The
Learning MarketSpace, May 1, 2000
********************************************************************************************************************
Written monthly by Bob Heterick and Carol Twigg, The Learning MarketSpace provides leading-edge assessment of and future-oriented thinking about issues and developments concerning the nexus of higher education and information technology.
********************************************************************************************************************
WORTH A SECOND LOOK
Every once in a while someone makes an observation so prophetic that it
is worth a second, even a third look. Just so with Peter Drucker in his
1995 Managing In a Time of Great Change.
". . . Education will become the center of the knowledge society, and
schooling its key institution. What knowledge is required for everybody?
What mix of knowledge is required for everybody? What is "quality" in
learning and teaching? All these will, of necessity, become central concerns
of the knowledge society, and central political issues. In fact, it may
not be too fanciful to anticipate that the acquisition and distribution
of formal knowledge will come to occupy the place in the politics of the
knowledge society that acquisition and distribution of property and income
have occupied in the two or three centuries that we have come to call
the Age of Capitalism."
"Paradoxically, this may not necessarily mean that the school as we know
it will become more important. For in the knowledge society clearly more
and more of knowledge, and especially of advanced knowledge, will be acquired
well past the age of formal schooling, and increasingly, perhaps, in and
through educational processes that do not center on the traditional school--for
example, systematic continuing education offered at the place of employment.
But at the same time, there is very little doubt that the performance
of the schools and the basic values of the schools will increasingly become
of concern to society as a whole, rather than be considered 'professional'
matters that can safely be left to the 'educator'."
"We can also predict with high probability that we will redefine what
it means to be an 'educated person.' Traditionally, and especially during
the last two hundred or three hundred years, at least in the West (and
since about that time in Japan, as well), an educated person was somebody
who shared a common stock of formal knowledge--some who had what the Germans
call an Allgemein Bildung (a general education) and the English (and following
them, the nineteenth-century Americans) called a 'liberal education.'
Increasingly, an 'educated person' will be somebody who has learned how
to learn and who throughout his or her lifetime continues learning, and
especially learning in and through formal education."
"There are obvious dangers to this. Such a society can easily degenerate
into one in which the emphasis is on formal degrees rather than on performance
capacity. It can easily degenerate into one of totally sterile, Confucian-type
mandarins--a danger to which the American university, particularly, is
singularly susceptible. It can, on the other hand, also fall prey to overvaluing
immediately usable, 'practical' knowledge, and underrate the importance
of fundamentals, and of wisdom altogether.
" Drucker, as is his custom, was writing about management but couldn't
Resist commenting upon the changes likely to be occasioned by the Knowledge
society. Even the short time ensuing between the publication of these
thoughts and the present has been sufficient to demonstrate just how "on
target" he was. He suggests nothing short of a new paradigm for American
education. In that context, we probably shouldn't be surprised by the
vocal intensity of those attempting to hold on to the old paradigm. But,
alas, we are.
--RCH
********************************************************************************************************************
THE AGE OF REASON
For six months of the year, I live in Miami. The events of the past few
weeks surrounding the custody of a small child have convinced a good number
of Americans that the city of Miami does not hold rationality in high
esteem. This impression is greatly enhanced by members of the news media
who seem to require a belief in conspiracy theory (Fidel Castro made him/her
do it . . .) as a basis for appearing on camera. (If you're sick of the
national coverage, imagine what our local coverage is like!)
Of course, not all folks who live in Miami agree with the local relatives.
And most of us don't spend our time hanging out around the Gonzalez home.
The rule of law has a strong following.
Like many in higher education, I was attracted to the academic life because
it represents a reasoned approach to the world. Standing on a street corner,
shouting at those with whom we disagree is not for us (at least not since
the sixties.) Overcoming prejudice, developing positions based on fact,
reasoning our way to new knowledge--all a part of the search for truth--that
was the life for me.
But lately I have begun to wonder about the status of reason in higher
education. Here's an example of what I mean.
The Chronicle of Higher Education recently reported that the University
of Phoenix has agreed to pay the Education Department $6 million to resolve
charges that the institution gave federal financial aid to ineligible
students. (The government had originally sought more than $55 million,
$50.6 million of which was in loans that the students will have to re-pay
themselves.) As reported, Todd Nelson, president of the Apollo Group,
called the charges “outrageous” and said the university had settled only
to avoid a long and costly legal battle.
What was this nefarious behavior on the part of the university? Surely
it must have been something like having sex with human subjects against
their will! Or perhaps advertising a four-year degree that, in fact, takes
six years to complete because the required courses aren't available.
On the contrary the charge was that students at the University of Phoenix
had not spent enough hours in class to qualify for the financial aid they
had received. Education Department rules require that students who do
not use a semester, trimester, or quarter system must be in class at least
12 hours a week, for 30 weeks (or the equivalent--e.g., in class 10 hours
a week for 36 weeks) to obtain aid as full-time students.
When I read something like this, I feel like I'm on drugs. Unfortunately,
I know I'm not hallucinating because I spent a good part of the late seventies
and early eighties in dreary offices negotiating with officials from the
federal government, the state government and, even, the INS about this
same issue and that was 20 years ago! As an academic administrator at
SUNY Empire State College, an institution where students spend NO time
in class, one of my unhappy assignments was to help defend the institution
against the same kind of government interventions. We spent years on this
stuff!
But this is the age of the Internet. What's next? Will the feds require
consumers to spend a certain number of hours face-to-face with their travel
agents before it is safe to fly? Or will they go after banks that dispense
money to consumers without sufficient interaction with a teller during
banking hours?
