Computer-based instruction

CSGnet Archive CSG1997
1

[From Chris Cherpas (970203.1356 PT)]
  [re Bruce Gregory (970131.1030 EST)]

BG:

I am not sure that there is a "PCT-based education" except in
the following sense: PCT is a theory of purposive action;

cc:
...including the purposive actions of curriculum developers?

BG:

PCT illuminates what does not work in education very well, but
it suggests, to me at least, that in order to work, education
must look very different than it does today.

cc:
Please explain: how does PCT illuminate what does not work in
education very well. Let's consider some examples.

How must/would education look very different than it does today?
You have a vision? Something in mind?

BG:

I am suspicious of computer-based instruction

cc:
I am suspicious of teacher-based instruction. Look at the
results. We'll better understand the role of teacher-based
instruction when computer-based instruction has become
established in all our schools. (Or did you think that
teachers were eternally protected from the industrial revolution?)

BG:

...because it [computer-based instruction] seems
to be based on the assumption that there are a series of hoops
I can ask you to jump through that will lead to your learning
something. Everything I know about PCT tells me this is
probably wrong.

cc:
Ah, probabilistic reasoning!
Computer-based instruction is based on assumptions closer to these:
1. Computers provide a means to implement, and collect data on, individualized
   educational processes happening within less-than-one-second time intervals
   and across long time spans (years, decades);
2. Computers provide a means for indexing, storing, and retrieving
   a repository of knowledge, including interactive programs
   intended to facilitate learning for individual students;

Nothing I know about PCT refutes the notion that computer-based instruction
is worth pursuing as a way to implement and study an effective educational
process. How do _you_ study educational processes? How do _you_ individualize
instruction?

Assumptions aside, I can model and show systematic changes in measures of
individual academic performance with computer-based instruction. What does
your knowledge about the Nature of Science tell you about that? Or were the
presumed assumptions too disturbing, too deeply flawed, to even _consider_ the
data? (Please, don't let me disturb your opinions with facts and statistics.
Months ago, I offerred CSGNET subscribers copies of an article which supplied
quite a lot of data. Perhaps you would learn nothing from studying such data.)

cc:

The first consideration is still what perceptions you -- the course
developer -- are seeking to control. In other words, you have
standards for what is competence in a student of "the nature of
science," stated in terms of what variables they should be
controlling. Can you provide a list of eduational objectives
that are translated into PCT terms? Then you use a version of the
Test for controlled variables to see that students are controlling well,
poorly, or not at all.

BG:

This implies that I should use the students as "affordances" for
matching my own pictures. I agree that this is what happens
traditionally, but I think it has little to do with learning.

cc:
You have a more direct means than the Test for studying whether
a student is controlling variables you consider important?

How do _you_ perceive students in a way that has more than a little
to do with learning? Don't you control your perceptions of students,
trying to get your perceptions of them to "match your own pictures"
of what you want them to achieve? Do you have any goals as an educator?

Perhaps you'd like to share with us what counts for you as learning, at least
enough to clarify how you would detect when learning is occurring? How can you
tell if someone is benefitting from taking your courses?

cc:

I agree totally, but the whole enterprise of education is predicated
on someone being able to improve _somebody else's_ ability to
control.

BG:

If PCT tells us anything about education it is that this
assumption is deeply flawed.

cc:
The logical complement of this "deeply flawed assumption" is that
there is an instance of educating when someone is _not_ able to
improve somebody else's ability to control. Are you saying that
educating can be accomplished without being able to (as an educator)
improve someone else's (the student's) ability to control?

What are these teachers being paid for? Let's replace them with computers!-)

If educating by means of "a series of hoops I ask you to jump through"
is deeply flawed, to what alternative are you comparing it?

Regards,
cc

2

[From Bill Powers (970203.1805 MST)]

Chris Cherpas (970203.1356 PT)--

cc:
I am suspicious of teacher-based instruction. Look at the
results. We'll better understand the role of teacher-based
instruction when computer-based instruction has become
established in all our schools. (Or did you think that
teachers were eternally protected from the industrial revolution?)

