atw: Re: Should we give the users what they want?
- From: Stuart Burnfield <slb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Austechwriter <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 17:33:48 +0900 (WST)
Hi Tony
> In my article, I mentioned that a 1998 study by Cetron found that
> children encountered as much in a single year as their grandparents
> did in a liftetime. If you want to find out more about the methodolgy
> that Cetron used, then you need to dig up the study and read it.
>
> Maybe you were just skimming the article?
I'm revealing all my prejudices today, but I started to look for the
methodology and gave up when I saw that Marvin Cetron is a
"futurist" (i.e. celebrity astrologer of the business/IT world). I was
intrigued to see his 1997 description of the personal computer of
2007--size of a packet of smokes, no keyboard or screen, just tell
it what you want to know. Or you could say bugger the hardware,
wire it directly into my brain through that neural interface.
I still can't find an online copy of Cetron's original paper but it
appears to have been published in 1989 in a journal called Futurist
and titled "Class of 2000". According to
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/What+the+Future+May+Behold.(forecasting+education)(Brief+Article)-a077236683
"I found one point in his 10-year-old piece resonated more than anything.
Cetron contended that when members of the Class 2000 graduate from
high school next spring they will have been exposed to more information
in their senior year alone than their grandparents were in a lifetime!"
So not a study of high school students in 1998, but a 1998
contention (or prediction or guess) that this might be so.
> ... you went to the help for the Wiki you've been using because
> the Commoncraft video didn't answer your questions, but how was
> the help for the Wiki written? I have yet to see a Wiki whose Help
> system is not written collaboratively in a Wiki.
Written by the full-time tech writer(s) employed by Atlassian,
as far as I know. (I have nothing against wikis, BTW--I think they
have a lot of promise.)
I don't disagree with your main point that we have to adjust
to new means of delivering technical information. I just don't
think every one of these butterflies is equally worth chasing.
Stuart
Other related posts:
