FW: [Edu-sig] "Croquet Project" and Python ?

[Arthur]

I had written - 

>Let me ask the question generally.  

>What do see in croquet that is connected to education? What is the
>importance within an educational setting of collaboration in virtual 3d
>space? Compared, for example, to collaboration-in-the-flesh,

>The use of technology in compensation for real handicaps is wonderful. 

>But when we get to the point of looking to technology to compensation for
>handicaps that may themselves be virtual -  technologically induced
>hypnotic suggestions of handicaps - yucko.  

Another of my consecutive post jags, I'm afraid.  But I'm afraid croquet,
and it ambitions, touches a nerve.

To bring the point down to the everyday -

My son, over my objections, made the decision to *not* bring his computer up
to college with him this semester.  He felt strongly that the temptation to
waste time on it was too strong to resist, when it sat in his room.  He
would find himself, he says, in the evenings using instant messenger to chat
with fellows sitting in rooms down the hall. 

The computers available in the library are sufficient for him when he has
something to do where a computer might be of practical use, says he.

I would love to think I have had an influence on his efforts to try to keep
these things in perspective.  But it might be true only in a perverse way -
that he is in fact judging me in the time I spend connected, and rebelling a
bit. Probably a decent instinct.

Art