I think computer-based instruction has a lot of potential good in it. But
while I certainly had my share of bad teachers, I don't think they were bad
because they weren't computers. They were bad because they didn't know their
subjects, because they were angry and controlling, because they didn't
understand the kinds of difficulties a student would have, because they were
inaudible or incomprehensible, because they didn't like children, and so on
down the list of human frailties. If you're going to compare computer-aided
learning with teacher-aided learning, you should pick only the best
teachers, just as you pick only the best programs. Otherwise the comparison
is meaningless.

The main thing a computer can't (yet) do is answer questions and help solve
problems of understanding. You can't pause in the program and say, "Wait, I
don't see how you got from the first step to the second step." And you can't
say "I'm discouraged, I'll never understand this," and expect anything but a
mechanical return to a previous step. The computer can't say "Well, let's
talk about that. When did you start getting discouraged?" And the computer
would never say, "Are you still having problems with your father coming home
drunk every night?"

A teacher is more than a device for conveying instruction, and a student is
more than a device for delivering correct responses. A lot of life is lived
in classrooms, interacting directly with other people, students as well as
teachers. Would that chunk of life be more worth living if it took place in
a cubicle with only a computer for company?

Our time in school is not just a preparation for adult life. It's part of
our lives that we will never get back. Many people enjoy school, like their
teachers and love some, and look back on school days with nostalgia. An
important part of young life is learning to get along with other people, to
develop good relationships with peers and adults, to gain confidence not
just with "subjects" but with other people. And to have fun, not just with a
computer screen. I don't think many people would look back with nostalgia if
their school was teacherless and their main companion was a 486DX100.

It may be that some parts of learning would happen best through using a
well-designed computer program. Less time would be needed for rote learning
of rules and memorization of facts like multiplication tables. I'm not
against computer-aided learning. But no computer program is going to have
the richness of a human personality, or serve as a role model by acting,
speaking, and being a certain way that kids can look up to and imitate. No
computer is going to help kids learn to be human, and that's MOST of what a
good school is about.

Chris, you're in a shaky position on this subject. You make your living
developing computer-based instructional programs that compete with live
teaching. You evidently have a very low opinion of teachers -- you'd like to
get rid of 'em all. You shouldn't wonder if some of us can't tell whether
you're giving us an unbiased opinion, a commercial, or a review of an
unfortunate personal history with teachers. My life would have been very
different without Miss Poquet to forgive me, love me, and teach me how to
use English. Maybe you never had a teacher like that.

Best,

Bill P.

3

[From Bruce Abbott (970204.1200 EST)]

Bill Powers (970203.1805 MST)

The main thing a computer can't (yet) do is answer questions and help solve
problems of understanding. You can't pause in the program and say, "Wait, I
don't see how you got from the first step to the second step." And you can't
say "I'm discouraged, I'll never understand this," and expect anything but a
mechanical return to a previous step. The computer can't say "Well, let's
talk about that. When did you start getting discouraged?" And the computer
would never say, "Are you still having problems with your father coming home
drunk every night?"

A well-written program could _conceivably_ allow the student to ask such
questions as the first one and attempt to deal with them in a logical
fashion (perhaps beginning with a series of well-designed questions designed
to identify the nature of the student's confusion), but I agree
whole-heartedly with your view on the importance of the human element. A
serious problem with the current educational system is precisely that it is
not designed to give the individual attention to students that they need and
deserve.

Not too long ago I was listening to one of those local morning call-in talk
shows on the radio as I drove to work. The topic was education and this old
geezer had called in to state his opinion that all this modern stuff with
computers in the classroom and all was unnecessary, since he had been able
to get a wonderful education in Miss Marple's one-room country schoolhouse,
which had none of these "improvements." It never occurred to this guy that
Miss Marple had only maybe 12 students _total_, with only a couple at any
given grade level. When Miss Marple assigned her tenth graders to write an
essay about Democracy, she had all of two essays to go over and add her
editorial remarks to. Not only that, but the older students in the class
could help the younger ones (and one of the best ways to learn a topic is to
try to teach it to someone else). In effect these students were being
individually tutored.

Fast forward to the system I experienced: Forty of us kids crammed into a
classroom with one teacher, and after seventh grade, each teacher greeting a
different group of 40 students each hour. You were lucky if the teacher
even knew your name, and things are no better today.

