel</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:08:03'>and that he has been off by less than 5% in those 30 years since then this is how</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:08:10'>you guys got to the moon right it was right where Newton said it was going to be so to to me and this is not to</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:08:21'>downgrade the space program because I'm a I'm a real have been a real not about</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:08:26'>that my whole life but one of the one of the slides I like to show is a</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:08:31'>comparison of the earth taken from space maybe even on your voyage with a globe</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:08:37'>made in 1780 which is how people who</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:08:41'>couldn't get out into space thought the earth might look and it looks exactly the same now which one is more</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:08:46'>impressive think about it to know your universe without being able to take that</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:08:51'>Olympian view is an incredible feat and</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:08:55'>the thing that would have been surprising if they'd gotten out there and they'd found a surprise would have</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:09:00'>been surprising if the moon weren't where it's supposed to be it would be surprising if the earth didn't look the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:09:05'>way we think it'd look like now think of what that means and it also would have</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:09:09'>been various surprising if Silicon hadn't turned out the way Gordon Moore predicted it</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:09:13'>because he was a physicist and he was using really good science to make that</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:09:19'>prediction now in spite of that the personal computer has taken everybody by</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:09:23'>surprise because nobody believed in IBM didn't believe it Dec didn't believe it</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:09:28'>right but in spite of us it was something that is going to continue</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:09:33'>again so don't even worry about getting the stuff into the school but consider</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:09:38'>the following dilemma suppose and actually we could even imagine this</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:09:43'>somewhat seriously here in Los Angeles where we have a lot of show biz suppose</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:09:47'>the actual issue weren't computers but suppose it had to do with music suppose the parents we're getting really</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:09:53'>anxious maybe because of watching too much MTV that children were not going to</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:09:58'>succeed in life as musicians they start</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:10:02'>beating on the state legislature and they start beating on the LA County School Board for years and years and</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:10:07'>years about our children are not getting any training as musicians and finally the politicians say all right we've got</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:10:14'>a solution we will put a piano in every classroom and unfortunately we don't</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:10:20'>have enough money to get any musicians to deal with this but we'll do is we'll</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:10:25'>take the existing teachers and give them two weeks of training in the summer</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:10:38'>think about it every musician knows that</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:10:43'>the music is not in the piano if we were we'd have to let it vote if there's</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:10:52'>music and this is where the quote from Plato is the right one the music is a soft fire in every child and it's a fire</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:10:59'>that has to be fanned and it's fan by doing music you don't need a piano or anything else you just need some people</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:11:05'>around and have music happen we already have all the musical instruments we need</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:11:09'>and we also have all the instruments we need for thinking and so a piano at its</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:11:14'>best is a kind of an amplifier it's not the thing computer at its best is a kind</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:11:19'>of an amplifier in amplifiers don't care</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:11:23'>much what they amplify right you put bad</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:11:27'>signals into them and you're going to get those bad signals back out in a huge</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:11:31'>huge profusion now it's precisely what you're going to get and put the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:11:36'>amplifier like the computer in without having some sense of what it is inside</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:11:40'>the children that you're going to try and light it not to light it up because</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:11:44'>it's already lit that's one of the most marvelous things about six-year-olds is</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:11:48'>that they already are terrific scientists they already are terrific</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:11:52'>mathematicians they already are terrific computer ist's they're already terrific</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:11:56'>artists they've got the whole nine yards I'd rather work with first graders than</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:12:01'>any other age including adults they are just the greatest but they can't tell</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:12:06'>you what you do with a computer this is</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:12:10'>a fond myth that the children will show us with no way the children are great</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:12:14'>mathematicians at age six but they can't tell you what you should be teaching</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:12:18'>them so that they'll be great mathematicians at age 15 or great math</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:12:23'>or break computers or great writers or any of those things what they've got is</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:12:27'>the start of the whole thing and it's our job to try and figure out what this</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:12:31'>thing is we have to figure out what it is we have to figure out what the what</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:12:37'>the ethics are that are connected with it what it's what the appropriate is this is of connected with it so now</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:12:44'>here's here's an interesting paradox and this has happened too many times over the past years is I've been invited to</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:12:50'>give a talk about the hip about the future of Technology and when</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:12:55'>I asked for AV equipment I was told sorry we can't do that now I always I</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:01'>always give demonstrations I always have supporting media just as we would like</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:06'>to have in our schools I can say that if</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:11'>I had to think of a percentage I would say that college schools of Education</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:17'>probably are the least equipped to deal with the talk on the technology of the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:22'>future right because and one of the ways of thinking about it because it was</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:26'>perceived as it difficulty