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Distance Educators and Dogma
http://terrya.edublogs.org/2007/09/30/distance-educators-and-dogma/
One of the contentious issues (as usual with distance educators) concerned the use of technology in delivery of distance education programming. This may seem strange to those new to the DE field as ALL distance education, by definition is mediated by some sort of technology (from postal service to SecondLife), but there is a real ideological split between those who advocate maximizing access and those more interested in maximizing learning effectiveness. I could hardly cast myself as a neutral player in this debate, as I've long been a proponent of exploiting the technologies when they offer learning advantage. However, the 'other side' seems to think that unless the technology is ubiquitous to at least 99.99999% of the population we shouldn't use it. This thinking has a very strong and long tradition in DE - after all increasing access has been the defining feature of DE since its inception 150 years ago. The well respectedresearcher Ormond Simpson from the British Open University gave a presentation on the issue, claiming that a technology to be used had to meet four criteria - illustrating each using perhaps the world's first use of pneumatic learning (blowing a balloon up with the lead letter inscribed in felt pen as he introduced each criteria). The criteria Simpson identified are Access, Reliability, Cost/Complexity, & Price. I noted that he had forgotten to add an e- in front (to be topical these days) and an Australian colleague noted that rearranging the lettered balloons then produced e-CRAP - but that was a distractor.
Rats- I noticed that Me2U doesn't import the whole the posting if one uses the More? feature. This posting continues at http://terrya.edublogs.org/2007/09/30/distance-educators-and-dogma/
Terry Anderson
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Hi Terry,
I strongly oppose the idea that everyone needs to have access before new applications can be developed for online learning. I attended an e-Learning conference in Nairobi this spring and I heard some of this sentiment expressed. But why should connected third world citizens (or anyone else) be held hostage until eveyone has access to the internet? It is here, it is available..........anyone should be able to access information. People are getting connected so quickly these days we cannot afford to wait. As an educator I feel I am racing to keep up to those I educate.......... I/we cannot with-hold information. The same arguement could be used to deny people books too, after all not eveyone can read or has access to books, or the radio, or TV. I will just add that even in developing countries availablility of the internet is growing very quickly. For example Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, is moving towards having (free) wireless connectivity across the entire city of close to 1,000,000 people. These people do not want to wait until we decide in the west that they have enough connections! I could go on but I don't want to get into a rant!
ck
Hello again,
I would also like to comment on the evidence question from your blog. A couple of days ago I asked about evidence for social software...........I can't help it! This is my life...as a physician we are compelled to practice 'evidence-based medicine' and I am sure our patients want this. But I think sometimes we are obsessed with evidence. Was there evidence for textbooks, overhead projectors, blackboards........is there evidence that sitting kids in classorooms for 5+hours a day is good? Do we know we are teaching children/university students the right subjects? It seems to me that we might want evidence of harm or negative outcomes but is evidence that something is better necessary to justify its use? I am not against research..........we need good questions. I am trying to think of some right now as I am going to meet with the dean next week about evaluation of a 'distributed medical education' program.......and I don't want the question just to be 'is it better/as good'?
ck
Re the question of access: yes, I agree that we should not cater to the lowest common denominator because if we did we would not progress. However, consider the discussion I had with a colleague about teaching students to save files as rtf because some didn't have Word. "They have to get Word" was her final answer. I guess the same goes for those who want to take online courses. "They have to get a computer". We have had two students who tried it without one--printed off the course and never did enter the forums but they didn't complete the course. Which brings me to insist that educators must clearly state the expectations before the student pays their money. Are we just going to ignore those who can't afford a computer (and we all know that is just the beginning, they will need a headset, a power bar, some software, a printer, etc.)? In SK there are many areas without high speed, and the only provider isn't rushing to provide it, so do we say, "They have to get broadband"? Which leads me to conclude that this issue isn't as simple as it looks.
I agree with your comments Carol ............things are never as simple. I just don't think we should hold back because some cannot access right now. They will get it.........maybe not tomorrow or this week or this month but everyone will get connected. It goes beyond courses that students register for.............in fact I think that is probably a relatively small part of the learning that is taking place online. There is so much information available. Blogs are a good example. The problem is to teach people how to evaluate all this information!
ck