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A Meeting With Father Mouse

If there's anything that has changed the face of education, it is computing. It was with a sense of awe--and yes, guilt--that I met the "Mouse Man," Douglas Engelbart. "Who," you ask--and sadly so. The article, "The Mouse," was a real eye-opener for me, showing how the utter brilliance of a person can so dramatically change the course of history--and the person still be left in the dust of the mad dash to market. Engelbart is the "mild-mannered computer scientist who created the computer mouse." That small, now-daily item that governs every aspect of our learning environments! The article points out that "true credit for the personal computing revolution belongs to...pioneers who worked with Engelbart...or were influenced by his work...dedicated to ideas and research. Back in the '60s, the goal wasn't necessarily to make money, but to create things that would improve our way of working and living." Although many attribute the invention of the mouse to Apple's Steve Jobs, Jobs actually met Engelbart's mouse at a 1979 Xerox/Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) tour. He went on to introduce a similar item with his initial "Lisa" machine. How many of us in education realize that Engelbart was putting together GUI workstations as early as 1967--"personal computer workstations that could talk to each other, allowing collaboration from anywhere in the country"?

Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:35:03 -0800