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

[Dr. Steve Eskow]

 Chirs,

<<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.>>

Here's a hunch that goes in the other direction:

Textual and verbal literacy will retain their privileged positions as the
key to positions of power and control in society, and as the heart of
knowledge work.

As the natives becomes increasingly digital they may also become
increasingly image-oriented, and decreasingly print literate.

Education--schools and colleges--are assigned the task of providing the
knowledge and skills the general culture fail to provide.

As visual imagery and audio become increasingly pervasive in the general
culture, it will fall to the schools and colleges to provide the core skills
of print literacy which the digital natives will not develop by immersion in
the media.

What do you think?

Steve E. 

 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




_______________________________________________
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/