Here are the seven Computers And Teaching newsletters from the project.

Newsletter #1 ERIC abstract (download full PDF from archive.org):

A brief overview of the Computer Aids to Teaching Project is first presented. The workshops, seminars, demonstrations and open house events conducted in the course of the project are described, and the information services provided are discussed. An outline of the project’s 1st workshop designed to introduce users to the PLATO IV computer-assisted instructional system is included, along with instructions on how to operate a computer terminal. Lastly, a brief article reviews the development, current status and future potential of ARPANET, a geographically distributed network of different computers interconnected by a communication system based upon high speed message switching.

Newsletter #2 ERIC abstract (download full PDF from archive.org):

Details relating to the daily operation of the Computer Aids to Teaching project are provided, along with some feedback from readers of the previous issue of the newsletter. Following this are a brief article which discusses the possibility of making man-machine interactions more personal and a review of two seminars which dealt with the establishment of a National Science Network, a net of computers and computer users connected by high speed communications lines. A description of HYPERTEXT, a student-controlled instructional system consisting of pieces of discrete texts, is presented, followed by a look at the future possibilities of computer terminals in the home. Lastly, some instructions on how to operate a computer terminal are given.

(This newsletter contains the COTTAGE INDUSTRY article.)

Newsletter #3 ERIC abstract (download full PDF from archive.org):

Included in this issue of the newsletter are details about the usage of the currently available computer terminals,information about equipment soon to be added to the Computer Aids to Teaching, Project, and an announcement describing a workshop and open house held in March of 1973. Some recent publications are cited and a student guide to HYPERTEXT is provided, along with an author’s guide to HYPERAUTHOR. Lastly, instructions on how to operate a computer terminal are presented.

Newsletter #4 ERIC abstract (download full PDF from archive.org):

Information relating to the installation of the PLATO-IV computer terminal is presented. This terminal is connected to the University of Illinois’ system, making it possible for personnel associated with the Computer Aids to Teaching Project to keep in touch with the development of the large-scale PLATO system. Problems associated with the authoring of programs, with their modification and adaptation to new hardware systems and different universities, and with the cost of developing computer-assisted instructional (CAI) courses are discussed. Also offered are details on a workshop and seminar run in conjunction with the Project and information about a CAI summer workshop for teachers held at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Newsletters #5/6 ERIC abstract (download full PDF from archive.org):

This combined issue first gives descriptions of the PLATO terminal and of an interface which has been completed to allow them to be linked to the CDC 6400 system at Northwestern University. Details are next provided relating to four events; 1) an open house at the Computer Aids to Teaching Project; 2) the Computer Caravan, a traveling computer exhibit; 3) the summer 1973 workshop at the State University of New York at Stony Brook for computer resource personnel; and 4) the Festival of Educational Alternatives at De Paul University. Two new articles are presented, one on the evaluation of computer-assisted instruction and the other on community uses of interactive computers. Also included are reprints of several articles which appeared in earlier issues of the newsletter.

Newsletter #7 ERIC abstract (download full PDF from archive.org):

Recent developments in Northwestern University’s Computer Aids to Teaching Project are reviewed in the first section of this issue. Included are pieces of information about the use of the PLATO IV system, and about increasing access to System Development Corporation’s Educational Resources Information Center(ERIC) files, along with news about personnel, facilities and equipment changes relating to the Project. The second half of the newsletter offers an article which outlines some of the concepts and issues facing designers of computer-based learning/information exchanges. It reviews briefly some of Ivan Illich’s basic ideas for de-schooling society and for building dynamic learning webs in which teachers and students come together as their needs and interests dictate. In addition, it touches upon the role of the computer in such a system, the types of information found in the system, and some possible means of financing such endeavors.

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I made some guesses about the “cottage industry” that access to computing might support in the future and a lot of them were right. Um, actually everything in my article is commonplace today…Here are some of the things I wrote. They’re based on conversations I was having with many people at the time, so they’re not all my own original thoughts, but look at how many of them we’ve been able to realize by 2017!

