Computer Lib / Dream Machines

"It is time to start using computers to hold information for the mind as much as books have held this information in the past." --Theodor H. Nelson, 1974


Computer Lib / Dream Machines was originally written and published by Theodor H. Nelson in 1974. Nelson is an academic and computer visionary who is often credited with creating the term "hypertext" in 1965. His idea that everything is deeply intermingled is illustrated in his book, which has two separate sections. Computer Lib is the first side, meant to be educational and arouse the curiosity of the public. The second side, Dream Machines, offers a look into the future of computing. Both end in the middle of the book. In Computer Lib, Nelson tries to counteract negative perceptions of computers at the time. He writes about the need for people to understand computers deeply, more deeply than was generally promoted as "computer literacy," which he considers a superficial kind of familiarity with particular hardware and software.

Nelson also discusses problems with the education system. He says teachers are often too involved in classroom management tasks to be affective.  “The educational system is thereby committed to the fussy and prissy, to the enforcement of peculiar standards of righteousness and the elevation of teachers—a huge irrelevant shell around the small kernel of knowledge transmitted.” On the other hand, he believes the usual attacks on computer teaching tend to be emotional pleas for the alleged humanism of the existing system. In other words, people who are opposed to the use of computers to teach generally believe the computer to be “cold” and “inhuman.” However, the teacher is considered “warm” and “human."

He provides several nuggets about teaching. The three most interesting ones are:

1. The human mind is born free, yet everywhere it is in chains. The educational system serves mainly to destroy for most people, in varying degrees, intelligence, curiosity, enthusiasm, and intellectual initiative and self-confidence. We are born with these. They are gone or severely diminished when we leave school.

2. Everything is interesting, until ruined for us. Nothing in the universe is intrinsically uninteresting. Schooling systematically ruins things for us, wiping out these interests; the last thing to be ruined determines your profession.

3. Most teachers mean well, but they are so concerned with promoting their images, attitudes and style of order that very little else can be communicated in the time remaining, and almost none of it attractively.

His ideas on teaching demonstrate that he had some cold, heartless teachers. Perhaps his ideas were stifled, which led him to believe his teachers were useless. I don't think this is the case with most individuals. I think teachers and computers may actually complement one another, not detract. Computers offer teachers a wealth of knowledge and teaching strategies that can benefit students.

Montessori schools use many of the principles that Nelson appears to desire in teachers. Founder, Maria Montessori, believed strongly that children learn most effectively through play, actually. Advantages of Montessori schools are students have more complex vocabularies. They learn self-control, their own potential and they are self-paced, meaning there are multiple ages in a classroom. However, the Montessori method while beneficial to most children,  is probably most ideal for precocious, self starting and independent kids. It gives students the opportunity to develop by themselves, at their own pace and without the constraints of a structured program.

However, what about students who are not very motivated?

Nelson undoubtedly has a very high IQ, and he should have been in a more stimulating learning environment. However, I believe traditional classroom settings that encourage a holistic style of learning are practical for most students. Holistic learning is based on the principle that students will learn more effectively when all aspects of a person--mind, body and spirit--are involved in the experience. Gifted and talented programs perhaps suffice for other students.

Computer Lib/Dream Machines Retrospective

This book was originally written and published by Theodor H. Nelson in 1974. Nelson is an academic and computer visionary who is often credited with creating the term "hypertext" in 1965. His idea that everything is deeply intermingled is illustrated in his book, which has two separate sections. Computer Lib is the first side, meant to be educational and arouse the curiosity of the public. The second side, Dream Machines, offers a look into the future of computing. Both end in the middle of the book.

He published the book during an era in which people distrusted computers:

The new breed has got to be watched. This is the urgency of this book. Remember that the man who writes the payroll program can write himself some pretty amazing checks - perhaps to be mailed out to Switzerland, next year. From here on it's computer politics, computer dirty tricks, computer wonderlands, computer everything. For anyone concerned to be where it's at, then, this book will provide a few suggestions. Now is the time you either know or you don’t. Enough power talk. Knowledge is power. Here you go. Dig in.

In Computer Lib, Nelson tries to counteract these notions. He writes about the need for people to understand computers deeply, more deeply than was generally promoted as "computer literacy," which he considers a superficial kind of familiarity with particular hardware and software.

