The advent of required computer learning has dawned at the California State University system with the chancellor's March 6 approval of the Assured Access pilot program.
The program, which SF State has not joined yet, requires all incoming freshmen to own or have access to a computer on participating campuses.
The impetus for the program is that information literacy skills translate into jobs for graduates. "It's simply a question of what is the investment required and what is the pay back on that investment," said Mark Resmer, associate vice president of information technology at Sonoma State, who took the lead in developing the program. But it may not be so simple.
"For me, computers in learning are a problem and not something to celebrate," said America's media guru Neil Postman, who took up where Marshall McLuhan left off in the field of communications.
"I like to use the analogy of the automobile," said Postman, speaking from his office at New York University where he is the chair of the department of Culture and Communications.
With the automobile, we concentrated on teaching people how to drive, said Postman, and instead we should have been asking what will be the impact of the automobile on our lives, our family, our society.
"We were victimized because we did not address these issues," Postman said.
"Every technology has built in biases," said Postman. "The strongest bias of this new technology is toward isolating the individual."
"Computers are OK, but I think they take away from the person's spirit, their individuality," said SF State senior Roy Martinez. He said, "People need to relate in other ways, not just with computers, do you know what I mean?"
The point about interacting with classmates and professor's was brought up by students over and over again at the open forums and meetings held at Sonoma State to debate the Assured Access program, Kate Kauffman said. Kauffman, editor of the campus newspaper, the Sonoma State Star, covered many of those meetings.
A prominent critic of politics and power, and a media critic in his own right, Noam Chomsky said people should develop independent minds and not stay isolated, because that's how the state controls.
Speaking from his office at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has pursued his studies in linguistics since 1955, Chomsky reflected on the advent of the computer age and whether the technological revolution was a prelude to an Orwellian "big brother" society.
"I think that the isolating effect of the new technology is a very serious problem. A lot of people don't agree with me about that," said Chomsky. "I mean there are a lot of advantages to it, it also puts people in contact with one another, but it also isolates people and I'm worried about that. I mean we're human beings, we're not martians and face-to-face contact means something," Chomsky said.
Clifford Stoll is one who "profoundly disagrees" with Chomsky. Stoll, an "Internet hero," who first gained notoriety by tracking down a German spy ring operating on the 'net and then writing about it in his first book, "The Cuckoo's Egg," has been in the news lately discussing his new book "Silicon Snake Oil."
Stoll said he never fears an Orwellian "l984." "Huxley built a better model in "Brave New World,"" said Stoll.
Stoll has had second thoughts on the information highway. His new book critiques the new technology he was once an early proponent of.
"It's not like "big brother" controls us," Stoll said. "Rather the means of communication are filled with the trite information of sitcoms, rather than anything worthy of deep thought. It's even worse than TV."
And Stoll should know. He has been on the Internet since l974, when it was called the Arpanet. Stoll said he got a lot of his ideas about the new technology from reading Neil Postman's books.
SF State Computer Science Department Chair Gerald Eisman said he disagrees with Chomsky, too. Eisman said the new technology empowers people to have a voice.
"The hacker community thinks of themselves as the last of the libertarian's, the last bastion of American independence, because they are putting into people's hands an opportunity for a voice," said Eisman.
Eisman has his own utopian dream of how the new technology will improve our lives.
"I think there will be offices in neighborhoods with work services and support technology. It will be a shared work space with people working from all over," said Eisman. "Imagine what will happen. You can go home for lunch, walk to work, interact more with your family and friends," Eisman said.
"When I hear this, that computer technology will allow us to vote at, shop at, make friends at, home," said Neil Postman, "a chill goes down my spine."
Calling the new technology, "a prescription for the end of community life as we know it," Postman said he was in absolute agreement with Chomsky.
"Using personal computers in schools," said Postman, "will emphasize the individual and not social cohesion." Postman said one of the most important functions of a school in the education process is to teach people how to interact socially with others.
Stoll had his own take on computers in school and said to quote from his new book on this. "What exactly is being taught using computers?," asks Stoll. "On the surface, a student is learning how to read and type and use programs. I'll bet that they're really learning something else."
"Kids learn to stare at a monitor for hours on end. How to accept what a machine says without arguing. That the world is a passive, preprogrammed place, where one click on the mouse gets the right answer. They're learning transitory and shallow relationships from instant e-mail. That discipline isn't necessary when they can zap frustrations with a keystroke. That grammar, analytic thought, and human interactions don't matter," writes Stoll.
"I want our students to control the way it is changing society," said SF State Professor Elizabeth Sommers.
Sommers teaches the NEXA 365 class called Convergent Computer Research. In the course Sommers discusses many of the ideas put forth in this article, along with teaching students how to use computer tools such as the Internet. Sommers posed a question she said we need to ask. Is the technology controlling us, or are we controlling the technology?
"That is a very good question," said Neil Postman.
Robert Gammon contributed to this article.