The article is entitled COTTAGE INDUSTRY (download PDF) and is a forecast of what’s to come, viewed from 1973.

First, I proposed working from home (in your bathrobe or whatever):

As our economy moves more and more toward services and farther away from manufacturing, people find themselves doing tasks they could really be doing at home, if it were acceptable. Take programming a computer with time-sharing, the programmer could work from a back room, and could work any hour of the night or day.

And my favorites – co-working spaces, coffee, teleconferencing, cloud computing, email, voicemail, flat-rate all-you-can-eat phone plans:

Or, if one felt the desire, it would be possible to set up neighborhood work-centers,’ where people gathered to do their work and drink coffee. Communication would be carried out on the telephone or picturephone. “Paper” based jobs would be carried out in conjunction with computer communication systems, in which the computer stored all information. Letters would be written by typing them into the computer then when the recipient signed-on, the letter would be printed on his terminal. A secretary could be located in Chicago for a boss in San Francisco; the secretary would handle communications and route letters via computer to the boss, who would dictate a reply. The reply would then be played back automatically when the secretary called the boss later in the day, typed into the computer and routed to the originator.

Is this a pipe dream? Perhaps not! There are people in telephone companies today who look forward to the day when all calls will be included in the monthly charge. It would then be advantageous to work long-distance. The telephone network would hold your calls, record callers’ numbers, route your calls to another number, or “camp” on a busy line. Once the computer has been connected to this network, just imagine the possibilities!

Personal Computing — or at least home “terminals”:

When PLATO-IV plasma-displays get down to $700 each (roughly the cost of a color TV console), people will begin to think of buying them for their families. Learning will take place in the evening, after school and during lunch breaks. The school may have to take on more socializing tasks — teaching kids how to deal with each other and how to settle disputes.

Social networking and social organizing online:

They may begin seriously trying to direct a student’s inquiry, starting neighborhood study groups oriented toward solution of local problems. And the giant communication network may be used to form larger nationwide task-forces of people, communicating via the computer.

Community computing (credit here to Vic Bunderson et al), online shopping, social effects:

One of the first incursions into interactive computer controlled networks is the TICCIT (say “ticket”)system, by MITRE Corporation. This is centered around a cable TV system in Reston, Virginia. The cable TV will be computer controlled, and will provide information and educational materials to citizens on their own television sets, as well as regular TV fare. Signals are sent to the individual TVs in the homes of children studying lessons, displaying information much like that PLATO-IV will display on its screens. The child presses a key on his telephone to respond. Eventually keyboards will be included. Shopping can be done the same way. Items are displayed on the screen, and buttons are pushed to order. Information of community interest can be displayed, and citizens can even vote on issues.

TICCIT is designed to be a local system, comprising a few hundred homes. Can you imagine what could be done on a truly large system such as PLATO-IV with thousands of homes? It could change the structure of society.

Post Script: What did I miss?

Well I definitely missed cell phones. I almost missed personal computers because of my focus on terminals, although a couple of years later (say 1976) I knew about KIM-1 and other kits, which presaged this. I missed hand-held phones and tablet computing and such. I missed the entire software ecosystem that has grown up alongside those technologies, although my next two company startups transitioned into personal computing rapidly. Also, by 1977 I was working with PDP-11/43 systems, which reduced the mainframe to small-room size, and racks of dial-in modems for remote users. So still terminals, but by 1978 I was focusing on the Apple-II, which was the real game-changing device for all of us.

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Every unpaid volunteer; every pro-bono professional; everyone working on some project without pay; all of them are investing in their particular futures. This is particularly true for nonprofit startups.

And I mean to use specifically that word—investing—this means they are giving of their talent and time with some hope or expectation that things will work out in a particular (and good) way in the future. They have some vision of what they are working toward. A truth that so few nonprofit CEOs understand is that volunteers are actually donors and they deserve the same respectful treatment as donors.

This situation should create a covenant between the individual(s) and the organization. And in far too many ways and places it does not. The time and talent of volunteers are too often treated as worthless. Too often they’re paid nothing and they end up being treated as big zeros.

