Subject: If Laggards Rule, Will Universities Collapse?
From: Glenn Ralston (gralston@in.net)
Date: Wed 26 Jan 2000 - 15:42:46 MET
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 09:42:46 -0500 From: Glenn Ralston <gralston@in.net> Subject: If Laggards Rule, Will Universities Collapse?
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IF LAGGARDS RULE, WILL UNIVERSITIES COLLAPSE ?
"What-if" AOL were to acquire Time Warner, should academic laggards be
afraid? ...be very, very afraid...?
This "what-if" question typical of the "inquiring mind" is now moot.
The next might be "what-if" academics still can't comprehend the "New
Economy"? If our academics are not too near a "very retiring" age, a
newish theory of economic behavior "Butterfly Economics: A New General
Theory of Social and Economic Behavior" [Pantheon Books; ISBN: 0375407650;
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375407650/qid=948801648/sr=1-2/002-2481347-8229866>]
by Paul Ormerod of the British journal "The Economist" could show them
how to get up to speed. It also can correct the category error
implicit in the fundamental misunderstanding by naysayers and
economists who swore by hell-and-highwater ("NO productivity increases
shown") that PCs and the other emerging information technologies had
not, could not, and would not change our real world -- or, our culture
of learning.
There are those who suggest that the intellectual appliance, the PC,
has increased in power 1000 times, at the same cost, over the past 10
to 15 years. There are reasonable expectations that trend must
continue over the next 10 to 15 years. If that were so, and it is not
unlikely, then that personal intellectual appliance--the PC--will have
increased a million times in power at the same cost over 25 to 30
years. [Technology Source 7/98,
<http://horizon.unc.edu/ts/letters/1998-07.asp#ralston>]
Some seasoned observers note that the "opportunity costs of going to
school" are rising dramatically... [NY Times 11/28/99,
<http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/112899biz-schools-edu.html>]
How much longer will we pretend that a classroom is "four walls, table
and chairs..." Can universities safely continue to deny the inquiring
mind?
Glenn Ralston
Environmedia
<gralston@in.net>
<http://home.earthlink.net/~gralston/index.html>
<http://horizon.unc.edu/TS/bios/Ralston.asp>
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