The Influence of Technology on the Human Mind

7/28/2019 The Influence of Technology on the Human Mind

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The influence of technology on the human

mindBorivoj Brdicka

Charles University Prague Faculty of Education

esk verze

These days, as more and more people speak about the emerging Information Society, weshould think again how to prepare the society for the changes in the style of human life. Nodoubts that so-called Information Society has many advantages, for example in trade,production, services, communication etc. Unfortunately, it also has many potential risks thatshouldn't be ignored. Some high level experts believe that improper use of technologycould, in specific circumstances, cause the elimination of these advantages. From this pointof view, the influence of technologies on the human mind is considered as the mosthazardous factor. Increasing the use of technology instead of face to face communicationcould have negative influence on the human mind. It is most important to investigate thisinfluence in the sphere of education, where the effects of these factors could be fatal. Andvice versa. The appropriate use of technology could have a significant benefit for the wholesociety. That's why professionals in well-developed countries, which are on the edge of theInformation society, start to pay more attention to these problems. But not onlyprofessionals. Even general public, media and politicians consider these matters veryimportant. I am sure we should also pay more attention to it. In order to gain some basicorientation in this field, we will take a small excursion into some branches of science that

may have certain connection to the impact of technology in education.

Sociology PsychologyCognitive

PsychologyPedagogy Technology Philosophy Appendixes

Sociology

Marshall

We will start the investigation ofthe history and meaning of the termInformation Society. It originates in the science called sociology.

The first reference on the influence of modern technology on the social issuesappeared in works of some sociologists in the late sixties of the 20th Century.Canadian Marshall McLuhan played one of the most important roles here.He was engaged in research of mass media and he was the first to use thecomparison of our world to "global village". He believed that the importanceof information was increasing and that technology could increase the ability of

man but it also influenced the human mind. This is probably the reason why hetried to avoid most of the modern conveniences.

Next important sociologist, teacher and politician, who is often connected to
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McLuhan

Daniel Bell

the birth of the term Information Society, is an American scientist, Daniel Bell.In early seventies, he introduced the new historical classification of thedevelopment of the society as pre-industrial, industrial and post-industrial.According to him, the Pre-industrial Society is the feudal society, where peoplewere interested mostly in agriculture. The Industrial Society is the result ofIndustrial Revolution and many of its attributes can be seen even today. It ismanifested mainly in the big emphasis on the production of massive amounts

of material goods that the society doesn't necessarily need, and itsconsumption. This way of life becomes increasingly unsustainable. One of themain reasons is the aspect of ecology. Therefore, there must be, according toBell, another revolution in the way of life on the Earth. Bell predicated that theinstrument for these changes could be Information and CommunicationTechnology (ICT). That is the reason why the term information instead of post-industrial is often used in the late Bell's works. This attribute of description ofthe future society has been widely accepted and used not only in the States butalso in Europe.

William Gibson

Alvin Toffler

NicholasNegroponte

Researchers and writers who are interested in Information Society are oftencalled post-industrialists. Some of them are, for instance, a well-knownCanadian writer and the author of the term cyberspace William Gibson andAmerican writer and futurologist Alvin Toffler. Toffler is the author of thebook The Third Wave. By the term "The Third Wave" he means the emergingpost-industrial society. In another book War and Anti-War he articulated thetheory in which he claims that in the current world, with its weapons, the old-fashioned war is impossible and, therefore, it will change into the war ofeconomies and information. In this place, we should also mention theAmerican scientist Nicholas Negroponte (the head of Media Lab, M.I.T.),who, in his bookBeing Digital (1995), describes the change from Industrial toInformation Society as a conversion from atoms to bits.

Post-industrialists describe Information Society as an environment, whereeasiness of exchanging information, notwithstanding the distance, causesepochal changes. All domains of human activities will be affected. Trade,production, services, and mainly the management of companies, institutionsand the whole states. The only person that can be successful in InformationSociety must be able to transform the information into knowledge and work inteam, often without personal contact with his collaborators. Moreover, it alsomeans the need for the ability to learn something new quickly. The progress is

in fact so rapid that the knowledge obtained at school will soon becomeobsolete. Therefore, one of the most important attributes of Information Societywill be the necessity of the life long learning.

It is very important to notice the way in which education processes work.Essentially, it is a social phenomenon. The main part of knowledge everybodyacquires originates in social contact with other people. The school isn't the onlyplace, where this process takes place. This is the basic concept of the work ofRussian psychologist Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky who worked in thetwenties in Moscow. Unfortunately, when he was 34 he died of tuberculosis.

