Brabazon, T. 2002. Digital hemlock: Internet education and the poisoning of teaching. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press. Despite her polemical title Tara Brabazon had some very cogent points about the nature of today's classroom, the necessity for lectures (she plays loud rock music as an 'opener') and "death by powerpoint." Further, what I find with my students illustrates the points made by many writing instructors - such as Natalie Goldberg, "Writing down the Bones" - that writing exercises muscles in the hand that promote intelligent connections in the brain. I would argue that this is even more necessary for handwriting vs. keyboard but I find both modes very useful. Hence the useful taking of notes vs. "highlighter hypnosis" and everything pre-typed and pre-digested in ppt. Likewise, memorization of facts and figures exercises connectivity in the brain. Leaning on google to provide all facts at the very moment they are needed is not the same as the days when people memorized large bits of verse and text (Homer, the Vedas, etc.) I've just noted how mathematicians and physicists need to memorize a great deal of information to then build up their analysis to another level. Three years of Latin in high school helped me with learning other languages, and memorizing speeches from Julius Ceasar and Shakespeare I think helped my memory generally. Just a few musings. Many digital advocates skim over basic biological facts, including that people are bipedal hominids. For handwriting, that means old behaviors are still useful for 'biologically historical reasons' that don't necessarily match with the goals of modern technology. Cheers, Denise Denise N. Rall, PhD Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 2480 AUSTRALIA Tues: Room T2.17, +61 (0)2 6620 3577 Mobile 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/rsm/staff/pages/drall/ Virtual member, Cybermetrics Group, University of Wolverhampton, UK http://cybermetrics.wlv.ac.uk/index.html ____________________________________________________________________________________Got a little couch potato? Check out fun summer activities for kids. http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=oni_on_mail&p=summer+activities+for+kids&c...