Nelson also discusses problems with the education system. He says teachers are often too involved in classroom management tasks to be affective teachers.  “The educational system is thereby committed to the fussy and prissy, to the enforcement of peculiar standards of righteousness and the elevation of teachers—a huge irrelevant shell around the small kernel of knowledge transmitted.”

On the other hand, he believes the usual attacks on computer teaching tend to be emotional pleas for the alleged humanism of the existing system. In other words, people who are opposed to the use of computers to teach generally believe the computer to be “cold” and “inhuman.” However, the teacher is considered “warm” and “human."

He provides several nuggets about teaching. The three most interesting ones are:

1. The human mind is born free, yet everywhere it is in chains. The educational system serves mainly to destroy for most people, in varying degrees, intelligence, curiosity, enthusiasm, and intellectual initiative and self-confidence. We are born with these. They are gone or severely diminished when we leave school.

2. Everything is interesting, until ruined for us. Nothing in the universe is intrinsically uninteresting. Schooling systematically ruins things for us, wiping out these interests; the last thing to be ruined determines your profession.

3. Most teachers mean well, but they are so concerned with promoting their images, attitudes and style of order that very little else can be communicated in the time remaining, and almost none of it attractively.

His ideas on teaching lead me to believe he had some cold, heartless teachers. Perhaps his ideas were stifled, which led him to believe his teachers were useless. I don't think this is the case with most individuals. I believe teachers and computers may actually complement one another, not detract. Computers offer teachers a wealth of knowledge that can be passed on to students. Perhaps ideas that will foster a creative learning environment in which students are encouraged to cultivate their unique ideas.

Montessori schools use many of the principles that he desires in teachers. Maria Montessori believed strongly that children learn most effectively through play, actually. Advantages of Montessori schools are students have more complex vocabularies. They learn self-control, their own potential and they are self-paced, meaning there are multiple ages in a classroom.

However, the Montessori method is ideal for precocious, self starting and independent kids. It gives them the opportunity to develop by themselves, at their own pace and without the restraints of a structured program. What about students who are not very motivated?

Nelson probably has a very high IQ, and he should have been in a more stimulating learning environment. However, I believe traditional classroom settings that encourage a holistic style of learning are practical for most students. Holistic learning is based on the principle that students will learn more effectively when all aspects of a person--mind, body and spirit--are involved in the experience. Gifted and talented programs perhaps suffice for other students.

Nelson ends the piece with a simple path for the future: "It is time to start using computers to hold information for the mind as much as books have held this information in the past."

Baylor Black History Panel

The Baylor University Black History Month Panel Discussion held last night was well received by participants. It was led by Paige Walker, a Graduate Apprentice for the Department of Multicultural Affairs, Baylor University. Panelists were:  Shelton Lewis, Lori Genous; James SoRelle and me. Also in attendence was Dr. Liz Palacios, dean for student development.

Paige prepared an interesting and relevent list of questions, which included a discussion on racial profiling, interracial dating and media portrayals. About 60 people attended the event. Attendee, Jay Hicks, director of New Media at CBS affiliate News 10 KWTX, discussed the importance of today's youth having an entreprenurial spirit in which they are able to adjust to a rapidly changing culture.

"We have to be able to position ourselves to produce mass media such as movies," he said. "This is the only way we can improve portrayals of black people."

Panelist Dominique Hill agreed and encouraged young people to play an active role in their future.

"The civil right's movement was organized by college students like you guys," he said. "It is up to you to make a change."

background information on Douglas C. Engelbart’s Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework (1962)

This is some background information on Douglas C. Engelbart’s Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework (1962), for people like me who are unfamiliar with his works.

One of the great inventors of the 20^th Century, Engelbart invented the defining features of the computer interfaces such as the mouse, the window and the word processor. Helped establish the Internet, first demonstrated videoconferencing and mixed text/graphic displays.  Today, he is largely unrecognized and highly misunderstood. His inventions have never been widely used to pursue the goals he envisioned.

He was committed to augmenting human intellect. He wrote this report after experiences three flashes, which eventually led to this graphic vision. His endeavors are interesting because he realized that the difficulty of mankind’s problems was increasing at a greater rate than our ability to cope. His answer to the problem was to augment human intellect.

