The APM

Langdon Winner's videos promoting the Automatic Professor Machine show that Philisophers probably do not make good comedians. At least in Winner's case, philosophers are much too long winded to be effective comedians. While I have to admit that it was entertaining for a certain period of time, and Winner did come up with a few gems such as Edu-Sham, the pesentation outlasted its entertainment value. Nonetheless Winner does present an effective critique of the idea of education being carried out entirely through distance learning. It seems to me that his APM is a somewhat unfair exaggeration of the prospects of distance learning, the point that education should not or could not be carried out through distance learning is a valid one. I firmly agree that the physical presence of students and teachers is an integral part of the educational process, and trying to avoid such presence is robbing the student of the optimal environment for learning, and robbing the teacher of the optimal environment in which to educate his/her students.