ABSTRACT
The apocryphal tale goes something like this:
An Enlightened Leadership discovers that relatively minor investments in educational technology can significantly enhance the capabilities—productivity, competitiveness, and competence—of their domain. The next step, of course, is to appoint a “Blue-Ribbon” Committee. The task of the Committee is to design the ideal technology for education. The Committee meets, deliberates, and issues specifications for the new technology.
Physically it must be rugged, lightweight, and easily portable, available anytime, anywhere. It must operate indoors and out, under a wide range of temperature, humidity, and other environmental conditions, and it must require only minimal, if any, external power support. Functionally, it must provide easy, rapid, and random access to high-quality text, black-and-white or full-color graphics, and high-resolution photographs. It must include an interface that is easily understood and usable by all, preferably communicated in natural language. It should allow self-pacing—learners should be able to proceed through instructional content as rapidly or as slowly as needed. It should be suitable for lifelong learning and readily available to a wide range of users in home, school, and workplace settings. Economically, it must be inexpensive or, as the Committee reports “requires only minimal financial investment on the part of potential end users.”
The Enlightened Leadership receives the Committee's report with relief. Development of the technology will require no lengthy research and development, no new taxes, no new infrastructure, and no difficult political or administrative decisions or compromises. In fact, all it will require is business as usual. The reason may be as obvious to readers here as it is to the Enlightened Leadership. The recommended technology is, of course, the technology of books—already available and in place.