Recently in Indiana, the state legislature required universities to begin
implementing what is called "distance learning." The idea is that there are
many state citizens who for one reason or another are not able to "go"
(literally) to college, so the classes are to be "brought" to them, via such
devices as televised courses and video "conferencing." The core idea here
seems to be that one instructor can handle an infinite number of students,
that instruction is scale-insensitive. Theoretically you could have one
"master lecturer" deliver a course to the entire human population; grades
would then be determined, I presume, by some kind of automated scoring
system, which pretty much constrains testing to a multiple-choice format.
If you want my opinion concerning what is wrong with the educational system
today, it is this idea that education can be mass-produced.

_Properly_ constructed interactive computer programs can restore something
of the individualized feedback-sensitive attention that has been lost with
the advent of high student-to-teacher ratios, but they cannot restore those
other crucial functions you mentioned. The solution, in my view, is to give
up the notion that one teacher can adequately serve the needs of
dozens-to-hundreds of students, and hire a sufficient number to keep those
ratios low. Miss Marple simply can't handle the load imposed by having to
read, score, and provide individualized feedback to students at the rate of
sixty essays per week, let alone becoming familiar with her students and
their problems. We don't have more teachers in the public school systems
because teachers cost money, and we want to do education on the cheap. So
we pretend that one teacher can deal effectively with a hundred or more
students, then complain about the poor quality of the teaching that results,
and blame the teacher.

It is, of course, entirely possible to provide information about a topic in
such a way that it can be understood by most students who have the
background, study skills, and motivation required to do so. But that is
instruction, not teaching. You don't even necessarily need a teacher for
that; a good textbook will often do.

Regards,

Bruce

4

[From Chris Cherpas (970204.1104 PT)]
   [re Bill Powers (970203.1805 MST)]

BP:

But while I certainly had my share of bad teachers, I don't think they were bad
because they weren't computers. They were bad because they didn't know their
subjects,

cc:
Computers can represent knowledge, organized for teaching, in more subjects
and in more depth than the average teacher, let alone the bad teacher...

BP:

because they were angry and controlling,

cc:
Computers do not get angry; I'll leave the "controlling" for you to unpack...

BP:

because they didn't understand the kinds of difficulties a student would have,

cc:
Computers can maintain longitudinal models of each student, including a history
of "difficulties" the computer was able to detect...

BP:

because they were inaudible or incomprehensible,

cc:
Computers for education provide an individualized multi-media environment
which includes earphones with a volume control, the ability to interrupt
and back up, look up a term in a glossary, or (in some programs) type
"I don't understand" without any interruption to a group-paced class...

BP:

because they didn't like children,

cc:
Computers do not dislike children.

BP:

and so on down the list of human frailties.

cc:
Computers represent the frailties of humans, but can be readily re-programmed,
unlike humans.

BP:

If you're going to compare computer-aided learning with teacher-aided learning,
you should pick only the best teachers, just as you pick only the best
programs. Otherwise the comparison is meaningless.

cc:
Sorry if I sounded like I was comparing the best programs to the not-best
teachers. But, in general, Mr. Scientist Man: I would want to study
distributions, not just the best. I would like to learn something about
process here. Otherwise the comparison is less meaningful.

By the way, are you concerned that books are created to replace teachers?
(I believe there are also those who claim writing to be the work of the devil.)

BP:

The main thing a computer can't (yet) do is answer questions and help solve
problems of understanding. You can't pause in the program and say, "Wait, I
don't see how you got from the first step to the second step." And you can't
say "I'm discouraged, I'll never understand this," and expect anything but a
mechanical return to a previous step. The computer can't say "Well, let's
talk about that. When did you start getting discouraged?" And the computer
would never say, "Are you still having problems with your father coming home
drunk every night?"

cc:
The way we get from what a computer can't do (yet) to what it can do is
to try. Are you saying it's not worth trying to get a computer to do these
things?

BP:
A teacher is more than a device for conveying instruction,

cc:
So is a computer...