By "augmenting human intellect" he means “increasing the capability of a man to approach a complex problem situation, to gain comprehension to suit his particular needs, and to derive solutions to problems. Increased capability in this respect is taken to mean a mixture of the following: more-rapid comprehension, better comprehension, the possibility of gaining a useful degree of comprehension in a situation that previously was too complex, speedier solutions, better solutions, and the possibility of finding solutions to problems that before seemed insoluble.”

Later, he began using the term knowledge work after reading a '68 Peter Drucker publication, and later switched to the larger, centrally significant concept of collective IQ. His thinking prompted assessment of the infrastructure of capabilities that support the operation of organizations of collectively purposeful humans, capabilities developed atop their genetically endowed capabilities to provide their personal and collective operational effectiveness.

Although people use his inventions daily, he is largely unrecognized, highly misunderstood; and his inventions have never been widely used to pursue the goals he envisioned. In his 20s, he realized the difficulty of mankind’s problems was increasing at a greater rate than his ability to cope. His answer to the problem was to augment human intellect. He earned his Ph.D., taught at a university for a few years, and then worked at various labs with engineers and other masterminds to carry out his vision.

In Engelbart vision, numerous technical and non-technical elements came into play, such as tools, media, language, customs, knowledge, skills and procedures. He thought these elements had co-evolved slowly over centuries, but that with the explosive emergence of digital technology, the technical elements would rapidly move ahead of the non-technical and cause a trend toward automating rather than augmenting peoples' activities.

Engelbart was most concerned with:

1.    Boosting Collective IQ—the concept of dramatically improving how we can solve important problems together and a measure of how effectively a collection of people can concurrently develop, integrate, and apply its knowledge toward its mission. His daughter Christina Engelbart wrote that he “envisioned people sitting in front of cathode-ray-tube displays, ‘flying around’ in an information space where they could formulate and portray their concepts in ways that could better harness sensory, perceptual and cognitive capabilities heretofore gone untapped. Then they would communicate and collectively organize their ideas with incredible speed and flexibility.”

I believe the Collective IQ has improved vastly in the last ten years, however, people do not collaborate exactly how way he envisioned. For example, people collect and build on ideas via wikis on the Web. Video game execs often give gamers the means to alter games and encourage them to send their ideas back to the company. While not exactly what he had in mind, it is similar. One key component that is missing for today’s “Collective IQ” is the immediate brainstorming affect. People in the same room tend to generate more ideas. While the Internet is interactive, I believe some energy is lost over the airwaves. There is less urgency to prove one’s self when people are in separate rooms. This is idea is explored with is bootstrapping concept below:

2.      Bootstrapping is purposefully investing in improving organizational collective IQ through intelligent improvement strategies promising to yield a great return. It is the expectation that anyone working on an important aspect of boosting the Collective IQ capability will seriously push the envelope through his or her own experimental usage of their work product(s).

This is also a good idea in theory. It’s true that people have different talents and strengths. This is one reason I like to the dynamics of group projects. I usually encourage students to figure out one another’s skills and to brainstorm to come up with great ideas. However, as Engelbart mentioned this type of communal work is often deemed inappropriate by prevailing paradigms of management, engineering and computer programming. While social media and networking are a dominant part of society, people prefer creating patented ideas alone and improving self-knowledge rather than “group” knowledge. This was one reason Engelbart met resistance with bootstrapping concepts. It is also the main reason he is often misunderstood and his inventions are not used for what he originally had in mind.

The first two years of ARPA support were relatively unproductive -- problems in aligning actual work with bootstrapping concepts, which were deemed inappropriate by prevailing paradigms of management, engineering and computer programming. Meanwhile funding arrived from a NASA psychologist named Bob Taylor. Later, Taylor moved to ARPA and became a significant factor in launching the ARPANet, which led to the World Wide Web.

Fortunately, a few key people had the foresight to reward the inventor for his ideas. After experiencing a mid-career dip, he received accolades and financial compensations for his earlier ideas. Today, Engelbart and his daughter, Christina, offer seminars and utilize their bootstrapping ideas with students and operate the Doug Engelbart Institute.

