TQM & LOs LO11355

Robert Bacal (rbacal@escape.ca)
Sun, 8 Dec 1996 20:04:54 +0000

Replying to LO11312 --

On 7 Dec 96 at 1:17, Bbcompton@aol.com wrote:

You say:

> The Internet will have more of a evolutionary and revolutionary affect on
> our society than the Guttenburg printing press ever did. . .
>
> IF
>
> We can make the technology widely accessible around the globe.
>

> It doesn't change the fact that it is a powerful network of information.
> My 7 year old recently had to write a two page report on his favorite
> animal. He chose to write about Cobra's. He logged on to AOL, clicked on
> the World Icon, which brought up the Lycos search engine, and he typed
> "COBRA" and did a search. He soon found pictures, quicktime videos, and a
> lot of really good information. He wrote his report, which concluded, "I
> learned this from the Internet. I love the Internet. It is fun and I can
> learn."

Could you explain how this might be different than that same child (or one
from an earlier era) going to the library, finding the books, etc, or
obtaining a video on cobras?

Gutenberg made the first mass medium possible. That was a quantum leap in
how information could be disseminated, and accessibility. Since we
already have other mass media, how is this particular technology different
in some qualitative sense? In my opinion a "revolution" requires a bit
more than simply making the same thing available in a different format.

Robert Bacal, Bacal & Associates, rbacal@escape.ca
Join us at our Resource Centre at
http://www.winnipeg.freenet.mb.ca/~dbt359
Phone: (204) 888-9290

-- 

"Robert Bacal" <rbacal@escape.ca>

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>