During Stalinism his work had not been published, that's why he becameknown after the translation of his book Thought and language as late as in1962. Today he is, together with a few other personalities, considered the pillarof the modern pedagogical theory. Although sociology, psychology, pedagogyand other sciences are now, after 70 years, more advanced, Vygotsky's work
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L.S.Vygotsky has still some inspiration for us. Let's try to imagine how we could apply theVygotsky's theory when using modern ICT in education. Communicationtechnology makes possible to connect more people together and thus obtain theknowledge from the formerly unavailable people.

Psychology

Sigmund Freud

Sociology has a strong connection to another science psychology. Naturally,this branch has some contribution to our study of technology. Generally, theinvestigation of human personality progresses from simple to more and moreadvanced model. Czech Jew from Vienna Sigmund Freud first formulatedthe theory of the influence of unconscious on human behavior at the turn of 19and 20 century. Freud's unconscious is a part of every personality and it isimpossible to influence it by will. According to him, sexuality has big

influence on the unconscious. Freud became well known because of hismethod of non-direct exploration of the unconscious. This method is calledpsychoanalysis.

Freud had many followers, which were discovering other influences on thedevelopment of the human consciousness. One of the best known was AlfredAdler, who believed in the importance of the impact of the sense of inferiority.Melanie Klein also belongs to the Freudian circle. She studied the influence ofstress experienced during early childhood. Generally, the psychoanalysis ofchildren is going to be still more and more important. Some schools investigate

also the prenatal age and predict its big influence on the whole life.

C.G.Jung

Carl Gustav Jung has a very specific position among Freud's followers. Hecame up with the term collective unconscious. It means that all human beingsare, through unconscious, in some way connected together and are able toinfluence each other.

You may probably ask where the connection with technology is. It is adifficult question. Although we know only a little about human brain wecan state that the principle of function is different to the function of current

computers. Computer naturally doesn't have any unconscious, any sense ofinferiority. It isn't able to feel any emotions and it can't perform theassociations. When the computers appear similar to us, it is always a simulationmade by the programmer. Such a simulation (artificial intelligence) is differentto the behavior of real human beings.

We shouldn't forget about this fact when we use computer programs whichare trying to influence or even guide us. There are many programs like that(educational or mostly games). When working with them, we interact with thecomputer as with a nonhuman agent [Rosenberg], which partly substitutes theauthor of the program [Matthis]. I do not want to claim that this situation isalways bad. However, we are loosing the possibility of nonverbalcommunication and we should bear in mind what Mc Luhan reminded us that the technology has influence on the human mind.
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Sherry Turkle

Slightly different situation arises when the computer isn't directly in controlof the work. The whole area of communication technology belongs to thiscategory. We also often loose the nonverbal part of communication here, butwe are connected mostly to other human beings. The most up to datetechnologies contribute amazingly to further development of psychology.American psychologist Sherry Turkle demonstrated it on the behavior ofusers of the internet virtual digital cities (MOO). Everybody there can play the

role of virtual persons, these can communicate with each other (chat) andconstruct their own environment. Many people create more then just onevirtual person there, often with different characteristics. Turkle in her bookLifeon the Screen formulated the hypothesis saying that the behavior of everyperson is guided, in reality, by several different personalities which we are able(in opposite to schizophrenia) to realize. We can change them in the way thatis similar to the way we change the tasks in windows on the screen of thecomputer. Psychoanalysis will probably have to accept this fact and build thereal image of a person from several different points of view.

HowardGardner

The results of another American psychologist Howard Gardner are verysimilar. He continued in former research of human intelligence and came withthe proposition that we can't see the intelligence as one integral unit.Gardner recognizes several different types of intelligence formerly seven(linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical,interpersonal, intrapersonal). Later he considered the possibly of existence ofmore then only seven types of intelligence. His results had a significantinfluence not only on the measuring of intelligence but also on education. Ourschools often cultivate only some of these types of intelligence and others areleft out completely. The proper way is to offer the pupils various differentschemes of instruction and thus enable them to develop various types of

intelligence.

Cognitive Psychology

Although we still can't describe the function of human brain very well, ourunderstanding of this process is still developing. The science, whichinvestigates the cognitive processes through the study of the brain, is called

cognitive psychology. During the last years there has been some progress.Recently we have discovered that the most important role in the brain is playedby the brain cells (neurons). We know that thoughts and feelings are theproducts of the activity of the interconnections (synapses) among neurons.We know that different parts of the brain have different functions. Generallythe left side (hemisphere) works sequentially and takes care of speech, readingand writing. The opposite right hemisphere is able to work simultaneouslyand is mainly concerned with the visual information. It is in fact the center ofcreativity. Simply, we can imagine the memory as a reflection of dynamic netof synapses, where thoughts are caused by impulses going through thesynapses. The way in which the mind works is determined by the connectionsamong synapses (association). The ability to make association is one of themost important criteria for the capability of the brain. Because of theability of association, the acquired knowledge can be also used in othercircumstances than those it has been learned in. This fact has the basic
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significance for the field of education.