BP:

and a student is more than a device for delivering correct responses.

cc:
A student is a device for controlling perceptions. Some of those perceptions
involve what are called "correct responses."

BP:

A lot of life is lived in classrooms, interacting directly with other people,
students as well as teachers. Would that chunk of life be more worth living if
it took place in a cubicle with only a computer for company?

cc:
The point is not to restrict the student to a cubicle with only a computer
for company; the point is to not restrict the student to a corral with a
herd of conspecifics, when a computer in a cubicle could provide the student
with company as an alternative.

BP:

Our time in school is not just a preparation for adult life. It's part of
our lives that we will never get back. Many people enjoy school, like their
teachers and love some, and look back on school days with nostalgia. An
important part of young life is learning to get along with other people, to
develop good relationships with peers and adults, to gain confidence not
just with "subjects" but with other people. And to have fun, not just with a
computer screen.

cc:
Yes, these are the idiots that go into the field of education, dragging the
next generation down yet another few rungs of the cultural evolutionary ladder,
as they relive their cheerleading and "first cigarette" halcyon days!-)

It's strictly "one step forward, two steps back" on the American eduation scene.
I like fun too: that's why this post is so full of fast talk and witty repartee.

BP:

I don't think many people would look back with nostalgia if
their school was teacherless and their main companion was a 486DX100.

cc:
Bill, nostalgia's for losers. How about a Pentium166?

BP:

It may be that some parts of learning would happen best through using a
well-designed computer program. Less time would be needed for rote learning
of rules and memorization of facts like multiplication tables.

cc:
God almighty, he has seen the light!

BP:

I'm not against computer-aided learning. But no computer program is going to

have the richness of a human personality,

cc:
No will any human have the richness of a well-programmed simulated personality,
just as no particular human personality has the richness of the personalities
in a well-written book. There are different richnesses, and they come in
different packages.

BP:

or serve as a role model by acting, speaking, and being a certain way that kids
can look up to and imitate.

cc:
Jesus. Give me a world without the necessity for the hero, for someone to look
up to. A computer program, at _its_ best, represents the combined intelligences
of every human in recorded history. It is animated, simulated culture. If we
want to bow down to some idol, let it at least be the achievements of history as
a whole, not some cult of personality.

BP:

No computer is going to help kids learn to be human, and that's MOST of what a
good school is about.

cc:
How do you detect when someone is learning to be human?
How do GOOD schools help kids learn to be human?
Would someone who did not attend school learn to be human less?

BP:

Chris, you're in a shaky position on this subject. You make your living
developing computer-based instructional programs that compete with live
teaching.

cc:
Because of my "shaky" position, I can talk about the actual use of
computer-based instruction, rather than communicating from an armchair
position. Listen and learn. I'm trying to give you a survival kit here
and you're not listening.

The computer-based instructional programs I develop do not compete with live
teaching. Teachers want be able to individualize instruction, but cannot
because they are stretched to the limit about 20 times over. Teachers want
to use instructional technology to broaden the classroom's sensory reach.
Teachers want to be able to evaluate their students' progress -- they
want to know what makes a difference. An "ILS" (Integrated Learning
System) attempts to help to achieve these goals.

BP:

You evidently have a very low opinion of teachers -- you'd like to
get rid of 'em all.

cc:
Are you referring to this statement?

What are these teachers being paid for? Let's replace them with computers!-)

I did not intend a literal interpretation.

BP:

You shouldn't wonder if some of us can't tell whether you're giving us an
unbiased opinion, a commercial, or a review of an unfortunate personal history
with teachers.

cc:
Why not all three? However, my job is not to advertise products which
my company develops, so I can't claim any credit there. I do remember
being very bored in school, thinking that the time could have been
better managed by the "experts" in charge. As far as the unbiased
opinion, I would agree that I have an opinion. My opinion is that:

The computer represents an advance that can be used in education, and
that it will probably change the role(s) of the teacher from having to
do everything to having more time to do what the computer can't.

