[Air-l] Technology Transforming Education--EE-Learning

[Heidelberg, Chris]

Your premise holds true presently because of the fact that most of the
individuals at the middle to higher ranks in the workforce are older and
digital immigrants. Your premise will definitely not be true in a
generation as the technology gets better. The hunch that you propose may
be valid and worth further research. I believe that the mixing of oil
and water analogy may be true for people who are not trained
communicators/producers. Professors are taught to cover and emphasize
what to emphasize based on the content; whereas, as a producer/writer
who has produced and hosted instructional television for years we are
taught to focus on our audience first and to wrap the same content with
the same emphasis so that it has emphasis where it needs it through the
use of music, effects, voice and visual impact.  

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
[mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Dr. Steve Eskow
Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2007 8:44 PM
To: 'Nancy Baym'; air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-l] Technology Transforming Education--EE-Learning

Nancy, you write:

>>Your point about mixing oil and water by combining on and offline
components in education is intruiging. I don't know and am curious what
others think. I am not one to argue that a university education should
be job training, but I do think that learning to function in multiple
media to get a job done is an essential piece of modern life for most
professionals, and I would hope students are given the opportunity to
work on those skills in their education.>>

Here's a retrograde thought.

The emphasis on "learning styles" and "multiple media" that suit
different learning styles may be the problem rather than the solution.

Textual illiterates can be fluent oralists, if that's a word. And they
can learn from television and the other visual/aural media.

Premise: success in the middle and upper ranks of the work force depend
on print literacy.

The central medium of instruction of the university, then, ought not to
be the orality of the lecture, or the conversation of the seminar, but
the reading of texts and the writing of texts, with the other media in
an assisting and supporting role. 

Hunch: the success of the British OU is based on their organizing their
courses around texts, texts usually written by expert faculty or
practitioners for the course. Television and radio and the computer play
a supporting role--at least that was the case when I was close to the
work of the OU.

Students who choose the OU know in advance that their success will
depend on their ability and willingness to read a great deal, and write
a great deal.
They know there is no way to avoid that reading, substitute summaries or
outlines or good conversation for that work of close reading.

Nancy, and all, does "multiple media" mean that a university education
need no longer require the ability to cope with complex texts?

Steve Eskow




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