

An Interview with Alan Kay: "The computer is simply an instrument whose music is ideas." - andreyf
http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=5&print=2

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david927
I think we're already at the start of the revolution in education he's asking
for. With Google, Wikipedia and YouTube, if you want to know something, you
can get that knowledge more effortlessly with each passing day. I think what's
missing now is a rating system, a process guide to step you through it, and
video conferencing to handle study groups, before we fully have a sort of
Wiki-University.

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andreyf
I think the revolution he's talking about is one of more complex
computer/human interaction. Writing programs, of one sort or another. Think
Excel, or Emacs, or the Python repl.

It's hard to visualize what exponential growth means, but if you can simulate
it using Python, you can suddenly imagine it.

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bayareaguy
I was very suprised by his first answer:

 _If you look with a squinty eye at most of personal computing today, you'll
see we're basically just automating paper—using digital versions of documents
and mail._

but then I noticed that the article is dated April/May 2003.

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david927
Could you elaborate on that?

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bayareaguy
andreyf's comment got the gist of it. I think _personal computing_ should
exclude things most people may only do for work like programming, writing
reports or filling out forms even if those kinds of things were often the
"killer apps" for personal computers when they first appeared 25+ years ago.

These days personal computing is more about the seamless integration of
processing with personal and social activities which is why companies like
Apple, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc are doing well.

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andreyf
_the seamless integration_

Seamless hardly! I have to update my status on facebook and twitter
separately, upload my photos to picasaweb and facebook separately, check my
e-mail, my facebook mail, my news.YC threads, my reddit threads (or mail,
whatever they call it).

Yuk!

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jcromartie
Ivan Illich: Deschooling Society.

Read it.

This is exactly the sort of technological revolution that is required before
we can achieve true universal education.

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unalone
Care to summarize a bit to inform us, since you didn't give a link or provide
any other information?