BP:

My life would have been very different without Miss Poquet to forgive me,
love me, and teach me how to use English. Maybe you never had a teacher like
that.

cc:
A good teacher, equipped with a computerized learning system can do even
better. Mr. Nofsinger was an excellent science teacher and my first and
second grade teacher (Mrs. Hubbard for both) was a real treat; but let's
not romanticize our way out of a reasonable position: they could probably
have done better. There's no shame in that. The shame is in not applying
what we can to make things better. So why not computers in education?

1. Computers provide a means to implement, and collect data on, individualized
  educational processes happening within less-than-one-second time intervals
  and across long time spans (years, decades);
2. Computers provide a means for indexing, storing, and retrieving
  a repository of knowledge, including interactive programs
  intended to facilitate learning for individual students;

Best regards,
cc

5

[From Hugh Petrie (970203.1415 EST)]
[re Chris Cherpas (970203.1356 PT)]

Chris writes

How do _you_ perceive students in a way that has more than a little
to do with learning? Don't you control your perceptions of students,
trying to get your perceptions of them to "match your own pictures"
of what you want them to achieve? Do you have any goals as an educator?

Perhaps you'd like to share with us what counts for you as learning, at least
enough to clarify how you would detect when learning is occurring? How can you
tell if someone is benefitting from taking your courses?

This is surely one of the most important questions to ask, maybe the most
important question for an instructional designer trying to put an
instructional program on a computer. And, indeed, as several have pointed
out, we can probably do a fair amount of programming that will allow the
student to stop and ask questions about the material, what is not
understood, etc.

However, as both Bill Powers and Bruce Abbott point out in later posts, a
real live teacher, at least a good one, is controlling not only for
learning the material, but for the growth and development of the student as
well. And some of those teachers we all remember so well were able to
sense disturbances to possibly even higher order goals that they had with
respect to their students, and were able to put aside the more narrow
learning goals for the moment to deal with the higher order disturbance to
the student's growth and development.

Now maybe we can build an instructional program that can do that as well,
but if we do, we will have solved the problem of artificial intelligence;
we will have created it.

One of the things that has always attracted me to PCT has been the idea
that in principle, human control systems could recognize that something is
reducing disturbances for them without ever having realized in advance that
this would be so. That, in turn, opens up considerably the standard
admonitions that we have to make our instructional goals explicit in
advance and then only evaluate programs in terms of how well they serve
those goals. The evaluation literature is replete with instances of
unforseen consequences (both good and bad) that need to be taken account
of. Complex human control systems with a hierarchy of goals and values do
that almost automatically. I wonder if an instructional program can?

That, of course, is not to say that we ought not try to design
instructional programs with PCT in mind. We should, and along those lines,
I think one of the more promising ideas might be to focus on the ability to
perceive what it is we want the students to learn. We need to give them
lots of models of what the successful learning is we are after and work
with them on being able to "see" that in practice. I guess this is a
matter both of getting them to have the right reference signals as well as
making sure their perceptual input functions are doing their jobs.

A real life example is that researchers in literacy instruction have only
found out in the past decade or so that children from literacy-impoverished
families (families with no magnetic letters on the refrigerator or parents
who read to the kids, etc.) had no idea what the teacher meant when she
said, "look at the first word>" These kids sometimes can't perceive the
difference between a word and a letter. (It's analogous to the phoneme
discussion recently).

So my first effort at a design principle would be to ask what is it that
the teacher wants to have the students have as a reference signal and where
can I find models of that for the students.

Cheers,

Hugh

···

===========+++++++++++===========***********===========+++++++++++===========

Hugh G. Petrie 716-645-2491
367 Baldy Hall FAX: 716-645-2479
University at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY 14260
USA HGPETRIE@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU

6

[From Bruce Gregory (970204.1235 EST)]

Bruce Abbott (970204.1200 EST)

Not too long ago I was listening to one of those local morning call-in talk
shows on the radio as I drove to work. The topic was education and this old
geezer had called in to state his opinion that all this modern stuff with
computers in the classroom and all was unnecessary, since he had been able
to get a wonderful education in Miss Marple's one-room country schoolhouse,
which had none of these "improvements." It never occurred to this guy that
Miss Marple had only maybe 12 students _total_, with only a couple at any
given grade level. When Miss Marple assigned her tenth graders to write an
essay about Democracy, she had all of two essays to go over and add her
editorial remarks to. Not only that, but the older students in the class
could help the younger ones (and one of the best ways to learn a topic is to
try to teach it to someone else). In effect these students were being
individually tutored.