Harry Chugani

Now we can explain why psychologists pay such a big attention to very youngchildren. The brain's neurons are created mainly in the prenatal age and then,till the old age, this quantity doesn't change much. The average amount isabout 100 billions (giga). On the other hand, the quantity of synapses ischanging considerably during lifetime. The amount of synapses after the birth

is approximately 50 trillions (tera). Which is about 500 per one neuron. In theearly age the amount of synapses rises sharply until the age of about five, whenthe culmination is reached with maximum amount of about 1000 trillionssynapses. After this stage the number of synapses goes down approximately tohalf (500 trillions) in the adult age. The fact that is very important is that thisprocess is all the time dynamic. It means that no synapse is permanentlypresent. It is possible to influence their formation and destruction. Especiallyin the early age, when synapses are rapidly developed, it is necessary toperform the right activity to help the formation of the best structure of them[Healy]. The way of performing this activity is by the stimulation of senses.This stimulation comes from the outside world (social principle again).Professor Harry Chugani (Wayne State University) compares it to a highwaysystem where the roads with the most traffic get widened and the ones that arerarely used fall into disrepair. According to cognitive psychology, the veryimportant tool for stimulation and developing of thinking is language [Bly].

Let's try to imagine what kinds of synapses are established in the brains ofnotorious players of improper computer games or viewers of action movies.Maybe some of these players are those pupils, who are able to kill their teacherif they don't like him/her.

Jean Piaget

One of the well-known scientists, who elaborated on the abilities of children'sbrains of cognition, was Swiss Jean Piaget. He came up with several stadia ofthis process. It isn't necessary to describe them here. The Piaget's general resultis the only thing important for us. By him the common trait of every healthybrain in any stadium (include adults) is the natural ambition to be activeand learn something new. And everything new comes from the outside worldby stimulation and interactions with other people. The surroundingenvironment makes the influence, but, eventually, the learning process is

always self-directed.

Pedagogy

Before we start the discussion about technology, we should mention some of

the pedagogical views of the principles of cognition. There are manydifferent theories. Except some more or less ancient researchers (for exampleSocrates, Plato, Comenius, or Rousseau) which were in surprising accordancewith current trends, most of the others followed the historical development ofour knowledge of the human brain.
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B.F.Skinner

Even at the beginning of the 20th Century, the process of saving informationin the brain was considered static. The model of cognition that would fit intothis concept best is the one of the warehouse, where it is possible to store oneinformation next to the other, without interactions. Psychological andpedagogical theories based on this warehouse-model believe that the locationof knowledge in the brain and also the behavior is possible to program

beforehand. It could be done by continuous direct control of all senses ofsuch programmed persons. The relevant theory is called behaviorism. Theorigin of this name comes from the book of an American author JohnBroadus Watson The Behavior (1924). One of the best known personalitiesrepresenting this theory is a psychologist Burrhus Frederic Skinner.

Behaviorism is partially valid. The Pavlov's experiment with a dog, whichlearned to slaver when he heard the bell waiting for the mess, is often used asan evidence. It is true that the senses have some influence on the creation ofsynapses. However, behaviorists didn't consider the 50 trillions of synapses ofthe newborns, which we couldn't induce (though somebody tried). In addition,

the dynamic development of synapses and the associations, which could causethe possibility of using knowledge in other way than the way it was acquired,wasn't considered. In reality, the ability to use the associations is linked to thehuman characteristic called intelligence.

Behaviorism still has a strong impact on our school system of today . Wecan notice it wherever the education takes a form of directly controlled(programmed) process. Unfortunately, it happens almost everywhere. Thecontrol could be performed by a teacher and also by the author of a computerprogram. In reality, this practice doesn't have to be always bad. In some cases,

it is impossible to acquire a certain particular knowledge or a skill withoutpracticing under the guidance or supervision of an instructor or by followingother template (instructive approach). The real problems arise when we forgetthat there could be no good results without the active involvement of the (brainof) student. Indeed, in instructive way, we can press into the heads of ourstudents much of the encyclopedic information, but not the ability ofgeneralization and association. When we want to develop their ability ofassociation (intelligence), we have to pay attention to the meaning and theconnections between the information subjects. We also have to search for themethod of more active involvement of the students in the learning process

(constructive approach). And it is not easy.