What possible difference does it make whether students spend 45 hours
a semester in class or 30 hours or 10 hours or no hours as long as they
master the course material and fulfill the learning objectives of the
institution?
And what does having a semester or quarter system have to do with the
issue? In institution after institution throughout the country, faculty
and students are moving out of the classroom, onto the net. Now let me
get this straight. If Penn State and Virginia Tech and the University
of Central Florida reduce class time and create highly effective, interactive
learning experiences for students on-line, that’s okay because they have
semester systems?
How do we know that full-time students are, in fact, full-time students,
whether they are in class or not? Because they receive college credit
equivalent to their full-time status. Every student who receives credit
for a course--whether taken online or on campus--does so because the faculty
member teaching the course (who has been appointed and reviewed by his
or her colleagues and institution) evaluates what and how well the student
has learned.
So what does all this have to do with Elian Gonzalez? Just when you’re
about to cast your vote for the people of Miami to win this year's award
for most outstanding irrational behavior, don't forget about the US Department
of Ed.
--CAT
********************************************************************************************************************
THE DIGITAL DIVIDE
We have commented upon the "digital divide" in previous columns. The subject
seems to be high on the priority list of the current administration in
Washington although we likely have somewhat differing definitions of just
exactly what the divide is.
As has been observed by any number of critics of the majority of current
"virtual" classrooms, truly compelling asynchronous learning applications
await the widespread availability of high bandwidth communication. For,
it is only with high bandwidth that "immersion" learning environments
can be constructed. It is difficult to fault the designers of these current
learning applications for basing their designs on a low common denominator
assumption of available bandwidth for to do otherwise would exclude nearly
every potential student.
The arrival of high bandwidth Internet connectivity in any but the densely
populated urban corridors is not in the near term future of the incumbent
telephony monopolists. In spite of the best efforts of the FCC, it appears
highly unlikely that we will see DSL-like services in the near future
outside the obvious urban markets where competition, or the threat of
competition, goads the incumbent providers into upgrading their networks
and offering high bandwidth services at reasonable prices. Much the same
can be observed of cable solutions.
In the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, the development of critical infrastructure
was aided or undertaken by governmental agencies--local, state, and federal.
There were any number of reasons for this. Not the least was the conclusion
that societal value of infrastructure vastly exceeded the entrepreneurial
rewards for its construction. As a consequence, most canals, bridges and
roads were constructed with governmental resources. The interstate highway
system is one obvious example, the Tennessee Valley Authority another,
and in our time, the development of ARPAnet/NSFnet which ultimately lead
to the Internet.
Governmental intervention in hastening the arrival of high bandwidth infrastructure
appears somewhat problematic in the near term. The FCC has not been particularly
successful in breaking the local loop monopoly through regulation. The
lobbying power of incumbent monopolists in state legislatures has similarly
stymied efforts by local governments to increase the pace of deployment
of high bandwidth communications. Legislation has been introduced in many--passed
in some--states that prohibits local governments from causing to have
constructed (either by themselves or in partnership with commercial competitors
to the incumbent) high bandwidth communications infrastructure.
The future may lie in wireless. Predictions of a number of years ago that
telephony would move to wireless and high bandwidth (digital TV and data
applications) would move to fiber have been partially borne out. The ubiquity
of the cell phone attests to the former. The latter, in the form of fiber
or other high bandwidth wirelines to the home has not come so easily for
the economic and political reasons already noted.
There are any number of experiments currently being conducted with Wireless
that offer some hope of breaking through this logjam. Much of This experimentation
is taking place in the higher end of the spectrum Where signal attenuation(due
to weather, foliage and the like) is still a Major technical problem.
The increasing attractiveness of personal digital assistants like the
Palm and expanded applications of the cell phone are feeding this interest
in wireless.
It is worth keeping an eye tuned to this battle. It may be in wireless
where truly useful learning applications finally breakthrough.
--RCH
********************************************************************************************************************
UPCOMING LEADERSHIP FORUM EVENTS
THE LEARNING MARKETPLACE: NEW RESOURCES FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING
Seminar: Tuesday, April 18, 2000, 8:30 am-4:00 pm
Product Demos: Monday, April 17, 4:00-7:00 pm
Location: The Westin Horton Plaza, San Diego, California
Moderators: Bob Heterick and Carol Twigg
More and more companies are entering the higher education market, providing new and different approaches to supporting your teaching/ learning efforts. This workshop provides a rare opportunity for you to compare and contrast commercial offerings in an impartial environment and to gain an overall understanding of the industry.
- Learn in one day what would take you many to find out on your own.
- Identify potential partners for developing new learning environments.
- Meet your colleagues who are wrestling with the same set of issues.
- See product demonstrations (optional activity on April 17).
Featuring moderated discussions with:
If you are involved in decisions regarding expenditure of funds for teaching/learning services and products, you can't afford to miss this workshop!
********************************************************************************************************************
SUBSCRIPTIONS,
ARCHIVES, RE-POSTING
To subscribe to The Learning MarketSpace, click here.
Archives of The Learning MarketSpace, written by Bob Heterick and Carol Twigg and published from July 1999 – February 2003, are available here.
You are welcome to re-post The Learning MarketSpace on your intranet
without charge. Material contained in The Learning MarketSpace may be
reprinted with attribution for non-commercial purposes.
Copyright 2000 by Bob Heterick and Carol Twigg.
