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Showing posts from February, 2005

"Beyond Computer Literacy" Revisited

Click the title of this posting to see Stephen Ehrmann's essay to which I am reacting. Let's try another perspective. Once there were two highly competent professors, Socrates and Plato, the former rejecting the invention of writing, the radical new transforming technology of his day, and the latter, reinventing it for his thinking. Staying with the tried and true did not harm the wisdom or the values of the thinking of Socrates. However, Plato did have to speak for him by writing some of his ideas in ways that would reach us across time. Digital technology also offers new ways to reach across time and reach across space in ways more relevant to the highly interactive nature of human beings. On that I think Ehrmann and I would agree. My first disagreement is with his college level perspective; the digital desert of the public school desktop would also greatly benefit from computer literacy. My second is with Ehrmann making the case for change by leading with examples of wha