R.C.Schank

The branch of pedagogical science, which is based on this approach, is calledconstructivism. The main principles are:

increasing ofself motivation for learning (active involvement of thebrain)concrete individual work (learning by doing [Schank],projects[David])involvement of the outside society (class, school, family, other schools,

other families, museums, research organizations, etc. [Woolfolk]) in thecooperation (social principle of cognition)look for the context of information and subjects (associations,different types of intelligence, different types of personalities)mistakes are the valid part of learning the immediate correction isn't
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necessary, it could come later

Neil Postman

These trends in well-developed countries call for the reform of school systems.One of the concrete traits is often excessive liberalization. The wrongunderstanding of constructivism could lead to a statement that learning must befunny and children mustn't be forced to work (edutainment). However,

constructive way of learning couldn't be interpreted as entertainment.[Postman].

The change of teacher's position is another sign of constructivism [Dwyer].It changes from the information provider to a manager and assistant ofindependent student's work. Sometimes the teacher can also learn from his orher students. The big emphasis is on the relations among-subjects and on thepreparation ofteamwork. It is evident that this characteristic is inconspicuous accordance with the needs of information society.

Technology

Now we can draw attention to the field oftechnology in the process ofcognition. In reality, technology started its impact on cognition during theIndustrial Revolution. If we count the printing as technology then it happenedmuch earlier. It is very interesting, how often the optimistic forecasts of thecrucial change of education through technology have come in the past. Ithappened during the big expansion of film industry in the twenties [Edison],

during the emergence of portable radio receivers in the forties [Levenson] andthen again later after the invention of TV and sound and video recording. Inthe early eighties, we have witnessed the first wave of feeding the computersinto schools. But, still, no significant changes have been noticed in the schoolsystems. Everywhere else the technology brought a visible shift. Many peoplehave been visiting cinemas and listening to the radio from the twenties on.They have been watching TV everyday since the fifties. It is very common tocarry your cassette recorder (walkman) and telephone (mobile) with youeverywhere at all times today. Holidays without a video camera could be thereason of the sense of inferiority for the majority of the population.

Additionally, there are computers everywhere around us. And their numberswill increase.

All this technology certainly impacts our minds and also education.Unfortunately, this process doesn't happen at schools. Thanks to technology,the portion of knowledge obtained outside the schools is increasing. Butwe can't be satisfied with the quality of such knowledge. Because of the actiongames and movies, the technology has influenced the current degeneracy ofmorality, criminality and violence. More and more people find out that it isnecessary to adopt some correction.

This is a problem of the whole society. It is possible to solve it only on theglobal basis. The solution is not to stop using technology. It is impossible todiscourage its penetration to everyday life. The only thing we can do is to tryto use the technology in a more reasonable way and so eliminate its bad
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influence on society. This is the task for everybody, especially for parents.The schools have got their special position.

Steven Jobs

Cliffort Stoll

We have to be careful not to concentrate only on the equipment of schools

with computers and internet connections [Jobs]. It could be the similar mistakeas 15 years ago, when the schools in our country were supplied withcomputers equipped with only one program programming language Basic.

I hope that my conviction of the impossibility of preparation for InformationSociety by programmed learning through computers is evident from theprevious text. But if we look around we can still see many educationalprograms based on full control of student's work [Stoll]. They often lead to theloss of natural activity of the brain [Schwartz].

I think that cybernetics pedagogy or artificial intelligence in the form of genialautomatic teacher still can't solve our problems. Such a machine must be ableto simulate the function of human brain in a veritable way. With the currenttechnology it is impossible. There are only some extraordinary and expensiveexceptions in the military or medicine applications. The development of suchapplications (for example flight simulator) is still extremely difficult for theeducation sector. Maybe some changes could come in the future.

The instructive way of thinking is still preferred by many people, especially theschool managers and teachers. If we adopt the constructive approach, we findout that the main task of technology isn't only to help to make the currentsystem more easy, more automatic and more affordable. Technology couldsupport the systemic changes of the whole educational system [David].

H.G.Wells

Vannevar Bush

There are two basic conditions for the successful implementation of theconstructive approach on education. The first is the self-motivatedenvironment and the second is the accessibility of information. The well-motivated learner could take information and transform it into knowledge.Unfortunately, very often a lot of us interchange the information forknowledge [Eliot]. But these are not the same. There is only one method howto perform such a transformation. This can be done only by seriously taken

work of every person involved.

