R18: No More Teachers' Dirty Looks

Read from the start of page 308 to the end of page 317 (9 pages) of Wardrip-Friun and Montform's The New Media Reader (a textbook used in some graduate-level arts and engineering classes here at UC Santa Cruz). The article you will be reading was originally written by Ted Nelson for the Computer Decisions magazine in 1970.

http://www.newmediareader.com/book_samples/nmr-21-nelson.pdf Links to an external site.

While reading, you should reflect on the use of computer-aided instruction in this course as well as how the emergence of widely-available programmable machines can (or can fail to) influence broader society.

The article's title "No More Teachers' Dirty Looks" is a reference to the same reaction to rigid schooling that spawed the protest song Another Brick in the Wall Links to an external site.. Nelson's Computer Lib / Dream Machines book (which includes a reprint of the selected article for today) envisioned widespread access to programmable computers as a force for cultural liberation. Elsewhere in the book (page 304 of the pdf given) Nelson draws an analogy between reclaiming control of and access to computer from an expert elite and reclaiming control of women's bodies from medical professionals -- a sharply relevant topic to the women's liberation moment of the 1970s that continues to this day. The Web we use on a daily basis is in many ways a downstream result of earlier feminist influences at work even before the personal computer revolution started. Even while the founders of Apple (Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak Links to an external site.) are/were quick to reference Ted Nelson as a deep inspiration for their work, they and others a reluctant unpack the title (and even cover art) of Nelson's book: "Computer Lib," for the 1970s audience, is instantly recognizable as a reference and attempt to build upon Women's Lib Links to an external site..