partly because of the light here you should</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:31'>think that and realize that this technology is not here yet most of this</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:36'>stuff is not really here yet there is still time to try and understand it and</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:41'>to think about it appropriately in fact if you think about it for for a couple</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:45'>of seconds about 95% of the deep content</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:49'>that humans have come up with can be printed in the Los Angeles Times can be</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:54'>printed on newsprint in cruddy old black-and-white and not terribly good</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:59'>contrast ratio and the reason is is because most of the human content has</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:14:03'>been encoded into symbolic forms that don't require a super high resolution in</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:14:09'>order to get that rendering perfect right it's now great art you can say</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:14:14'>well you can't put that in the Los Angeles Times but the truth is you can't put great art in a wonderful coffee</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:14:19'>table book with high resolution color photographs and anybody thinks you can</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:14:23'>has never seen the real thing you have to realize for stuff like that the best</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:14:29'>you can do and the worst you can do are both ads they're advertisements for the real thing</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:14:34'>right but the nice thing about all of the literature in the world and all of the science and the world and all of the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:14:39'>math and the world and all of the music in the world is that you can put it onto</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:14:43'>something that is actually quite low tech and in fact the three most</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:14:47'>important things you can ever learn through a computer can be done on an Apple - it can be done on a little Casio</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:14:54'>or sharp wizard that you can put in your pocket buy it for 200 bucks the most</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:15:00'>important things you can ever do now you can't imitate</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:15:04'>all the things that paper can do on a sharp wizard and some of those things we</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:15:09'>do want to do but we have to separate out the distinction just as we should</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:15:14'>separate out the distinction in learning to read between actually reading and</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:15:23'>understanding complex ideas now the state framework for English in the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:15:28'>language arts just my favorite framework a framework by the way that is not is a</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:15:33'>perfect example of I think what happens when you have very talented people who</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:15:39'>did an outstanding job formulating the ideas in that framework it is a model</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:15:44'>you could use it for science you could use it for math it is fabulous it has</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:15:48'>almost completely failed in the state of California over the last 10 or 12 years</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:15:52'>I've been following it very closely now they had a wonderful idea based on</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:15:56'>some of the ideas of Frank Smith who is a marvelous educator in Canada that the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:16:05'>core of any literature program is ideas powerful ideas the kinds of ideas and</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:16:11'>issues that human beings need to think about and talk about and that is what you have to get into</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:16:17'>the classroom before literature makes any sense why go to all that trouble</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:16:21'>reading those long sentences if the they</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:16:26'>aren't about something and so Frank Smith's idea is you should start off</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:16:30'>with the ideas that's the teachers have</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:16:34'>to be comfortable at dealing with ideas</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:16:39'>that many of them which have no good answers and have to deal with the notion</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:16:45'>that they're going to be arguing about these ideas with the kids and that's what they want and if there's a</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:16:51'>supporting literature and there's a reading and writing process that supports that and I think that's a</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:16:57'>wonderful model should be adopted for the computer and the number one thing</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:01'>about it is that because we've had this stuff around for hundreds of years it</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:06'>was easy for Frank Smith to say that the issue has to do with ideas now we don't</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:10'>know what to say about computers what is</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:14'>the issue with computers are they adding machines are they things</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:18'>are designed to imitate other like being more erasable paper slightly better</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:23'>calculators you know are they a philosophical form is there something</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:30'>like the essay yet to come that's going to allow us to change our conceptions of</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:35'>the way humans live together these are going to be a new kind of science fact</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:39'>we know there is going to be a new kind of science based entirely on the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:43'>existence of the computer because it allows us to deal with models that don't</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:47'>that can't be handled with ordinary mathematics there's a whole bunch of</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:52'>stuff coming but to me the most important thing before we worry about</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:56'>teaching the computer so much is that would make our first research project to</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:01'>ask what is it and actually the the is</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:05'>you know English is a tough language because it has hard nouns you've</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:09'>whenever somebody says a noun you start looking around for the thing so a better</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:14'>word is to say what isn't what is the computer isn't what science</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:22'>isn't so civilization for instance is not a thing it's a process it's the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:28'>process of trying to be more civilized science is not a thing that's the process of trying to be more scientific</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:33'>and thinking is the process of trying to think better there isn't a place on it</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:38'>but there are thresholds that are that are very important so a cautionary tale</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:45'>just to throw in here is at an educational technology that I'm</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:49'>very fond of which is called the basic</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:54'>organization