For a long time, there has been the idea of creating a global network, whichwould be able to save and connect all the knowledge of mankind. Firstscholar, who came up with such a vision, was an English science-fiction writerH.G.Wells in the late twenties. In that time and for a long time afterwards, infact not until long ago, it was a mere dream. Nevertheless there had been somevisionaries who tried to find the appropriate tool for the concrete realization ofthis idea. One of the firsts was an American scientist Vannevar Bush in thelate thirties. The World War II interrupted his work, because he was in charge

of the coordination of American warfare science. That's why his project of themachine called Memex appeared as late as in 1945. The computers were intheir early age then, therefore he used the microfiches. This idea has neverbeen practically realized. But Bush was the first, who made the experiment
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with nonlinear connection of documents. This device has been a model notonly for the realization of the Wells' utopia, but it is also in accordance with thescheme of storing information in the human brain.

Ted Nelson

The next one, who tried to realize similar idea, was a former Harvard studentTheodor (Ted) Nelson. In 1960 he subscribed to the course of computingand, until today, he has been working on the implementation of nonlinearly

connected documents on computers. Although he never managed the practicalrealization of his project (Xanadu), he has become well known because of histerm for such a type of document- hypertext.

Nowadays, the hypertext systems are quite common. But there was a long wayfrom the primary Nelson's experiments to the current systems. The firstpractically applied hypertext application was the FRESS (File Retrieval andEditing System) developed at the American Brown University. The FRESSprototype was used in the project Apollo as a tool for organizing the

documentation. Later, hypertext has become the favorite form of product'sdocumentation or of program's help. In this area we have been able to meet itfor the last several years.

To increase the use of hypertext it was first necessary to improve the texteditors for linear documents and these had to become widely used by thepublic, especially the teachers. Thanks to current technical abilities ofcomputers, the hypertext systems could be enriched by the sound, pictures,animations, and movie sequences. Such applications are called hypermedia.Almost every encyclopedic title on CD-ROM today is based on this form.

T.B.Lee

The latest invention in an attempt of realization of the Wells' WorldEncyclopedia is the global net called Internet. Its history is well described inmany materials. So we won't deal with this here. We will pay attention mainlyto one widespread Internet service World Wide Web. Although many peopleoften use it, not all of them know that WWW was developed as a commonhypertext system. Formerly it was constructed by Tim Berners-Lee only forthe internal use inside the Switzerland's CERN. Now it looks like the WWW,which is under constant development, could become the applicable tool forrealization of the vision of Wells and his followers.

But, as usual, everything turns out slightly different. The original intention ofthe world encyclopedia has been to collect and store only the properpublishable information. Partly it had been like this until the 1993. Till thisyear, the Internet had been considered as a noncommercial academicnetwork only. Because of the high costs of its development, Americangovernment decided to open the Internet also for the commercial sector.That's why the internet is used more and more for trade nowadays. We canfind a lot ofadvertisements, spam, pornography, etc. there. On the other side,internet is a good assurance of the freedom of speech. Thanks to the

decentralization it allows the hundreds of millions users (1 billion is expectedabout 2005) to communicate through E-mail and publish their opinions on theWeb no matter what the content is [Shenk]. That's why it is possible to findalmost everything in this global hypermedia encyclopedia. It represents themirror of the consciousness of the mankind and therefore it should be used in
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education. But internet solves only one of the two basic conditions for thesuccessful implementation of the constructive approach in education, seeabove. It provides only the access to information, which is often hiddensomewhere, and it is very difficult to recognize on the spot if it is valid[Postman, McKenzie].

The second condition is the self-motivated environment. It is much more

difficult to meet. As the first one is mainly a technical problem, the second oneis a social issue. The way our children use the internet depends on theirinterests. And what they are interested in depends on the environment they livein. Surely, there is the influence of schoolmates, commerce, and popularpersonalities. The prohibited movies, drugs, etc. are very interesting for them.It is very hard to imprint the ideas convenient for parents and teachers on theirmind. There are many influences. One of the most important is the function ofthe family. As we can see, for example, from the divorce statistics, this oftendoesn't work nowadays. It is not only the climate at home that is important, butalso the one at school.

To tell the truth, I doubt that our teachers are able to change the well-established old-fashioned instructive way of teaching to natural self-motivatedconstructive one, let alone the technology. That's why, I believe, the trainingof teachers should have the highest priority. Additionally, we have to start acampaign to explain this topic to the parents and to the whole public. Parentshave the real responsibility for the education of their children. They shouldapprove the state school policy and the quality of schools and teachers.