Maybe we should think about this as a model for future schools.
Sorting students by age is arbitrary and counter-productive. My
father went a one-room school house and learned English and the
curriculum in the process. (He also walked three miles each way
through the blinding snow, but that is another story...)

I agree with your analysis and your sentiments.

Bruce Gregory

7

[Martin Taylor 970204 11:45]

Bill Powers (970203.1805 MST)]

The computer can't say "Well, let's
talk about that. When did you start getting discouraged?" And the computer
would never say, "Are you still having problems with your father coming home
drunk every night?"

That sounds awfully like the old "Eliza" program of the 1960's. But I think
your point is valid, in that Eliza worked by reference to what the "user"
had just said, rather than with respect to a backlog of data from the
student. On the other hand, anecdotal evidence suggests that at least some
Eliza users felt it to be very personal, perhaps even prying. What Eliza
said was necessarily related to reference signals internal to the user
rather than to any reference signals in Eliza, and that presumably was
important.

I don't think many people would look back with nostalgia if
their school was teacherless and their main companion was a 486DX100.

Perhaps not, but again going back a couple of decades, I think it was
Patrick Suppes who experimented with a mathematics-teaching program in a
poor region of Mississippi. As he reported it, not only did the students
learn better than did similar students in other schools, but the students
liked the computer "teacher" because it was "more human" (his words, as
I remember them) than their human teacher. It didn't rap their knuckles
with a ruler for getting the wrong answer, but tried to guide them
through their problem until they understood.

It may be that some parts of learning would happen best through using a
well-designed computer program. Less time would be needed for rote learning
of rules and memorization of facts like multiplication tables. I'm not
against computer-aided learning. But no computer program is going to have
the richness of a human personality, or serve as a role model by acting,
speaking, and being a certain way that kids can look up to and imitate. No
computer is going to help kids learn to be human, and that's MOST of what a
good school is about.

Agreed, but a bad teacher can be as bad a role model as a good teacher is
a good one. I think much of my direction in life was due to having had
two inspiring mathematics teachers in late primary and early secondary school,
and lousy chemistry teachers. If I had had computerized teachers, I imagine
that the result would have been satisfactory mediocrity. It really depends
on your standard of human yardstick whether the computer is better.

As an aside--I think we learn more about being human from our direct
interactions with our playtime peers than from instruction, though I'm
sure that role models are important.

Martin

8

[From Bill Powers (970205.0955 MST)]

Chris Cherpas (970204.1104 PT) --

cc:
Computers can represent knowledge, organized for teaching, in more
subjects and in more depth than the average teacher, let alone the bad
teacher...

You're comparing the ideal computer program, with capabilities far beyond
any that now exist, with the average or bad teacher. That is hardly a
comparison.

By the way, who programs these computers? God? Are good programmers
automatically good teachers (in my experience, the better the programmer,
the more incoherent the explanations)?

BP:

because they were angry and controlling,

cc:
Computers do not get angry; I'll leave the "controlling" for you to unpack...

I was, by implication, pointing out that good teachers don't exhibit these
frailties. Of course computers don't get angry; neither do good teachers.

BP:

because they didn't understand the kinds of difficulties a student would have,

cc:
Computers can maintain longitudinal models of each student, including a history
of "difficulties" the computer was able to detect...

So can a good teacher.

BP:

because they were inaudible or incomprehensible,

cc:
Computers for education provide an individualized multi-media environment
which includes earphones with a volume control, the ability to interrupt
and back up, look up a term in a glossary, or (in some programs) type
"I don't understand" without any interruption to a group-paced class...

So can a good teacher.

BP:

because they didn't like children,

cc:
Computers do not dislike children.

Neither do good teachers. And good teachers are not emotionally indifferent
to children, while computers are.

BP:

and so on down the list of human frailties.

