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Clifford Stoll

Clifford Stoll Books

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“Computers deliver an abundance of symbols yet offer an impoverishment of experience. Do our children need to see more icons, corporate logos, and glitzy fonts... or do they need more time climbing, running, and figuring out how to get along with each other?”

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Book:High-Tech Heretic: Reflections of a Computer Contrarian
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“As computers replace textbooks, students will become more computer literate and more book illiterate. They'll be exploring virtual worlds, watching dancing triangles, downloading the latest web sites. But they won't be reading books.”

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Book:High-Tech Heretic: Reflections of a Computer Contrarian
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“Don't forget that computer programming teaches students to think," says a friend of mine who's a computer jock in Silicon valley. He's deeply invested in technology and has no kids. "Programming is a logical system that rewards clear reasoning." Uh, sure. Nineteenth-century schoolmasters used the same reasoning to justify teaching ancient languages. According to computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum, "There is, so far as I know, no more evidence that programming is good for the mind than Latin is.”

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Book:High-Tech Heretic: Reflections of a Computer Contrarian
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“It's easy to mistake familiarity with computers for intelligence, but computer literate certainly doesn't equal smart. And computer illiterate sure doesn't mean stupid. Which do we need more: computer literacy or literacy?”

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Book:High-Tech Heretic: Reflections of a Computer Contrarian
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“As much as I love computers, I can't imagine getting an excellent education from any multimedia system. Rather than augmenting the teacher, these machines steal limited class time and direct attention away from scholarship and toward pretty graphics.”

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Book:High-Tech Heretic: Reflections of a Computer Contrarian
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“I've just about stopped using the computer in class, because the kids are so distracted by the computers themselves," Ms. Valentine concludes. "I think it's the corporate world manipulating the public school system. It's a big show.”

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Book:High-Tech Heretic: Reflections of a Computer Contrarian
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“Weaned on educational games and multimedia encyclopedias, kids naturally seek out the trivial when forced to read books. While visiting a school librarian, I listened to a high school senior seek help with an assignment: "I'm writing a report about Napoleon," he said. "Can you find me a thin book with lots of pictures?”

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Book:High-Tech Heretic: Reflections of a Computer Contrarian
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“I claim that this bookless library is a dream, a hallucination of on-line addicts; network neophytes, and library-automation insiders...Instead, I suspect computers will deviously chew away at libraries from the inside. They'll eat up book budgets and require librarians that are more comfortable with computers than with children and scholars. Libraries will become adept at supplying the public with fast, low-quality information. The result won't be a library without books--it'll be a library without value.”

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Author:Clifford Stoll
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“For years, we've been bludgeoned with the cliche "information is power." But information isn't power. After all, who's got the most information in your neighborhood? Librarians. And they're famous for having no power at all. And who has the most power in your community? Politicians. And they're notorious for being ill-informed.”

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Book:High-tech Heretic: Why Computers Don't Belong in the Classroom and Other Reflections by a Computer Contrarian
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“The virtual community? The word virtual does not mean "virtue." It means "not." When I go to the store and they say: The shirt that you brought in is virtually done. It means it is not done, in the same way that the virtual community is not a community. There is no commitment there. When you log off, you are not a member of it anymore. My flesh and blood community, the sense of knowing my neighbor, knowing the guy across the street, having dinner with the people down the block, getting along with each other and making compromises, that's a genuine community with a commitment.”

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Author:Clifford Stoll
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“Data isn't information. ... Information, unlike data, is useful. While there's a gulf between data and information, there's a wide ocean between information and knowledge. What turns the gears in our brains isn't information, but ideas, inventions, and inspiration. Knowledge-not information-implies understanding. And beyond knowledge lies what we should be seeking: wisdom.”

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Author:Clifford Stoll
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