Writing "Technology" and Education - February 05, 2007
As you can tell from my last post, I am enamored of "writing" as the first "education technology".
(I am also an admirer of E.T. Bell's book Men of Mathematics, whose stories are in this post).
For after all, without writing, this marvelous thing called the internet would not be very interesting .... or perhaps it would, but then it would be very loud, relying of the spoken word.
So, let's do a quick review.
First, writing on clay - some obvious disadvantages to this one.
You have to let the clay dry and then fire it. However, then it is almost permanent.
Interesting example, there are only four books (codices) left written in Mayan, but there are
a lot of vases and clay artifacts with Mayn writing.
Of course, you can always write on sand, like Archimedes did. Of course, this is just a temporary fix.
Some Roman soldier is bound to come alont and mess them up. (And yes, his famous last words were probably Μη μου τους κύκλους τάραττε ("Don't disturb my circles")
Then papyrus ... not too bad but I think you have to pound the papyrus and then you have to watch out for mold.
Then vellum - that leather that people used to write on, making each "book" a labor of love.
Interesting fact, if you get vellum wet it returns to the shape of the animal.
Then, of course, paper and the printing press come along.
But until they became inexpensive enough, there were chalkboard slates in schools. They, of course, had the disadvantage of only holding so much information on them at one time. This is brilliantly illustrated by the story of Carl Friedrich Gauss. He was assigned busy work, to add up all the integers from 1 to 100, which he did without erasing his slate once and quite quickly as well. Slates were useful in showing who was a genius in a class.
And then there is the mail system. Used to be quite laborious to get a letter or goods sent by horses. However, the mail system is still an incredible invention in its own right, allowing people far removed from each other to communicate and collaborate. A good example would be the correspondence of Fermat and Pascal which gave us the beginnings of probability theory, as they worked on the problem of how to split up a poker pot if the game is interrupted.
Finally paper becomes cheaper and books are mass produced. First, books were sewn and you can still find some of these gems. Now however, most are glued to their covers.
Now, of course, there is the internet, encoding the writing with electricity and vastly improving upon the speed in which it is delivered, within seconds instead of days.
However, it all goes back to the writing system as the first technology used in education.... and/or time travel ....
(I am also an admirer of E.T. Bell's book Men of Mathematics, whose stories are in this post).
For after all, without writing, this marvelous thing called the internet would not be very interesting .... or perhaps it would, but then it would be very loud, relying of the spoken word.
So, let's do a quick review.
First, writing on clay - some obvious disadvantages to this one.
You have to let the clay dry and then fire it. However, then it is almost permanent.
Interesting example, there are only four books (codices) left written in Mayan, but there are
a lot of vases and clay artifacts with Mayn writing.
Of course, you can always write on sand, like Archimedes did. Of course, this is just a temporary fix.
Some Roman soldier is bound to come alont and mess them up. (And yes, his famous last words were probably Μη μου τους κύκλους τάραττε ("Don't disturb my circles")
Then papyrus ... not too bad but I think you have to pound the papyrus and then you have to watch out for mold.
Then vellum - that leather that people used to write on, making each "book" a labor of love.
Interesting fact, if you get vellum wet it returns to the shape of the animal.
Then, of course, paper and the printing press come along.
But until they became inexpensive enough, there were chalkboard slates in schools. They, of course, had the disadvantage of only holding so much information on them at one time. This is brilliantly illustrated by the story of Carl Friedrich Gauss. He was assigned busy work, to add up all the integers from 1 to 100, which he did without erasing his slate once and quite quickly as well. Slates were useful in showing who was a genius in a class.
And then there is the mail system. Used to be quite laborious to get a letter or goods sent by horses. However, the mail system is still an incredible invention in its own right, allowing people far removed from each other to communicate and collaborate. A good example would be the correspondence of Fermat and Pascal which gave us the beginnings of probability theory, as they worked on the problem of how to split up a poker pot if the game is interrupted.
Finally paper becomes cheaper and books are mass produced. First, books were sewn and you can still find some of these gems. Now however, most are glued to their covers.
Now, of course, there is the internet, encoding the writing with electricity and vastly improving upon the speed in which it is delivered, within seconds instead of days.
However, it all goes back to the writing system as the first technology used in education.... and/or time travel ....
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