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Matthew Hutson, English 111, Brown University (1998)Youth may benefit most from the digital expansion of resources and human connections. Negroponte points out the implications that computers will have on children with different learning styles: "We may be a society with far fewer learning-disabled children and far more teacher-disabled enviroments than currently perceived. The computer changes this by making us more able to reach children with different learning and cognitive styles." (198) School teachers may fear that technology is turning today's youth into a video-game generation, destroying the linear, standardized focus and passivity of the traditional classroom, but this means we can also take advantage of the technology to achieve what educators consider productive goals. If Bobby focuses better with a joystick or a mouse in his hand, don't apply force to condition him out of these tendencies; put him in front of a Macintosh and set him free on the internet. Negroponte, too, articulates this goal of liberating education from the uncomfortable confines of classrooms and textbooks: Tomorrow, people of all ages will find a more harmonius continuum in their lives, because, increasinly, the tools to work with and the tools to play with will be the same. There wil be a more common palatte for love and duty, for self-expression and group work. (221)
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