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From: gilbert@hci.hw.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.edu,comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Becoming CAI literate
Message-ID: <183@glenlivet.hci.hw.ac.uk>
Date: 2 Mar 88 13:00:37 GMT
References: <776@zippy.eecs.umich.edu> <3316@killer.UUCP> <26@dogie.edu> <27@dogie.edu> <2253@uvacs.CS.VIRGINIA.EDU>
Reply-To: gilbert@hci.hw.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton)
Organization: Scottish HCI Centre
Lines: 30

In article <2253@uvacs.CS.VIRGINIA.EDU> glb@uvacs.CS.VIRGINIA.EDU (Gina L. Bull) writes:
>The computer teaches the child.  There is another way to
>use computers.  Would you say that a blackboard teaches the child?  Or
>that the overhead projector teaches the child?  No, a teacher uses a
>blackboard, or overhead projector, or computer, to teach the child.

Many Indo-European languages suffer from the pathological antinomy
between subject and object.  Either X effects Y, or Y effects X.  Thus
the computer TEACHES the child.  The introduction of a human agent
using computers/blackboards/OHPs as an instrument, does not change the
fundamental activeness/passiveness of the subject-object relationship.

Basque has an 'ergative' case, which has been characterised as
carrying the role of a fully co-operating, active object.  In Basque,
'to teach' takes the ergative.  In this sense of teaching, a computer
could only teach a child IF it was capable of co-operative
interaction.  Watch a good classroom teacher and you will see that
interaction is a set of social skills, with good interaction defined
differently according to the embracing culture(s).

So the question is, can computers be programmed to demonstrate the
social skills underpinning succesful interaction?  Do the people who
like programming most have these skills themselves :-)  If not,
computers can never rise beyond instruments in learning situations.
they will not teach any more than a book does, or a flight-simulator
without an instructor.
-- 
Gilbert Cockton, Scottish HCI Centre, Heriot-Watt University, Chambers St.,
Edinburgh, EH1 1HX.  JANET:  gilbert@uk.ac.hw.hci   
ARPA: gilbert%hci.hw.ac.uk@cs.ucl.ac.uk UUCP: ..{backbone}!mcvax!ukc!hci!gilbert