Posted: September 30th, 2007 by Alison Ruth

Categorised as:  Learning  Technology 

I've just been reading Vannevar Bush's As we may think from 1945.  Actually, it was written in 1945, I'm not in 1945 reading it.  But I digress.  I'm sure I've read this before, but there was some striking ideas that occurred to me in this reading, most notably our approach to teaching the how of using computers.

It seems that Bush actually advocated the same approach that I feel is most appropriate.  

A mathematician ... is primarily an individual who is skilled in the use of symbolic logic on a high plane, and especially he is a man of intuitive judgment in the choice of the manipulative processes he employs.

All else he should be able to turn over to his mechanism, just as confidently as he turns over the propelling of his car to the intricate mechanism under the hood. Only then will mathematics be practically effective in bringing the growing knowledge of atomistics to the useful solution of the advanced problems of chemistry, metallurgy, and biology.

Aha!  See, we don't need to know how a car works in order to operate it, and yet our computer training still requires people to see boards and circuits and the other bits that make a computer as if this is going to help them use it.  I fail to see why so many of our introductory texts still harp on about how the technology is physically assembled.  Heck, I still have trouble remembering what the box is called, having grown up with the (mostly) all-in-one design of Macs.

But there are other problems with our current approach to teaching people how to use computers (yes even the so called Gen Y, those savvy individuals, apparently a somewhat alien life force).  I think even Bush failed to consider what would happen when using all these new-fangled apparatuses become the norm.

The scientist, however, is not the only person who manipulates data and examines the world about him by the use of logical processes, although he sometimes preserves this appearance by adopting into the fold anyone who becomes logical ... Whenever logical processes of thought are employed—that is, whenever thought for a time runs along an accepted groove—there is an opportunity for the machine. Formal logic used to be a keen instrument in the hands of the teacher in his trying of students' souls. It is readily possible to construct a machine which will manipulate premises in accordance with formal logic, simply by the clever use of relay circuits. Put a set of premises into such a device and turn the crank, and it will readily pass out conclusion after conclusion, all in accordance with logical law, and with no more slips than would be expected of a keyboard adding machine.

Note the bit about whenever thought for a time runs along an accepted groove. What happens when that accepted groove is an uncritical acceptance of what is?  I have a feeling that many of the current so-called 'problems' of Gen Y is that they have fallen into an accepted groove of having technology, everything is out there ... somewhere.  The luxury that Bush was envisioning, that of not having to remember everything, is the reality today.  My computer (and now by extension the whole internet) is my external memory.  I am aware of this and it's implications and the way that it impacts upon the way I thin k.  I think Gen Y may not be so aware.

I think we have almost reached the teleological point of Bush's vision.  We no longer have to think about what we know or what we learn.  It's all recorded somewhere.

Reference: Bush, V. (1945) As we may think, Atlantic Monthly. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush

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