[Air-l] Technology Transforming Education

[Steve Jones]

<nostalgia>That takes me back to my UIUC days, and PLATO...Programmed  
Logic for Automated Teaching Operations.</nostalgia>

(That probably gives away my age as much as admitting I have a  
"record collection.")

These are the kinds of discussions in which I wish we could engage  
many U.S. faculty and administrators. One of the things I'm seeing on  
a lot of campuses the last couple of years is excitement among  
administrators about "blended" learning because it promises to free  
up classroom space, which ties into two important administrative  
matters, namely an interest in increasing enrollment as a means of  
increasing revenue, and an interest in keeping a lid on construction  
costs (or, in some cases, the cost of leased space). I agree that  
those are important matters, but I disagree that they are sufficient  
reasons to "re-design" teaching (though maybe in really dire  
circumstances, along the lines, say, of what happened in New Orleans  
and along the Gulf Coast due to Hurricane Katrina, it would be  
justifiable as a temporary solution to buildings that must be  
rehabbed and are unusable in the meantime).

Just out of curiosity, how many of us are at a campus that has what  
we would consider a good complement of technology in all classrooms?

Back to the matter at hand, I'm in favor of alternative learning  
methods, ones that do not necessarily rely on the "traditional"  
classroom style, and I am willing to give them (and have given some  
of them) a try. What support is going to be provided to faculty and  
to students when using various technologies for learning? In large  
part when I say "support" I mean technical support, but I also mean  
other kinds. Will our students themselves have access to sufficient  
technologies that we may require them to use? Are there faculty  
incentives or disincentives to use technology and/or to use  
alternative teaching methods? Out of what part of the budget is this  
support to be paid for? So far as I'm concerned there are larger  
"infrastructure" issues than just technical ones (not that those are  
often not daunting enough) at most U.S. institutions of higher  
education that must be managed before we can move very far ahead  
(beyond case studies, most of which are at the individual level, some  
of which are at the department level, and precious few are at the  
college level, never mind the level of an entire university) with  
learning technologies .

Sj

On May 22, 2007, at 5:15 PM, Mary-Helen Ward wrote:

> You're right, Charlie, of course. Thanks for the compliments. I guess
> I was just (over)responding to the idea that academics might become
> redundant, replaced by designers and 'automated delivery'. This is
> certainly a fear in some of the (less enlightened) corners of our
> large and conservative campus.
>
> M-H
>
> On 23/05/2007, at 7:48 AM, Charles Balch Ph.D. wrote:
>
>> Mary-Helen,
>> I have to disagree a little but, before I do, ID is huge and has
>> been very
>> much a part of my life. As a little background, I wrote a complete
>> courseware system before courseware systems were cool because I
>> wasn't happy
>> with the offerings some ten years ago. I've kept up with the
>> literature.
>> I've been on teams and worked with teams. I hope my respect for you
>> and all
>> the folks on the front line of ID is loud and clear.
>>
>> ID is hard work that requires much balance.
>>
>> I don't think you can remove yourself from the creation of content
>> though.
>> ID is not just a (Clark/Kozma) grocery truck delivery system. Even
>> Clark
>> eventually agreed that the methods changed the message. All
>> instructional
>> designers should have huge control over the design process.
>>
>> The fact that you are chatting on this list proves to me that you
>> take your
>> responsibilities seriously.
>>
>> Charles Balch
>
> _______________________________________________
> The air-l at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http:// 
> listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>
> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> http://www.aoir.org/