Re: Our committee

Tony Patera (PATERA@EAGLE.MIT.EDU)
Wed, 19 Oct 94 12:34:38

Paul,

Responses to the queries of your last two emails to the committee:

1. As regards the charter of the EVAT group, I think your list was good
(CD-ROM, WWW, multimedia, hypermedia, etc.). As regards the name, I like
EVAT better than Abelson's EVACT, because I think the C(ommunication)
word doesn't encompass some important issues (like generating
appropriate media).

2. I think the letter to department heads is a good idea, but I would
propose that perhaps we wait until we know more precisely what we plan
to do. There is so much WWW hype (and so many Institute activities, in
ACS, LCS,...) that I think we should sharpen our focus before going
"public."

3. I like your idea of a Mosaic/HTML WWW interactive document as the
committee's report. However, I hope that we will steer the committee
away from the lowest common denominator (i.e., what can be done now
easily) --- most recent (post-Athena) "computers in education"
committees (MacVicar, Wilson) have tended towards
lowest-common-denominator recommendations (e.g., email for everyone)
that tend to avoid some of the more substantive educational issues and
opportunities. An interactive report is appealing, but should not send
the wrong message as to the potential of the medium (or be gimmicky).

See you at our first meeting next week,

Tony