In agriculture and also in computer technology, users must invest more and more heavily to stay in the game, to take advantage of the new advantages. I ran into this upgrading my computer to cope with the new generation of class management software, Vista. This program requires an updated Java plugin, and that in turn requires a computer that meets certain minimum standards. More and more, those without recent computers are out of the education game. In time, dsl connections may be a prerequisite for taking university classes.
The new software does some wonderful tricks, and the case can surely be made that these tricks are necessary for 21st Century education. Maybe so. My experience is that some of these tricks are very helpful, some are somewhat helpful, and some are about as much trouble as help. At the margin, I should think, we need to take account of justice considerations. There is a strong ethical reason for using a stable educational software package that doesn't discriminate among users with different levels of equipment. That is one important consideration. Another is delivering good education. At the point of balance of those considerations is the right technology policy for a major public university.
Posted by shea0017 at January 19, 2005 12:05 PM