The Future:
Where are these hypertext systems leading us, and what will the world look like if the ideas we are beginning to see in these environments are fully exploited? It seems to me to be very clear that these computational environments are finally making the computer less of a toy to be used by the elite cognoscenti, and much more of a universal cognitive tool. As a cognitive tool of enormous power and widely ranging functionalities, hypermedia systems will have a profound effect on education and training. It is impossible to foresee the fruition of this continuing development without imagining a wide array of capabilities that encroach on those things we now see as exclusively human. Already systems exist that perform complex symbolic manipulation of equations of every order (MACSYMA and muMATH). Simpler system's such as Feurzeig's (1988) algebraic workbench for high school, or even for elementary grades, will soon bring these capabilities to everyone. Similarly, hypertext systems combined with talkwriters, natural language processing, and interlingual translations, will reduce greatly the need for existing reading and writing skills.
If the basic cognitive tools of reading, writing , and arithmetic are outmoded by advancing technology, what will be taught in schools? Will schools continue to exist?
It seems to me that the technological revolution will continue in rapid progression, with fundamental alterations. The simple technical skills that are the source of so much employment now will be largely replaced by flexible computer appliances. Secretaries, mechanics, technicians of every kind, engineers of all sorts; other professionals such as accountants, middle level managers and may well be short-lived occupations with little future. What kind of society this may then become is hard to imagine. It is a little like a mid-nineteenth century scientist trying to predict the twentieth century on the basis of the first electric generators. The early predictions were really strange from our hindsight; even though some predictions were remarkable accurate: e.g., submarines and television. But the pace of change has accelerated incredibly. Instead of a century, we may have only a decade or two.
If we fail to try to predict this society accurately, we will be forced to meander through whatever changes may come and try to deal with their aftermath; and aftermath that may leave us completely out of control,
As Dede (1989) has pointed out, for dog teams and futurists, it is only the leader who has a changing view of what lies ahead.
Certainly we are dealing with education for this future in the meagerest way. Some things, such as hand calculators and symbol manipulators are already upon us and have not been integrated into any meaningful curriculum. How will we deal with talkwriters? high speed optic fiber communications of voice and video? flexible plastic, paper-thin displays on which people can also draw and show videos? How will we deal with systems that can organize voice and audio as easily as visual text is now manipulated?
It should have a profound effect on reading and writing skills, that now dominate early childhood education. If this were reduced in importance in any serious way, the additional time freed up for instruction could be very important. This reduction in reading and writing emphasis in no way should reduce the importance of clear thinking, rhetorical skills, argument, and reasoning. All these could be carried out verbally without written words; especially if new techniques for dealing with audio are developed. The hidden benefit might lie in the development of visual conceptual skills to complement these auditory skills. With so much of the intellectual capacity of students relieved from the drudgery of learning reading and writing skills, who can say what new and unexpected talents may emerge.
<
Publications
Describes early experiments with use of hypertext in teaching poetry.
Danny Goodman:
Clayton Lewis, 1982:
Jakob Nielsen:
Kohonen, T. (1987). Content-addressable memories. Springer-Verlag, New York
Here are some predictions I largely agree with, culled from bulletin boards on the topics of computers and the future.
In predicting technology trends, look for the most rapid advances in areas where the new technology can be acquired incrementally. Thus, even though marvelous datacom networks are buildable right now, look for big growth in CD-rom first. Data network services will piggyback onto existing phone and cable; by 2000, there may be fiber ISDN everywhere, maybe not. Cellular wristphones will hinge on battery technology, which is changing dramatically. A new product made out of semiconducting polymer creates electricity when pressed, acts a supersensitive touchscreen, microphone and speaker all rolled up into one practically indestructible piece of material, and has so many potential uses it makes your mind spin. A display by Cyberspace is created with a small eyepiece, light-emitting elements, lenses, and a tiny oscillating mirror to produce a crisp, full-sized image that appears to float two feet from the user, and is invisible to everyone else. A phone/datalink in your paperback-sized pocket computer will be a common option. The keyboard will go the way of the card reader. Voice-and-pointer will be standard; the pointer may be a dataglove or merely a camera pointed at your hand.
Software for language comprehension will emerge from a synthesis of spelling and grammar correctors, OCR for scanned text input, and talkwriters. The typical user interface will be the image of a talking head with the comprehension of a dumb and literal-minded eighth-grader. 40% of total processing power will go into speech recognition and 50% into real time graphics face generation. Taking outlines, collections of text fragments, previously written documents, and background databases and producing finished report, one will be able to produce ten times the paperwork in the same amount of time. Programs that "read" reports and produce outlines and summary fragments, will also be popular.
Robotics will sneak in the back door. House control/entertainment systems will grow, vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers will begin to operate autonomously, freezer/microwaves will waken you with the tempting aroma of a TV omelet. "The first true fully automatic home" will be announced several times. Robot butlers that greet visitors,
take coats, and serve drinks will be feasible (though quite expensive)
by the turn of the century, and may catch on in some circles if the fad falls right.
By the end of the decade, some major strides will have been made in life extension; the obvious ones are mass production by gene-spliced bacteria of the handful of critical proteins that the ageing process curtails the body's production of. As I understand it, this could alleviate many symptoms of ageing and extend lifespan by up to 50%.
