Robert Taylor





Robert Taylor is best known for his compilation and editing of the 1980 book: The Computer in the School: Tutor, Tool, Tutee (Teachers College Press). His interests and involvement in the education have been varied and extended over his entire professional career.

His faculty profile from Teachers College, Columbia University, indicates his scholarly interests are:


 * Computer-based technology in education, across the curriculum, and around the world, including its utility for human survival in a balanced ecosystem.

His formal educational background includes:


 * B.A., Denison University (English)
 * B.D., M.A., University of Chicago (Thesis: "'If We Are Any good'-A study of the theology implicit in selected modern prose fiction")
 * Ed.D., Teachers College (Thesis: "'Two Yes' A study of mathematics teaching in Ugandan primary schools" Afro-Anglo-American Fellow, 1969-1970)

Tutor Tool Tutee Book

 * Taylor, Robert P. (1980). Editor, The computer in the school: Tutor, Tool, Tutee New York: Teachers College.

This seminal book helped to define the discipline of computers in education.

Art on Art
Bob Taylor created an extensive Website titled Art on Art. (It was not available when accessed 11/2/2013.) Quoting from this Website:


 * This web gallery or "webbery" is the work of Robert P. Taylor (see Site artist and creator below) of Teachers College, Columbia University, who both drew the 188 drawings the website digitally presents and constructed the website itself, a webbery designed to exhibit the drawings and to comment both upon them and upon the 161 works by other artists which they reflect. In the context of a website, ArtonArt explores the power of the medium to modify and variously exhibit drawings once digitized (see Site background below). Many of its ideas were first suggested by Webbery (1996-97), the first of several drawing-based sites (see Related Taylor websites below). That website explored characteristics of classifying and arranging visual data in the form of drawings, including some drawings of the art of others, but Art on Art concentrates exclusively on that subject, using a website to display nothing but drawings created by one artist from the works of others.

Personal Comment by David Moursund
I think I first met Bob Taylor at the first National Educational Computing Conference held in Iowa City, Iowa in 1979. At the second NECC held in Norfolk, Virginia in 1980, we served on a panel (with Beverly Hunter) titled "Computer Literacy Defined."

When Bob Taylor was finishing the writing of his 1980 book, "The Computer in the School: Tutor, Tool, Tutee," he contacted me and asked if I would write a Preface for the book. I felt highly honored that he made this request, and I was happy to make this very small contribution to this seminal (and now, classic) book. Among other things, I said:


 * Anyone wondering either what role computers can play in education or why their incorporation into the curriculum should receive highest priority should read this book from cover to cover, as soon as possible. (Preface, p. viii).

Bob and I have worked together on various projects for many years. He is "my kind of person." When he sees something that needs to be done to advance the field of education, he takes it upon himself to play a leadership role in doing it. At the same time, he is quite willing to work with others and to provide high quality support to their work.

Died in 2013
See http://www.tc.columbia.edu/news.htm?articleID=9243. Quoting from the document:


 * Robert Taylor (Ed. D. ’70), a digital pioneer who founded TC’s Computing in Education Program in 1976 – one of the first such graduate programs in the world – passed away in late October.


 * Taylor edited the influential 1980 volume The Computer in the School: Tutor, Tool, Tutee and invented and applied a structured language to teach programming (FPL, or First Programming Language). During the 1980s he co-founded TC’s Department of Communication, Computing and Technology in Education and later served as its Chair for six years. Over the years, he worked with numerous public and private schools and educational organizations, including the Baghdad office of the United Nations and the ministries of education in Tunisia, Poland and the former Czechoslovakia.


 * Taylor’s invited testimony before a Senate subcommittee led by then-Senator Al Gore played a significant part in shaping Gore’s proposed 1984 National Educational Software Act, which was designed to encourage development of high-equality interactive educational software.

“Bob engaged digital technologies early and was both astute and prescient in understanding how they could serve education and daily living,” said Robbie McClintock, TC’s John L. and Sue Ann Weinberg Professor Emeritus in the Historical & Philosophical Foundations of Education.


 * “Bob was a pioneer in educational computing and an inspiration to all of us who thought that computers could have a positive effect in education,” said Howard Budin, Senior. Lecturer & Director and Adjunct Associate Professor, Computing in Education, who was hired at TC by Taylor. “He was a rare combination of humanist and technologist who infused his teaching with examples from history, religion and the arts. He trained many young technologist/educators who have had much influence in the field. He cared deeply about education around the world and made many trips to South Africa, Korea, and Eastern European countries to help train teachers of educational technology.”

Publications
Taylor, Robert (n.d.). Principle publicaoitns. Faculty Profile, Teachers College, Columbia University. Retrieved 1/23/2009: http://www.tc.columbia.edu/faculty/about.htm?facID=rpt4&page=principal+publications. Here are the first few publications in that list:


 * Taylor, R. P. (1975). Computerless computing for young children or what to do till the computer comes. In Proceeding of the 2nd World Conference on Computers in Education Amsterdam: North Holland.
 * Taylor, R. P. (1976). Monty Python meets Monte Cristo or French disconnection. SIGCUE BULLETIN 10:1.
 * Taylor, R. P. (1976). Let us first make it or and now I saw, though too late or Robinson Crusoe: A book for all computing seasons. Creative Computing 2:6.
 * Taylor, R. P. (1977), Bottom-Up Bizet -- Reflections on implementing release 234.5 of the Pearl Fishers. Creative Computing 3:2.
 * Taylor, R. P. (1977). Fiction and the education of systems analysts. TC Record, Autumn.
 * Taylor, R. P. (1977). Teaching Programming without access to computers. Proceedings of International Conference on Computer Applications in Developing Countries. Bangkok: Asian Institute of Technology.

Author or Authors
This IAE-pedia page was created by David Moursund.