printed books (and schools) are slow | Gary Rowe

"Printed books are slow. It takes a lot of time to read a book or to find information in libraries of books. Printed books are narrow. The "bandwidth" of the printed page contains no sound, no motion, and no easy way to connect to other books. Printed books are solo performances. They project the statements of an individual or small collaborative group and create a mental feedback loop confined in most cases to the reader's mind alone.

Our traditional schools, built for the industrial age, are bound to printed books. They reward most those who can decode and learn in this confinement. Schools will change only when the curriculum no longer shows up on the loading dock but shows up over wired and through the air, when it can be updated every day and can be customized by the user."

Gary Rowe, creator of CNN Newsroom, in an essay entitled "Publishing Words and Images:  Schools and Learning in the Millennial Shift," From One Medium to Another: Basic Issues for Communicating the Scriptures in New Media.