If I claim that the training of teachers is the most important thing, I should say

a few words about it. We can often notice the myth that the knowledge ofteachers about technology could be on the same level as common skills ofclerks or secretaries. This is nonsense, of course. They need the basiccomputer literacy skills as text editors and spreadsheets, but this is not enough.The good teacher must know how to implement technology into his/hereveryday work. There are some special skills connected with their subjectqualification. There are more and more important special skills connectedwith general theory of education, psychology, and philosophy. The changes toconstructive way of teaching, connected with the change of the teacher'sposition from the only source of valid information to the guide for independent

learning, bring new possibilities, and even more - the necessity of usingtechnology. As the main task of a good teacher is to establish the creative andconstructive educational environment, the theoretical knowledge isn't enoughfor him/her. He or she also needs some manager skills and a gift little bitsimilar to an actor.

The main skills in the area of technology are connected to the efficient use ofsoftware in different situations (classroom, computer lab, home, with orwithout a teacher or parent). He/she has to be able to choose the mostappropriate program for each particular situation. The basic orientation in the

internet is still more and more important. It takes huge amount of time tobecome competent for advising on the best location of information required foreach lesson. The average teacher isn't able to prepare his/her own technologysupportive materials. That's why special services are required.
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Ucitelskyspomocnk

Such services are being quickly established in all advanced countries such asUSA, UK, and others, usually with support of the governments and the statebudgets. Some non-profit foundations play the active role in this area too. Itlooks like it will be possible to provide also some commercial services,especially for the education of adults in near future. The new form distancelearning has been introduced and its importance raises especially in higherforms of education. We, in Czech Republics, also want to join the advanced

world. We founded a few internet services for our teachers, unfortunatelymainly based on enthusiastic voluntary work. One of them, where I participate,is located at Department of Information Technology of the Faculty ofEducation of the Charles University in Prague. We call it The Teachers'Helper and you can find it on http://www.spomocnik.cz.

Seymour Papert

Lewis Perelman

The help, which we offer, is based on supplying the appropriate and actualmaterials to all Czech teachers. The most important part is The Helper's Linkerwith thematic and subject oriented links to Web documents that suite ourelementary and secondary schools the best. Every teacher can find aninspiration to enrich his/her lesson there. The other part is dedicated tointeresting News from the field of educational technology. The main interest ofthis service is to provide a continuous information about events in the world soeverybody here can compare our situation with the situation abroad. Thespecial part takes care of the international Internet projects. They represent oneof the best ways of constructive use of technology [Piaget]. They allow us toopen the windows of classrooms to the ideas of other schools, cities, states,continents, and maybe, someday, other civilizations. There are many projectsthat could meet every interest. They cover more then one theme and oftenmore then one subject. Moreover, the work on these projects brings also theadditional profit for the whole society. Children meet other people fromdifferent countries and learn to understand and accept their cultures. Thepositive outcome could be the tolerance, which the future Information Societyon the Earth desperately needs.

Unfortunately, in reality, there are many experts with rather pessimistic viewof future. Some of them believe that our current school system isn'treformable. They are afraid that the attempt to make changes could lead to theassimilation of technology into current old-fashioned way of thinking. Their

judgements are often quite radical. They believe that the old system should becompletely abolished and some kind of a new one should be created instead.

One of these people was professor Seymour Papert, former Piaget's co-worker and author of the first computer program which could be labeled asconstructive Logo. Lewis Perelman, the owner of the firm Kanban offering

distance learning, also belongs to this group. He is the author of the commonslogan "just in time, which in educational context means that in InformationSociety everybody will learn what is needed at the right moment when it isneeded. He/she will be able to choose the best teacher because they will beaccessible on the internet through the virtual distance form. Perelman likes to
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Alan Lesgolg

Don Tapscott

compare the current school system to the success ofMaginot line at thebeginning of the World War II.

In my selection of quotations, which serves as a complementary document ofthe hypertext form of this report, even more pessimistic opinions can be found.For example, Alan Lesgold compares the technology to an amplifier thatencourages both educational practices the good ones and equally the bad

ones. If we connect his doubts with apprehensions ofSherry Turkle that thebad ones could overweigh, we have something to think about.

Most people consider such opinions as too strong. There should be somesystem or an institution that would defend children when they preparethemselves for the entry to the dirty world of adults. Yet, we don't knowwhat the best system would be. The only thing we are sure of is that it will bedifferent from the present one. We are at a stage of big changes.

Fortunately there are not only the pessimists. The famous American expert ondigital economy, Don Tapscott, thinks that the new net generation alreadyexists. It is the product of the change of the children's position in society,where children have become technology experts. They are more self-confident, open, powerful, and they are not afraid of the conflict withauthority. He believes that the whole society will benefit from the abilities ofthe new net generation.