When you start a social-benefit organization, you should think about this in advance, and you should do some planning about:

• the role of your volunteers  in the strategic planning process; it varies, but you should make it explicit;
• how to value the creativity and work of your volunteers;
• how to keep them engaged in the process without getting discouraged if you begin raising money and start paying for some services;
• how to cycle back with everyone to evaluate how things are going and whether their goals are being achieved.

Also, an individual’s circumstances—more specifically whether they need to be paid for their work or not—doesn’t change their value to the organization. If you had two core founders in your company and one needed to be paid while the other could afford to ”invest” time in the venture, which one would you reward with stock certificates? Which is worth more—time or money? Or are they worth equal amounts?

And why is it that almost the opposite happens so often in nonprofit startups? Once the money comes in, or once the organization gets off the ground, those who invested in starting the org find that the transition to paid staff may be difficult or even impossible. Shouldn’t those who add their creativity to the mix be rewarded?^[1]

As JP Rangaswami pointed out recently,^{[see 2, below for link]}

It all begins with a state of mind. A willingness to share. A focus on being open, a focus on enabling people at the edge to do things they would otherwise not be able to do.

Without that state of mind there are no volunteers, there is no set of standards and protocols, there is no process, cumbersome or otherwise, to let the internet evolve: there is no internet.

Without that internet there is no goldmine for “rightsholders” to strip of all value. Without that internet artists will get paid even less than they do currently, however unlikely that sounds.

So, what I’d like you to focus on is the intentionality, the intent, of deciding up front the role those who are contributing without financial compensation, are going to play in your organization. And how to treat them fairly and equitably when it comes to shared outcomes.

[2] The Silent Spring of the Internet: Part II: Understanding “unpaid”— JP Rangaswami Confused of Calcutta

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Apparently there have been any number of these escapades, including, of course, pirate radio broadcasters off northern Europe. The story of Sealand is especially entertaining.

Gotta read up on them.

The photo is from Wikimedia Commons and has been released into the public domain by its copyright holder. Click for a larger view.

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Chris started by saying “I don’t have an agenda; I don’t have an announcement…” referring, of course, to the number of companies that had been making announcements on the stage. Probably not unusual, since you want to make product announcements where they will be heard, but it was certainly being noticed this time around.

The full video of Chris’ talk appears at the bottom of this article. I’m going to pick and choose from the points that Matt jotted down.

So, what is the essence of community? Community…

[Chris says] Community… lives inside us. Where I go, community goes. We create it based on our preferences, likes, dislikes and the people we link up with;

Sky sez: Community is a construct composed of our connections and interactions — to that extent, wherever we go we bring those connections with us. Because we are becoming highly-linked through electronic media (and social media), our communities may in fact be available to us almost everywhere we go! Communities of interest and Communities of practice are examples of these kinds of virtual communities (unlike our neighborhood, which is a physical community). We all participate in many communities, sometimes interacting in a number of them at the same time.

… is becoming increasingly distributed, as we distribute our ideas and thoughts across social networks;

I have already made a comment on this (prior to hearing Chris), in remarking that bloggers are beginning to spread out beyond blogging and take their communities with them into Twitter, Facebook, and so forth. But, of course you’ve noticed that too. You probably started tweeting a long time ago, added a Facebook or Linked-in profile, and put more of your photos on Facebook now than on your old photo-sharing site. So if it’s true that 25% of Web traffic is to Facebook^[2][3], then this certainly means that some of the social behavior that motivated blogging has moved, with many of us, to Facebook.

… is a commodity, but people [themselves] aren’t. It’s easy to set up a website or blog, but the people and voices behind it are what makes it unique, special;

I’ve been promoting this idea for years—and I still have to remind clients that they can set up an online community web site, but they still need people to staff it, and they still need customers’ voices to make it really happen. And when you inject people into the equation, it forces things to scale more linearly and it costs more for upkeep and maintenance of the human community members.

… cannot be controlled, but can be “guided”;

That’s the essence, isn’t it? You have to listen to what your friends, community, customers, are saying. I’m reading Peter Block now, and he’s one of the masters of using transformational change to solve community issues. [Photo is from peterblock.com.]

