cal in Different Contexts

Abstract

In this chapter, Computer Assisted Learning is studied in three different contexts. First, by way of introduction, it is regarded briefly as part of the general growth of computing, a tardy shoot perhaps but now burgeoning as vigorously as better established branches. Secondly, the examples of cal described in the five previous chapters are lifted from their subject contexts, generalised and considered in the context of the usual patterns of tertiary education courses into which they have been fitted. The final context is the socio-political context of the institution. cal is compared to a skin graft and the question asked: ‘Why does the graft take in one place but not another?’ The chapter closes with a look at the possible future developments of cal.

The computer, a machine extension of human intelligence, is a respectable technology in higher education. It is becoming an indispensable component of a widening range of academic disciplines. In the long run, computing is likely to establish the same sort of relationship to education and to scholarship that print has established over the past five centuries.¹