Philosophy

For the final enlightenment, I would like to turn to philosophy. This is theground science, which ought to give meaning to all human deeds. The mostinteresting thing on life is the fact that we can never know its meaning. We canonly guess it. Maybe this is the reason for the existence of many differentreligions and ideologies, which are trying to replace our human uncertaintywith specific ideas. This is a fertile soil for various types of fundamentalismand totalitarianism. In the Czech Republic, we can still well remember one ofthem, and about the others we can hear from everyday news, because of their

terrorists acts. The source of such extremism is the desire of some people fordomination and ignorance of others. It is certainly possible to say that theignorance, or the imprint of patterns of thinking, is always on schedule ofsuch regimes and other groups with selfish interests.

Here is another danger of the strong programmed learning. It could beeasily abused and could influence the mind towards submissive intake of theready-made attitudes. There are some cases where we can't avoid theinstructive approach, but there are not many of them. For example the spelling,numbers to 10, traffic rules, etc. Such instruction can take place in classical

way, but it could be easily converted to computer programs and machinescould replace the work of teachers. But we shouldn't forget that this waymustn't predominate.

The opposite opinion, which claims that life has no sense, is also a danger.
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Such attitudes could lead to thoughtlessness, the lack of attention and the lackof concern about anything, and, finally, to total inactivity. In our schoolsystem, the pupils often find themselves in similar state. They have to learnsomething they are not interested in and they don't understand. But the teachercould also experience the same situation when he/she finds out that he/she isn'table to initiate the interest of his pupils. I dare to say that the teacher couldeasily come to the similar state, when he/she will be pressed to work with

technology without careful professional preliminary training. There is a dangerof finding out that the technical skills of his/her pupils are better than his/her.When he/she gives them the free access to Web, they will look for such thingshe/she doesn't want them to. If he/she gives them the privilege to send privateE-mails, the content of letters will disappoint him/her. The result of wideliberalization could be very similar. The pupils would do only what they wantto do and nobody could control the influence of technology on their minds.

The evolution of philosophy isn't so fast as other disciplines. I mentionedearlier that the views of some ancient philosophers could be accepted eventoday. I mean mainly the Platon's analogy by which the education is thejourney of the prisoner out of the dark cave to the light of knowledge(lat.educat = to lead out). During this journey we meet other people (guides,tutors), who lead us out - to freedom. Although it is impossible to reach theexit in reality, we can sometimes spot in a long distance. That's why we knowit exists and guess where it is. We can't find the absolute truth and it isnecessary to accept this fact. But it doesn't mean that we are allowed to stop onthis journey. It would not be natural and the brain doesn't allow us to do it.

Jan Patocka

Radim Palous

I am not a philosopher and I don't want to elaborate on this any longer. Whatwe need is mainly the relation between philosophy and technology. Thoughts

of two Czech philosophers proscribed in communistic era Jan Patocka andRadim Palous could be relevant for us.

According to Patocka, it is impossible to do the upbringing without conflictbetween learners and educators, which are trying to influence the learner ashis/her potential follower that could be someday better than the teacher is[Sova]. Radim Palous, the follower of Patocka and current professor ofCharles University, sees the education from the holistic point of view. Hedivides the historical epoch to Antiquity, Middle Ages, New Ages, andcoming World Ages, in which we have to turn back from the position of the

external observer of the universe to the position inside. Holism is thephilosophical school, which considers universe as one indivisible unit, whichis always developing continuously and creatively and all its parts have thesame importance. The human being is only one of these parts and has the co-responsibility for the whole. Nature always creates something new. That'swhy everybody is different. I hope we could meet the World Ages withInformation Society.

The holistic view corresponds with all we have spoken about till now withthe theory of multiple personalities and intelligence, with the dynamic

development of the brain, and also with the collective unconscious. Inreality it corresponds even with recent insights ofother sciences [Einstein].The impact on education lies in the discovery that the curriculum, which fitsto everybody, doesn't exist. The best solution is to be ready for such
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Albert Einstein

AlbertSchweitzer

environment, where many different ways of learning could be on disposal.Everybody could choose, under the guidance of a teacher, the suitable way.It is evident that there is a consensus between all the sciences in this matter.The only one thing we are waiting for now, is the implementation of thecurrent progress into the education process.

It is possible to describe this situation by the theory ofThomas Kuhn as the

change of paradigm. He interprets the evolution of science as a non-continuousprocess, which happens in sudden jumps. All theories in each particular epochaccept their level of understanding and try to ignore everything that doesn'tfit in. The streams that don't fit into these theories, grow. The majority ofscientists, which are closely connected to their doctrines, are trying to neglectthem as long as possible. Then the moment, when the amount of problems andthe number of new theories dealing with them overwhelms, comes. In thismoment the majority changes its opinion and the new paradigm is established.This is what happens right now. Unfortunately, education is always a little bitdelayed.