… is no longer defined by physical boundaries. You probably have more in common with a geek living on another continent than your next door neighbour;

About a year ago someone asked me whether The Dalai Lama Foundation wasn’t just “a big web site with a small organization…” At first the question offended me, but that didn’t last long as I realized and even pointed out that the organization in fact did do much of its work online. So it is indeed a large web site with a (smaller human) organization behind it. The organization was and is distributed geographically. It uses network communications to get people going and then local groups of people may begin working on their own. There is little planned organization of this process, and it grows entirely organically.

… grows its own leaders. the best leaders come organically out of a community, and is not an appointed one. It’s crucial that communities grow it’s own leaders for credibility and respect reasons;

Leaders arise organically from within communities. Leaders arise when a cause needs someone to carry it forward. At the Foundation we have had six years of growing in response to leaders who arise organically and naturally from our communities. This is reflected in the many projects that the Foundation has incubated or supported. This leaves the central organization small, but promotes the growth of new organizations that respond to the immediate needs of the constituent communities.]

… is the antithesis of ego. Community is myself and everyone else, not just me or my Twitter stream;

Yes, community is looking outward to see and to listen to what those in the community want. And that’s why leaders develop and grow organically within healthy communities.

… is everywhere, inside you. It’s what you share, your passions — and it’s this that will spell success.

Focus on these points: 1) look for people who share your needs, desires and motivations; 2) connect with them; 3) expand that connection by listening to the needs of those in the communities you form or join; 4) help foster organic growth of leaders within your communities; 5) continue looking outward at all times!

[swfobj src=”http://www.ustream.tv/flash/video/2752312″ width=”480″ height=”386″ flashvars=”autoplay=false” allowfullscreen=”true” allowscriptaccess=”true”]

[2] Could 25% of page-views on the Web really be attributed to Facebook? Drake Direct says so. Their source for the stats is compete.com, which uses a sampling methodology (they have a sample set of people who “represent” the Internet user population) and projects their results to a large population (all Web users). They are not directly measuring real traffic to any web site—they are estimating. I have done statistical work of this sort, and for certain kinds of probability distributions it is problematic…particularly long-tail distributions. So don’t believe the 25% statistic, but do believe that traffic to Facebook really is quite high!

[3] Remember not to confuse the Web with the Internet. It is only a subset of overall traffic on the net. Email probably still accounts for far more traffic than web pages, and video is coming into its own rapidly.

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Social Entrepreneuring has become the catch-phrase of the day. I would say that it’s what I’m trying to do when I create digital media programs for kids. I would say that it’s what AirJaldi is doing by expanding the Internet into Northern Indian communities that otherwise wouldn’t have it. And what WSFII members are doing all around the world (similar vein – wireless Internet access). And what Ashoka.org and Ashoka Youth Venture [also see my video interview on AYV – you can log in as a guest] are doing.

From the IFTF announcement by Jackie Copeland-Carson:

A social impact technology field is emerging as multiple innovators creatively apply technology to society’s most compelling social problems. These technologies are powerful tools for building new networks and communities for social action. While technologists work on the cutting edge of locative, crowdsourcing, social media, simulation and gaming, there is a great, untapped need and interest for these technologies among a wide range of social benefit organizations that have limited capacity in this arena.

The Institute for the Future (IFTF) has become an innovator in the application of social media, crowdsourcing, simulation and gaming to the solution of social problems. “Massive, Multi-Player” games scale-up participation and build communities to quickly tap the collective experience and wisdom of people of thousands of people to create ideas that could resolve society’s most pressing challenges. Our award-winning SuperStruct game engaged almost 7,000 people from around the world in designing alternative social structures and practices (Superstruct). Ruby’s Bequest, a partnership with United Cerebral Palsy, is addressing the country’s weakening caregiving system for seniors, aging baby boomers, children and disabled persons. Signtific is IFTF’s global, collaborative research platform, created to identify and facilitate discussion around future disruptions, opportunities and trends in science and technology.

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