Boosting mankind’s capability for coping with complex, urgent problems

“Boosting mankind’s capability for coping with complex, urgent problems”

- Doug Engelbart

This week’s reading for my New Media Faculty-Staff Development Seminar is Douglas C. Engelbart’s Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework (1962). Two nuggets worth noting:
1. I believe the "Collective IQ" has improved vastly in the last ten years, however, people do not collaborate exactly how way he envisioned. For example, people collect and build on ideas via wikis on the Web and video game execs often give gamers the means to alter games and encourage them to send their ideas back to the company. While not exactly what he had in mind, it is similar. One key component that is missing for today’s “Collective IQ” is the immediate brainstorming affect. People in the same room tend to generate more ideas. While the Internet is interactive, I believe a great deal of energy is lost over the airwaves. There is less urgency to prove one’s self when you are not in the same room with people you want to impress. This is idea is explored with is bootstrapping concept below:

2. Bootstrapping is a good idea in theory. It’s true that people have different talents and strengths. This is one reason I like to the dynamics of group projects. I usually encourage students to figure out one another’s skills and to brainstorm to come up with great ideas. However, as Engelbart mentioned this type of communal work is often deemed inappropriate by prevailing paradigms of management, engineering and computer programming. While social media and networking are a dominant part of society, people prefer creating patented ideas alone and improving self-knowledge rather than “group” knowledge. This was one reason Engelbart met resistance with bootstrapping concepts. It is also the main reason he is often misunderstood and his inventions are not used for what he originally had in mind.

The Myth of the Independent Woman

the Gold Digger 

Vs. Miss Independent

In response to my articles and Facebook posts dealing with the concept of "independent women," some people have asked what is wrong with encouraging women to be independent? I argue nothing if it is placed in the proper context. 

Rap music’s depiction of independent women got off to a positive start in 1989, when rapper Roxanne Shanté debuted her “Independent Woman." The song explored relationships and admonished women not to buy into the fairy tale that a man will always take care of them or the idea that they should pamper men who do not reciprocate their affections. 

However, many of today’s popular songs often suggest that a woman should be flawless, physically fit, wealthy and able to handle family, children and housework alone. It is unusual for a person to be gifted in so many areas.  In addition, the songs often suggest that women are either gold diggers or independent. There is not a happy medium. 

I am concerned about the lyrics because listeners, particularly young ones, may try to live up to such unrealistic standards, which encourage materialism, mainstream ideals of beauty and superwoman skills. 

Additionally, they do not place the same high standards on men. In fact, many songwriters admit to being an average guy or even a thug who desires someone independent, beautiful, well educated and “able to overlook his ways.” 

Parents and educators should prepare girls to be independent, but they should make clear that “independence” as depicted in popular music is not the ideal for every woman, especially those with children and jobs. Independence includes creating a happy medium in life, which includes balancing family, relationships, home and employment. People should not believe they have to be perfect in every way to be independent. 

 

As We May Think by Vannevar Bush

This week in the “Awakening the Digital Imagination” seminar we are reading an essay titled, As We May Think by Vannevar Bush. The essay was first published in The Atlantic Monthly in July 1945, and republished again as an abridged version in September 1945 — before and after the U.S. nuclear attacks on Japan.

Throughout the article, Bush expresses his concern for the direction of scientific efforts toward destruction, rather than understanding, and explicates a desire for a sort of collective memory machine with his concept of the memex that would make knowledge more accessible, believing that it would help fix these problems.

In this essay, Bush predicted many kinds of technology invented after its publication, including hypertext, personal computers, the Internet, the World Wide Web, speech recognition, and online encyclopedias such as Wikipedia.

Bush envisioned the ability to retrieve several articles or pictures on one screen, with the possibility of writing comments that could be stored and recalled together. He believed people would create links between related articles, thus mapping the thought process and path of each user and saving it for others to experience.

Bush concludes that through the application of science, which had recently been used to "throw masses of people against one another with cruel weapons," scientists might help the human race "encompass the great record and to grow in the wisdom of race experience."

It is hard to believe that someone would have the foresight to make such predictions, but Bush was clearly on the right path with his vision for the future.

His article is written for the masses and is easy to read and understand. It appears that he wrote for his audience, steering clear of jargon and scientific terms that would have been difficult for the average person to understand. 


In sum, one might say that Bush's article helped create a blueprint for new media.