of knowledge you may not have heard about this educational technology but it was invented a while</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:59'>ago and it had some wonderful characteristics of a solid state self</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:19:04'>powered super high resolution capacity</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:19:08'>one to one hundred megabytes the cost is only about five to ten dollars per</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:19:13'>megabyte many millions of different</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:19:18'>titles available and it can hold the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:19:22'>highest thoughts that human beings have ever formulated does anybody guess what</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:19:26'>that basic organize yeah the book the Bo okay</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:19:33'>in case you've forgotten since I can't show slides I actually brought some</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:19:37'>concrete okay here's a B oh okay and</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:19:45'>here's one of my favorite ones Tom pains common sense this is a short</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:19:50'>one it's only fifty pages long but consider the following this thing was</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:19:55'>written in about seven weeks later</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:19:59'>months of 1775 published in January 1776</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:20:04'>we were already fighting the British and we weren't sure quite why except there</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:20:09'>are some things about taxation without representation and so forth and this</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:20:13'>book is an argument it's a 50-page argument about why monarchies might not</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:20:21'>be the best way of organizing things remember this is complicated because monarchies came from God the king was</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:20:27'>God's representative on earth and there were stained-glass windows that attested</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:20:32'>to that now imagine trying to argue</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:20:36'>against a monarchy as the representative of God using stained-glass windows have</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:20:44'>to do it this way and what's astounding about this there are only 1.5 million colonists and</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:20:50'>600,000 copies of this were made and</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:20:54'>distributed in six months between</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:20:58'>January and the Declaration of Independence almost every family in</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:21:03'>America got a copy of this thing and a lot of them were able to follow the argument that defined what the Hulton</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:21:10'>was about and the Declaration of Independence was a manifesto that</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:21:14'>outlined just in no uncertain terms what the what the issues were this is the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:21:18'>context of it now imagine trying to do this today need a hundred and twenty</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:21:24'>million copies of this not an inconsiderable feat not even TV Guide</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:21:30'>has that many think about it and the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:21:34'>mass medium that we have today television cannot carry this argument</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:21:39'>you cannot put Tom Payne's argue no matter what you do</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:21:43'>it doesn't go into television because television is not about arguments</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:21:48'>television is about showing you various kinds of things that personalities Carl</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:21:52'>Sagan's Cosmos was not about science was about Carl Sagan but what was great</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:21:57'>about it is that it got four million people to buy Carl Sagan's Bo okay and</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:04'>that Bo okay without science science was</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:08'>in there so television was until you could make a pretty good ad campaign to</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:13'>get people to go out and buy this but even the Los Angeles Times would be</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:17'>hard-pressed that's rotary presses to actually supply the discourse that built</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:22'>this country and we have no other discourse to replace it the television</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:28'>is not a replacement me now think about this now here's the other thing to think about is this thing is almost impossible</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:34'>to read off of CRT you ever notice when</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:38'>anything long happens on a CRT you printed out you ever wondered why we</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:43'>found out 20 years ago at Xerox PARC I'm a really good reader and we designed the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:49'>best displays that money could buy back at Xerox PARC and I was astounded even</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:54'>with all of the typography that we put in there that I couldn't read it nearly</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:58'>as well as I read a book and it looked like it so he finally tracked people's</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:02'>eyes who are reading the CRTs and we discovered that the better of the reader</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:06'>you were the less easy it was to read off a CRT and the reason is is that in</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:12'>everybody if you can do this without poking your neighbors is an interesting thing if you look straight ahead and</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:16'>wiggle your hands out here go ahead this is California</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:21'>so wiggle your hands outside your field of vision then gradually bring them in</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:26'>at some point you'll see a flicker out to the side but you won't see what it is everybody notice that you can't see its</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:32'>fingers okay now why did nature do that well the reason nature did it is that</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:37'>all of the resolution in our I almost is concentrated in a little thing that's</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:41'>smaller than a quarter and our eyes see by bounce around like this to compensate</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:47'>for that nature built into our eyes that out in the periphery where we're almost</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:51'>blind that our sensitivity to brightness</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:55'>change would be a factor of a hundred more than it is straight on every pilot</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:59'>was this one okay and so when there's a flicker out here what is your idea</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:03'>because what is it looking for the saber-tooth Tiger right we don't have</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:09'>eyes in the back of our head so why so every time you try and read something</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:13'>extensive officee are your eyes are constantly looking for the saber-tooth Tiger around the periphery of the screen</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:18'>because you can't see it blinking when you're looking straight ahead but your</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:22'>peripheral vision can see it blinking you just have to realize this so