[Air-l] Technology Transforming Education

Tue May 22 13:57:54 PDT 2007

Charles,
The explosion in the number of distance courses is
being driven from the demand side. The move into
cyberspace is being slowed by an inability of supply
to expand quickly enough to keep up with demand. I got
a call from my department chair a few days back
telling me that my ground class did not make. The
online version of that same course hit the cap and
closed the day after registration opened and I am
still getting e-mails from students begging me to add
them over the cap. 

At the community college level, enrollments in
distance courses and in developmental courses are
skyrocketing. This is interesting when you consider
that developmental students typically do not do as
well in distance courses as they do in ground courses
whereas highly motivated students with solid academic
preparation typically find that they can make their
“A” with less bother online. We are moving, in
practice, toward an educational system where the good
students learn online and the students who need lots
of help are taught face to face. 
T. Michael      

--- "Charles Balch Ph.D." <charlie at balch.org> wrote:

> 
> I'd be very interested in hearing what other members
> think are some of the
> forces associated technology driven changes to
> education. Some forces that
> jump out for me are cost, quality, and fun. Fun is
> important to me -- I like
> to play with new toys.
> 
> But I want to wander I bit. I've heard it argued
> that the chalkboard has
> changed education more than any other technology. 
> Chalkboards are
> relatively cheap, use very little in the way of
> consumables, are kind to the
> environment, and use technology that is easily
> mastered. Chalkboards brought
> education to many who could not otherwise afford the
> cost of entry.
> Chalkboards also created the need for a lot more
> instructors.
> 
> Modern computer technology is certainly far beyond
> the chalkboard but I
> think the analogies somewhat hold true. Modern
> technologies are becoming
> cheaper all the time, (arguably) use little
> consumables compared to other
> ways of distributing content, and provide a
> technology that is often easy to
> use. Modern technology also provides us with a
> number of fascinating new
> modalities such as sound, programmed instruction,
> and animation.
> 
> But what is driving instructional change? Is it
> faculty who constantly
> strive for a better way? Student demand? Excitement
> about something that is
> new and improved? At the community college where I
> teach, administration's
> primary metric for judging my worth appears to be
> the number of student
> credit hours I pump out. Thus admin loves technology
> that increases credit
> hours delivered while reducing the cost to deliver
> the content. It seems at
> least some higher ed administrators would happily
> buy into Papert's vision
> of the electronic instructor. 
> 
> Oddly enough, from an altruistic point of view, I
> like the idea of
> inexpensive mass produced education for the masses.
> I particularly like the
> idea of getting the basics covered mechanically if I
> might be able to move
> into more of a role of moderator or facilitator for
> higher level courses.
> >From a not so altruistic point of view, I spent
> many years getting my
> various degrees and would hate to become obsolete.
> How many rocks stars does
> education need?
> 
> I think we are getting very close to instructional
> design that removes the
> need for faculty. For many learners and some
> content, good instructional
> designers are already creating content that
> outweighs the value added of the
> instructor. Yes, such content costs a lot more than
> each delivery of "chalk
> and talk" but, once created, the physical cost of
> delivery is marginal. Such
> marginal cost would be an administrators dream
> unless they thought things
> all the way through.
> 
> One more analogy. Until the printing press was
> invented, books were very
> expensive to make. The printing press made books
> much more popular and drove
> the technology of books in ways that had not been
> considered.  The creation
> of tables of contents, indexes, page numbers,
> abstracts, ISBN numbers and
> such where all improvements to book technology
> driven by books popularity.
> These changes took a long time. The recent success
> of Google shows that we
> are still learning much about how to use technology.
> I think it is going to
> be a fun ride.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> Charles Balch 
> http://charles.balch.org
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
> [mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf
> Of Caroline
> Haythornthwaite
> Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 10:37 AM
> To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
> Subject: Re: [Air-l] Academic traditions
> 
> There is indeed a large movement re online education
> from many directions. A
> very interesting transformation, one that I try to
> follow closely.  /C
> 
> ---- Original message ----
> >Date: Tue, 22 May 2007 12:21:23 -0400
> >From: "Heidelberg, Chris"
> <Chris.Heidelberg at ssa.gov>
> >Subject: Re: [Air-l] Academic traditions
> >To: <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
> >
> >Caroline:
> >
> >I concur! I am amazed at how many professors in the
> academic game do 
> >not understand the history and research behind this
> technology that was 
> >ironically created in large part and tested on the
> campuses of research 
> >institutions under federal and corporate grants.
> Your assessment is 
> >correct because the Ivy league schools (Harvard,
> Yale, Princeton etc), 
> >major private institutions (Duke, Johns Hopkins,
> Stanford), technology 
> >based schools (Cal-Poly,Georgia Tech, MIT)and many
> flagship 
> >universities (Cal-Berkeley,
> Illinois-Champaign,Maryland,Michigan,Ohio 
> >State and
> >Texas-Austin) have already taken their offerings
> online (Rhodes, 
> >2001)to match the challenge posed by the University
> of Phoenix and others.
> >However, if one were to examine the federal defense
> based and medical 
> >grants received by these research institutions over
> the course of 
> >history since WWII, it is clear that the technology
> is not going away 
> >and new professors will have to get with the
> program and start looking 
> >at options like online publishing for environmental
> and financial 
> >reasons (Willinsky, 2006). The key will be the new
> methods created by 
> >and for learners by professors (Gee, 2005) such as
> video games.
> >
> 
> ----------------------------------------
> Caroline Haythornthwaite
> Associate Professor
> Graduate School of Library and Information Science,
> University of Illinois
> at Urbana-Champaign
> 501 East Daniel St., Champaign IL 61820
> 
> 
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“We have to think of ways to use games not just to escape reality but to re-engage with reality.” Henry Jenkins

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