The Chronicle of Higher Education: Colloquy

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My association with attempts to create programs for educational uses at the Lawrence Hall of Science, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the University of Minnesota has been disappointing. Moreover, despite the fact that some experiments, like PLATO, have spent billions of dollars to develop computer-based education systems without much effect, computer salesmen continue to seek a profitable (for them) technofix, and are enlisting politicians and naive educators in their sales campaign.

Access to the Internet is access to junk. Real on-line information services (like Dialogue) charge real money for the information that they provide. If it is not cost-effective to offer such services to students, why do we assume that a "free" alternative will provide quality information.

Like the phonograph, radio, and television, the computer will transform education.

Not!

-- Robert W. Seidel, Director, Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (posted 1/14, 3:55 p.m., E.S.T.)
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