par Nyns, Roland
Référence System, 18, 1, page (23-30)
Publication Publié, 1990
Article révisé par les pairs
Résumé : In a recent issue of System, Alan Hirvela (System 16, 299-311, 1988) published a plea to investigate the question of safety in using Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI) based on media critic McLuhan's work and to hold off CAI until this question is answered. John Higgins (1988) provided a reply in the same issue of System without going into the details of McLuhan's teaching, nor of Hirvela's main question, that of humanistic concerns about the potential damage of CAI. The debate has been continued in System 17(1). It is argued in the present article that Hirvela quoted at least three authors out of context, thus misrepresenting their points of view. Furthermore, it is shown that McLuhan never had a case against computers in education but was rather favourable toward CAI. In any case, McLuhan is not a competent authority on the matter of the influence of computers on society in general, let alone on CAI. However, it is recognized that Hirvela's article has the merit of posing the question of, as he terms it, "humanistic" concern about the use of CAI. He could have found more fertile ground on which to base his arguments in the work of critics of artificial intelligence such as Dreyfus, Weizenbaum, or Winograd and Flores. © 1990.