people</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:28'>who try and teach reading on a computer</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:32'>that has a CRT are giving the kids</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:36'>something that is anti what the process of reading is physiologically do you</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:42'>suppose anybody cared to even test that out no it's been known for a long time</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:46'>but nobody in education has ever I say at every talk just to give you a point</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:51'>of view that there's always a Faustian bargain you make with technology right</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:56'>if you walk up and there's a knife on the ground you've never seen one before you might pick it up by the blade</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:25:01'>instead of the handle and that is what you're starting to do with computers if</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:25:05'>you can't tell the blade from the handle on tool you should probably just let it</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:25:09'>lay there until you find out what the blade and the handle is now fortunately</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:25:14'>there is a solution which is flat panel displays don't blink and the reason we</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:25:21'>thought of the this kind of this kind of</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:25:26'>computer was thought of back in 1968 and it was partly thought of in the terms</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:25:31'>not just to be portable like this but to have a display that</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:25:38'>actually would match up with what our eyes and physiology can actually do</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:25:49'>notice I got that out of the way and the reason is is if you step on one of those</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:25:53'>it breaks whereas when you were a kid</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:26:03'>did you ever hit a baseball with a book so it Utah 25 years ago I did shock</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:26:09'>tests to see what the acceleration</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:26:13'>imparted to a computer would be if you hit a baseball with it now it's about</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:26:18'>750 G's right so we're ways from being</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:26:25'>able to do all of the things that books have served us every culture has done</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:26:31'>science if science is being interested</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:26:35'>in how the world works every culture has done mathematics because every culture is interested in counting things right</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:26:41'>so every culture computes in every culture but the problem is is that there are</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:26:46'>thresholds and what you really need to be worried about is not whether the kids</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:26:50'>have access to the stuff at whether their access is in a form that's above</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:26:55'>threshold because if it isn't all you're gonna get is form and no content you'll</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:27:00'>just get another thing to dumb the kids down just be another waiving it okay and</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:27:06'>I think the perhaps the second one is in</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:27:11'>league with the first point and that is that illiteracy is not nearly as</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:27:16'>dangerous or non literate not nearly as dangerous as unlit er Asiya we have</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:27:22'>maybe 30 million to 60 million depending on who's counting of people who don't</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:27:27'>read at all in any functional way in the US and people worry about it</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:27:31'>but the thing I worry about is the 200 plus million people who cannot follow</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:27:36'>the argument in this book those are the non literate right I'm sorry those are</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:27:42'>the unlit err 'it's so we have people who don't know anything about science</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:27:46'>but the worst people we have might be a high school chemistry teacher who actually doesn't</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:27:50'>understand how chemistry works right so that's unscientific and whenever we get</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:28:00'>this we get this substitution that allows us to act as though we're doing</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:28:04'>something important well I think a good way to close is a couple of weeks ago is</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:28:11'>that vice president Gore's house for dinner with a bunch of other people</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:28:17'>talking about the information superhighway talking about problems of</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:28:25'>education very similar set of concerns that that you have here today and Al</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:28:30'>Gore is very concerned about getting access for every child in America and it</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:28:37'>sounds good it sounds like a good idea but my wife actually had a really wonderful argument</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:28:43'>that she countered him within her argument went like this she said look</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:28:49'>most of the important information in the world is already in free public</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:28:53'>libraries accessible to all it's really</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:28:57'>not on the internet yet and it isn't it's already there in books and the big</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:29:05'>problem is who goes and makes use of it and who doesn't go and make use of it and she said the real haves and</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:29:10'>have-nots now and in the future are going to be those who either have</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:29:14'>discernment or have not discern mminton it's not a question of processing</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:29:20'>information and there was a statement earlier that the the LA Times only</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:29:25'>publishes 1% of the stuff it gets it would even be better I think if it published a quarter percent of what it</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:29:31'>gets that is one of the most important functions for both educators and</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:29:36'>institutions like the news why the newspaper will never go away although the paper form of it might</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:29:41'>because the editorial function is what is important about any newspaper and the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:29:46'>editorial function is going to be 10 times as important when people start getting more things off the internet and</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:29:51'>the editorial function is part of what</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:29:55'>discernment meant now Thomas Jefferson said something very similar I was very</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:29:59'>proud of my wife had it right on the nose he said</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:30:04'>he knew of no safer repository for the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:30:09'>powers in a country than in the people and if the people's discretion was not</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:30:14'>finely tuned enough then it was up to us to better inform their discretion thank</subtitle>
<subtitle id='1819'>you [Applause] </subtitle>