Sometime in the 90's the information available in electronic form will catch and exceed that available on paper. Already in the 80's electronic data storage surpassed paper in compactness and economy. The ability to access and manipulate our "social database" by computer will further accelerate the rate of technological advancement, as will CAD tools for an increasing number of areas and "computer aided X" for
an increasing range of X.
o Pocket computers will have a full-sized, touch-sensitive screen. They will approximate a smart pad of paper, at which point almost everyone who now carries a notebook around will want one.
o The standard lap/desk-top computer will be 8.5x11x.5 inches. The display will go all the way to the edge, so larger displays can be built up by tiling.
o High-quality multi-media or hypermedia documents will prove to be as expensive to produce as movies or grand operas. Only a few will be produced before interactive virtual realities make them obsolete.
o There will never be a standard representation for hypertext
documents. Instead, there will be a standardized library of _access_routines_ that permit _anything_ to be viewed as a
collection of object-attribute associations.
o The copyright laws will be overhauled, probably more than once.
o Attempts will be made to prevent the development of artificial intelligences. Opponents will be in the amusing position of trying to legislate against something they claim is impossible in the first place.
Copied from TIME magazine, Jan 8, 1989, pg 46:
America Abroad
--------------
Glued to the Tube
-----------------
by Strobe Talbott
In the totalitarian world of Nineteen-Eighty-Four, George Orwell
imagined that the Thought Police would rely on a ubiquitous "oblong
metal plaque like a dulled mirror" to keep the citizens of Oceania
brainwashed and obedient: "The instrument (the television, it was
called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off
completely." That prophecy turned out spectacularly wrong. TV, along
with radio, computers, modems, copiers, and fax machines, caused big
trouble for Big Brother in 1989. Once the more repressive precincts of
the global village were wired for glasnosts, legions of little
brothers whispered subversion in everyone's ear.
What has been called the third industrial revolution, the
transformation of society by high technology and mass communications,
has made it possible to infiltrate competing images of reality across
borders. "Terrestrial overspill" allowed East Germans to watch West
German TV, tempting them with what they saw advertised. Young
Estonians have learned idiomatic American English from reruns of
Dynasty shown in neighboring Finland.
When communism began to self-destruct last year, TV Journalists did
more than just report the phenomenon -- they participated in it. The
presence of foreign cameramen seemed to embolden demonstrators. Once
the Chinese authorities decided to shed blood, they literally pulled
the plug on television coverage. Romania's Nicolae Ceausescu also
kept the press out of his country while he slaughtered its citizens.
Not until TV aired footage of his lifeless body were many Romanians
convinced that the despot had really been executed.
David Webster, a former director of the BBC and now a senior fellow of
the Annenberg Washington Program on Communications Policy, calls
high-tech information gear "the essential hardware of freedom." He
rightly urges the U.S. to ease restrictions on the export of such
equipment to communist lands, since it will serve the ruled better
than the rulers.
While the collapse of communism made for some great visuals in '89, it
is worth remembering that the third industrial revolution can cut both
ways, complicating the lives of American Presidents as well as
communist leaders. To the fury of Lyndon Johnson, TV brought the Viet
Nam War home to the U.S. and hastened its humiliating end. Some
former advisors to Ronald Reagan suspect he might have stuck by
Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 had it not been for the extensive and
sympathetic coverage of People Power.
But most of the signals with which the U.S. bombards the planet
transmit not news but pop culture. Hollywood has more influence on
the Third World than does Washington. The barrios of Latin America
bristle with antennas. There are VCRS in rural India, satellite
dishes around the slums of the Caribbean and in Northern Mexico. In
some parts of the world the poor and desperate can ponder the
lifestyles of the rich and silly on Dynasty. The experience teaches
viewers more than English. It can make for an explosive combination
of envy, hatred and determination to break out of wretched
surroundings, or to burn them down.
Everywhere on earth, tantalizing, sometimes infuriating images keep
coming from that oblong metal plaque. But Orwell was right about one
thing: there is no way of shutting it off.
James V. Catano [Brown University, English Department]:
"Poetry and computers: Experimenting with the communal text"
Computers and the Humanities Vol. 13 (1979), pp. 269-275.
Jeff Conklin [MCC]:
"Hypertext: An introduction and survey",
IEEE Computer Magazine Vol. 20 No 9 (September 1987), pp. 17-41.
D.C. Engelbart and W.K. English:
"A research center for augmenting human intellect"
AFIPF Conf. Proceedings Vol. 33, Part 1, The Thompson Book Company, Washington, DC, 1968.
"The Complete HyperCard Handbook"
Bantam Books, New York: 1987.
"Thinking aloud methods in cognitive interface design"
IBM Research Report RC 9265.
J. Nielsen, R.L. Mack, K.H. Bergendorff, and N.L. Grischkowsky:
"Integrated software usage in the professional work environment: Evidence from questionnaires and interviews",
Proc. ACM CHI'86 (Boston 13-17 April 1986), pp. 162-167.
"Computer-supported cooperative work"
ACM SIGCHI Bulletin Vol. 19, No. 1 (July 1987), pp. 54-61.
Larry Tesler [Apple]:
"The Smalltalk environment"
BYTE Vol. 6 No. 8, August 1981, pp. 90-147.
Hintzman, D. L. (1986). 'Schema abstraction' in a multiple-trace memory model. Psychological Review, 93, 411-28.