Actually, what is the role of technologies in the current development ofthe human society? I hope we have said it yet. They are the accelerators,which give new possibilities to those people, who have the access to them andothers fall behind (it is a really big problem!). They are a powerful tool thatcould become either a miraculous medicine or a vicious weapon. It dependsonly on us, what way we will choose. We all have the responsibility for thefuture. When we want our followers to be better than us, we have to give themnot only technology and good teachers, but we have to be good examplesourselves [Schweitzer].

Appendixes:

The Evolution of Educational Technology - the representative selection ofquotations made by well-known personalities to map history and anticipate thefuture of the branchThe Overview of the evolution of educational technology- the tool foroverview the quotations

The selection of references:

Bell, Daniel: The social framework of the information society. Tom Forester (Ed.),1980Bly, Robert: The Sibling Society. Addison Wesley Longman Inc., 1995Bush, Vannevar: As We May Think. The Atlantic Monthly, July 1945Dewey, John: Experience and education. Macmillan, New York, 1938Dwyer, Victor: High-tech glory or glorified play? Maclean Hunter, Canada, 1996

Eliot, T.S.: Choruses from "The Rock". PAM Box, 1934Gardner, Howard: Frames of Mind - The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. BasicBooks, New York, 1983Gates, Bill: The Road Ahead. Penguin USA, 1995Gibson, William: Neuromancer. Ace Books, New York, 1984
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Healy, Jane M.: Endangered Minds - Why Our Children Don't Think and What WeCan Do About It. Simon & Schuster, New York, 1991Kieran, Egan: The Educated Mind. The University of Chicago Press, 1997McLuhan, Marshall: Understanding media - the Extension of Man. McGraw Hill,New York, 1964Microsoft ENCARTA'95, CD-ROMNegroponte, Nicholas: Being Digital. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1995

Oppenheimer, Todd: The Computer Delusion. The Atlantic Monthly, July 1997Palous, Radim: Totalismus a holismus. Vydavatelstv Karolinum, Praha, 1996Papert, Seymour: The Children's Machine - Rethinking School in the Age of theComputer. Longstreet Press, Atlanta, 1993Papert, Seymour: The Connected Family bridging the digital generation gap.Longstreet Press, Atlanta, 1996Patocka, Jan: Filosofie vychovy, pednka z roku 1938. Studia paedagogica .18,PedF UK Praha, 1997Perelman, Lewis J.: School's Out - Hyperlearning, the new technology, and the endof education. Avon Books, New York,1992Perelman, Lewis J.: Would you send your kid to a Soviet collective?, Wired DigitalInc., USA, 1997Piaget, Jean: To Understand Is To Invent. The Viking Press, New York, 1972Postman, Neil: The End of Education - Redefining the Value of School. Alfred A.Knopf, New York, 1995Shenk, David: Data Smog - Surviving the Information Glut. HarperEdge, 1997Schank, Roger C.: Engines for Educators. Lawrence Erlbaum Ass., Hillsdale, 1995Skinner, Burrhus Frederic: Beyond Freedom and Dignity. Alfred A. Knopf, NewYork, 1971Stoll, Clifford: SILICON SNAKE OIL - Second Thoughts on the InformationHighway. Anchor Books, New York, 1995

Tapscott, Don: Growing Up Digital - The Rise of the Net Generation. McGraw-Hill,1997Toffler, Alvin: The Third Wave. William Morrow & Co., New York, 1980Turkle, Sherry: Life on the Screen - Identity in the Age of the Internet. Simon andSchuster, New York, 1995Vygotsky, Lev S.: Thought and language. MIT Press, Cambridge, 1962Wells, Herbert George: World Brain. 1938Woolfolk, Anita E.: Educational Psychology. Allyn and Bacon, 1993

Borivoj Brdickahttp://it.pedf.cuni.cz/~bobr/Department of Information

TechnologyCharles University Prague Faculty

of Educationhttp://it.pedf.cuni.cz/

Mr.Brdicka (beaver, in Czech bobr, is the abbreviation of his name) has been working inthe field of educational technology since 1983 when he assisted with the supply of the firstpersonal computers to Czech primary and secondary schools. From that time he has
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trained teachers, designed educational programs, done the research, and mostlyunsuccessfully tried to persuade the Czech public, government, and the management of hisfaculty about the importance of this work.

1999 BoBr
mailto:[email protected]

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The Influence of Technology on the Human Mind