Harvey Long





Editor's Note
The Information Age Education Pioneers Project depends on volunteers submitting names and making contributions to the writing. Please help! Contact David Moursund (moursund@uoregon.edu) for more details and to volunteer your services.

We are interested in two general types of information:


 * General information about the pioneer.
 * Specific, personal stories drawn from your experiences in interacting with the pioneer or in interacting with others who have personal knowledge about the pioneer. Help the reader gain insight into the pioneer as a human being, a pioneer, and a leader dedicated to improving informal and formal education.

About Harvey Long
(This is a work in progress.)

Quoting from America Tomorrow:


 * Dr. Harvey Long, independent consultant, and Corporate Fellow of America Tomorrow retired in 1992 from IBM after more than 35 years of experience with the corporation and its technology in education/training-related business ventures. In the intervening years he served as Technology Consultant to the American Federation of Teachers. His IBM activities ranged from that of Manager of Instructional Systems to Education Industry Consultant. He pioneered in corporate programmed instruction and free-standing teaching machine development and was responsible for the research, development and early implementation of IBM's internal computer-assisted training system, the first such system in corporate America. This system reflected his pioneering involvement in national education networks, an experience utilized in his later contributions to the National Education Association's School Renewal Network and the Mathematical Science Education Leadership Network. Dr. Long was also involved with the corporation's original work with laser videodiscs where he was responsible for national marketing programs and applications to education and training.

Working With IBM
The book Never Mind the Laptops: Kids, Computers, and the Transformation of Learning by Bob Johnstone (2003)  contains five sections in which Harvey Long is mentioned. Here is an example:



Up Close and Personal
I (David Moursund) interacted with Harvey Long for many years, mainly through our meetings at conferences and other computer-in-education activities. These interactions were always delightful, and I particularly liked the stories he told about his professional work experiences.

I think he delighted the most in telling about a computer-in-education project he directed at IBM that lost $100 million. Not many people can survive such a corporate disaster and still continue working for the same company.

One of last times I talked with him was when he had just read one of Ray Kurzweil's early books and was so enthused by Kurzweil's predictions for the future based on an analysis of data from the past. I believe the book was The Age of Spiritual Machines, and our discussion occurred in 1999 or 2000. I tried to get him to loan me the book, but he held tightly to the copy he had in hand. So, I was forced to buy my own copy.

Author or Authors of this Page
The initial version of this page was written by David Moursund.