Access vs. Media

Mark Guzdial guzdial at cc.gatech.edu
Wed Oct 10 15:23:24 UTC 2001


>
>[Re: Educational Questions]
>Actually that's a technical one too ;-) (at least the part about the shift
>of cost/performance ratio). And no, I don't think that this shift will ever
>reach a balance where we're truly satisfy with the results. True, things
>improve but the ratio of improvement doesn't seem to increase at a
>significant higher rate than in the world of desktop computers (Laptops
>being seemingly the only exception here - they managed to come up to par
>with desktop computers but at a price...) While the performance of an iPaq
>is probably in the range of the PC I used five years back it's simply not
>satisfying my today needs. And I think that's going to be true for the next
>years unless we look at these devices in a different way (see above).

That's the technical answer I expected, and that's what leads back to 
this question.  Access vs. media is one way of describing the 
handhelds vs. desktop choice.  Handhelds will ALWAYS give you better 
access, and desktops will ALWAYS give you better performance, it 
seems.  So, how do you choose for what kinds of applications -- and 
it's a particularly relevant point when considering applications for 
kids.

Mark

--------------------------
Mark Guzdial : Georgia Tech : College of Computing : Atlanta, GA 30332-0280
Associate Professor - Learning Sciences & Technologies.
Collaborative Software Lab - http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/csl/
(404) 894-5618 : Fax (404) 894-0673 : guzdial at cc.gatech.edu
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/people/Faculty/Mark.Guzdial.html




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