Difference Engine

Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr. is professor of education in the department of teaching and learning at University of Miami. In 2008, he was awarded the University of Miami’s Provost’s Award for Scholarly Activity.

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsChapter 1: IntroductionChapter 2: Reinventing the TextChapter 3: The Dream of Encyclopedic KnowledgeChapter 4: The World Wide Web at a Hypermedia SystemChapter 5: Cyberspace, Hyperreality, and the Culture of SimulationChapter 6: Computing and the Panoptic SortChapter 7: Mobile ComputingChapter 8: The Reinvention of TextChapter 9: Cyberscholarship and the Reinvention of the UniversityChapter 10: Ideal Speech and the Difference EngineBibliography

This book's premise is that advances in computer technology have brought about a second wave of social change that was first introduced at the dawn of the computing age in the 1960s. This thesis is heavily influenced by cited educational theorists, most notably C. A. Bowers, who believe that computing technologies are socially constructed phenomena, and not just computational tools. To advance his position, Provenzo (education, Univ. of Miami) reframes this argument by closely examining several aspects of information technology: "hypertext/hypermedia," "augmented intelligence," "networked information and communication systems," "collective intelligence," "hyperreality," "the panoptic sort," and "mobile computing." The author places each of these phenomena in historical context--sometimes going back hundreds of years--and conflates this history with discussions of future trends, offering the reader a deep, thoughtful narrative on the social and cultural implications of computing technology. Part educational and social theory and part history, this well-written work should be included in collections focusing on educational theory, computers in society, and information science. An extensive bibliography and useful index accompany the text. Summing Up: Recommended.