>It seems useful, though, to have some distinction between places for
>staying and spaces for getting from one place to another... then... who
>goes where in what style of going? -- I mean, is it cows in a herd or the
>lynx on its daily circuit? Or a gaggle of mice...
...an agony of scholars... a straggle of students... a temper of teachers ... ?
...there goes an excitement of learners... heads up! I nearly stepped in that
plod of thinkers... "who goes where in what style of going" - lovely
phrase, that...
>
>>whither doors in space?
>
>Doors are great for being either open or closed (have you read Latour's
>sociology of a door-closer?) -- they provide options. Locked doors,
>however, sound like one condition for when the empty room behind them is
>not a room...
y'know, I've read nothing by Lord Bruno ! mea culpa.
doors don't really provide options, do they? open-closed/ I mean, even
opened doors
signify a presence of control over access to the space... I ought to read
the Latour article I suppose...
I don't envision "open" spaces without doors, so much as wonder what it
would mean to re-think the location of doors ... keeping in mind their
dichotomous
presence (open-closed) -
(digression) why, d'you suppose, on fictional starships, do the "doors"
slide open and closed? no starship captain ever blackened her eye
walking into an open door, I suppose... can't "slam" an automatic sliding door;
and it's easier to gain access to a room when your arms are full of
microprocessors
when you don't have to 'knock'; 'jimmy the door handle', and so on...
>
>>do not design a computer room. Assume that in any 21st
>>century
>>learning environment, advanced technologies are already integrated
>>
>>as cultural tools; like, remember the old school desks that had inkwell holes
>>long after ballpoint pens were invented?
>>
>>remember those desks had a special sloop built in for our pencils/pens?
>
>
>The problem with computers compared to pencils/pens is they are (and will
>probably be for a long time yet) attached to their source of power.
>
>CABLES is a real architectural challenge, especially if you want the setup
>to be flexible, which of course you do. No computer room. Cables can be a
>real problem (in the old Learning forest) both from a safety point of view
>and aesthetically... there will probably be good solutions already in
>existence, but I should think there is still room for creative thinking in
>the area!
I'm thinking about fibre optics, actually, which radically reduce the qty
of cables currently needed to operate a digital system... tele-linking, for
instance,
would mean that each unit wouldn't need to hold
all the softwares, plug-ins, and so on...?
the fantasy /vision? is of mid-sized screens that are, like powerbook lids,
pulled up and down when needed: no keyboards, but flat touch-pads;
again, my understanding of these technologies is that these advancements
exist now - 21st century technology also might be configured to
borrow from other sources of energy, like solar...?
>Latour, Bruno. 1988. Mixing humans and nonhumans together: The sociology of
>a door-closer. Social Problems, 35(3): 298-310.
>appears also in:
>Star, Susan Leigh (ed). 1995. Ecologies of knowledge. Work and politics in
>science and technology. Albany: State University of New York Press.
..and the citations!!! gracie, bella!
ciao
diane
"Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right."
Ani Difranco
*********************************
diane celia hodges
faculty of education
university of british columbia
vancouver, bc canada
tel: (604)-253-4807
email: dchodges who-is-at interchange.ubc.ca