BP:
If you're going to compare computer-aided learning with teacher-aided
learning,
you should pick only the best teachers, just as you pick only the best
programs. Otherwise the comparison is meaningless.

cc:
Sorry if I sounded like I was comparing the best programs to the not-best
teachers. But, in general, Mr. Scientist Man: I would want to study
distributions, not just the best. I would like to learn something about
process here. Otherwise the comparison is less meaningful.

Sure, but when you do that, Mr. Programming Man, you're back to making an
honest comparison of human vs machine instruction, without any preconceived
notion that the computer version is better just because it's not human. You
might even decide that a mixture is better than either one alone.

By the way, are you concerned that books are created to replace teachers?
(I believe there are also those who claim writing to be the work of the devil.)

I just answered that question.

BP:

The main thing a computer can't (yet) do is answer questions and help
solve problems of understanding. You can't pause in the program and say,
"Wait, I don't see how you got from the first step to the second step."
And you can't say "I'm discouraged, I'll never understand this," and
expect anything but a mechanical return to a previous step. The computer
can't say "Well, let's talk about that. When did you start getting
discouraged?" And the computer would never say, "Are you still having
problems with your father coming home drunk every night?"

cc:
The way we get from what a computer can't do (yet) to what it can do is
to try. Are you saying it's not worth trying to get a computer to do
these things?

As Hugh Petrie said, you're talking about simulating a whole human being.
You're several light-years from that goal -- and anyway, why not just use
the human being for what a human being can do?

BP:

A lot of life is lived in classrooms, interacting directly with other
people, students as well as teachers. Would that chunk of life be more
worth living if it took place in a cubicle with only a computer for >>company?

cc:
The point is not to restrict the student to a cubicle with only a computer
for company; the point is to not restrict the student to a corral with a
herd of conspecifics, when a computer in a cubicle could provide the
student with company as an alternative.

Herd of conspecifics? Oh, is THAT all we are!

cc:
Yes, these are the idiots that go into the field of education, dragging
the next generation down yet another few rungs of the cultural
evolutionary ladder, as they relive their cheerleading and "first
cigarette" halcyon days!-)

Speaking from your perch at the top of the cultural evolutionary ladder?
What is this? Computer-aided snobbery? If so, hang on to that program. It
really works!

Actually, the times I liked best in college involved things like sitting at
the eyepiece of the 18.5-inch refractor, looking at M13 through a
low-powered eyepiece, inventing constellations in the cluster like "the Bear
Paw" and shooting the bull with my buddy Harry Rymer until dawn's early
light. Or hanging out in a restaurant booth with other friends arguing about
philosophy and other stuff, or talking over problems with school or teachers
or life, or reforming the universe. I can't think of a computer I would
rather have spent those years with. I guess it must have been different for you.

cc:
Bill, nostalgia's for losers. How about a Pentium166?

Those are for nerds. Let's see, what do I want to be -- a loser or a nerd? I
think I'll pick chocolate.

BP:

It may be that some parts of learning would happen best through using a
well-designed computer program. Less time would be needed for rote learning
of rules and memorization of facts like multiplication tables.

cc:
God almighty, he has seen the light!

I'm impressed. I've never been in a position to show God the light.

BP:

I'm not against computer-aided learning. But no computer program is going
to have the richness of a human personality,

cc:
No will any human have the richness of a well-programmed simulated
personality,

You have a much higher opinion of programmers than I do. It's all I can do
to get a stick figure to reach out and touch something. Where is the
programmer to get his idea of a "rich personality?" Grolier's Encyclopedia?

BP:

or serve as a role model by acting, speaking, and being a certain way
that kids can look up to and imitate.

cc:
Jesus. Give me a world without the necessity for the hero, for someone to
look up to. A computer program, at _its_ best, represents the combined
intelligences of every human in recorded history.

Not any program I have ever seen. They look more like products of the
_average_ intelligence of a bunch of program-writers who don't have much
experience with life. Throwing gigabytes of words on line does not
constitute intelligence.

Anyway, you're going to have a hard time finding a kid who doesn't look up
to someone. Children aren't born knowing what they want to be. They don't
even know what's possible. The way you find out what's possible, as in any
field, is to look first at what's been done. Wasn't there ANYBODY you ever
admired?

It is animated, simulated culture.

Just like TV, only it takes itself more seriously.

If we want to bow down to some idol, let it at least be the achievements
of history as a whole, not some cult of personality.

But what do you do if people decide they WANT a cult of personality? Gas
them? What if they're not interested in the achievements of History as a
Whole (whoever he is)? Grab them by the necks and MAKE them be interested?
Is this more of that "behave, dammit" stuff?

BP:

No computer is going to help kids learn to be human, and that's MOST of
what a good school is about.

cc:
How do you detect when someone is learning to be human?

When the person is learning how to take disappointment, grief, and
discouragement without being destroyed. When the person learns the value of
loving others as much as the Self. When the person learns how to control
what matters, and let what doesn't matter go. When the person learns that he
or she is just like other people, regardless of their station in life,
education, or bad habits. When the person learns to want others to have what
they want, even if it's incomprehensible. There's a long list.

How do GOOD schools help kids learn to be human?

See Ed Ford's program.

Would someone who did not attend school learn to be human less?

Given the way things are, yes -- because most of the other kids are in
school. You learn to be human partly by observing what others do and coming
to understand them. You then understand things about yourself that are hard
to see from inside. Part of the way we learn to be human is to interact with
other humans, especially those who have been there and done that.

Eventually, of course, you invent yourself. But when you're a kid, you can't
get there in one jump.

BP:

Chris, you're in a shaky position on this subject. You make your living
developing computer-based instructional programs that compete with live
teaching.

cc:
Because of my "shaky" position, I can talk about the actual use of
computer-based instruction, rather than communicating from an armchair
position. Listen and learn. I'm trying to give you a survival kit here
and you're not listening.

You can talk about the actual use of computer-based instruction, but
unfortunately you are also offering _evaluations_ of this instruction,
making up the criteria yourself. What I would like to see is an evaluation
by someone who has no particular fondness for computer-based or
teacher-based instruction, but who simply wants to know the pros and cons of
each. I would pay less attention to anyone who is obviously putting on a
hard sell for either side.

BP:

You shouldn't wonder if some of us can't tell whether you're giving us an
unbiased opinion, a commercial, or a review of an unfortunate personal
history with teachers.

cc:
Why not all three? However, my job is not to advertise products which
my company develops, so I can't claim any credit there.

Only the first is of any lasting value. The commercial aspects have obvious
effects on one's willingness to discuss, or even look for, drawbacks in the
product, and the personal history with teachers is hardly a basis for
drawing universal conclusions: I believe that approach is called anecdotal.

I do remember
being very bored in school, thinking that the time could have been
better managed by the "experts" in charge. As far as the unbiased
opinion, I would agree that I have an opinion. My opinion is that:

The computer represents an advance that can be used in education, and
that it will probably change the role(s) of the teacher from having to
do everything to having more time to do what the computer can't.

No problem with that. I'm not against computers in education. I taught my
older grandson to run my computer when he was 4 years old. Inside a year, he
was turning it on, giving the DOS commands to bring up his favorite math
program (or underwater game, whichever), running it, and shutting it down,
all from just watching how I did it for him. He learned Windows as soon as I
got it, and when he found Windows 95 on my notebook, he figured it out right
away. His little brother learned how to work Paintbrush at 3, although his
hand was way too small for the mouse. I'm perfectly happy to have my
grandchildren learning on computers. But I made sure they understood from
the start who was boss: THEY turn the COMPUTER on. And I don't stand around
admiring them while they play with it. It's just a thing to use.

Best,

Bill P.

9

From Ellery Lanier Feb 6, 97

To Bruce Abbott and CSG.
Again I take a break from finishing my dissertation.
Bruce's posting re education brought to mind an amusing memory. When I was
in elementary or junior high, I was in a most unusual math class. Our male
teacher who was a lawyer who could get no professional work (It was in the
depths of the depression),
had a unique teaching technique. When we worked on problems we were not
allowed to take our eyes off our papers. The teacher would silently glide
around the room and survey what we were doing. If we made a mistake, he
would see it and instantly his hand would smack the back of our head so
hard we'd get a ringing in the ears. We were terrified- but we did our work
to perfection! Complaints were not allowed then.
I do not advocate this method.
Ellery