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Higher education 1998 transformed by learning technology
Compufers E&c. Vol. 23. No. 4. pp 3X-124. 1994 Elw~cr SElencc Lrd Printed in Great Bn~am
Pergamon
BOOK REVIEW
by JOYCEMARTIN,JONATHAN 1994. 95 pp. ISBN 0-9513896-6-l paperback.
Higher Education 1998 Transformed by Learning Technology. Edited
DARBY and BENGT KJ~LLERSTR~M. CTISS,Oxford. f8.00.
This publication is the proceedings of a workshop held at the University of Lund, Sweden under the title High- Edrtcntion in f998. The workshop brought together some 30 members of the British Computers in Teaching Initiative (CTI) and a similar number of Swedish academics interested in promoting computer-based learning in the universities of Sweden. Reflecting the structure of the workshop itself, the publication contains an introduction and three sections: keynote papers; case studies; and reports of working groups. Some of the keynote papers provide a useful and authoritative summary of the lessons learned in 20 years of attempts to use technology to transform undergraduate learning. Laurillard asks why we are still forced to talk so often about the potential of learning technologies to improve learning instead of citing evaluative studies to show that they do. Her answer is that WC have not yet created the context rcquircd to integrate these technologies into the educational system. The cottage industry model based on enthusiastic amateurs has done all it can. An infrastructure on an industrial scale is now rcquircd. Two papers by Ehrmann arc rich in lessons from the U.S. cxpcricncc. Hc dcscribcs the assumptions that guided the Fund for the Improvcmcnt of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE) from the early 1970s. in particular the paradigm that distributed courscwarc would rcvolutionizc university teaching. In the cvcnt what he calls wrldwtrrc, meaning productivity tools (e.g. wordprocessing; sprcadshccts), dcsigncd for uses other than undcrgraduatc instruction, had a much grcatcr impact in univcrsitics. Looking forward to 1998 hc predicts that univcrsitics will bc chitlk:ngcd to bccomc more acccssiblc, more clIizctivc and cheaper. Graduates must bc tolerant of diversity. good at teamwork and skilled with the tools for using information. He argues that project-ccntrcd Icarning. in which tcchnologics help students cngagc with problems, will provide an important part OT higher education’s answer to thcsc challcngcs. The nine cast studies adopt a very dif’fcrcnt style, since each focuses on the application 01 information technology and computer-based Icarning to a particular discipline. From Swcdcn there arc descriptions of projects in architecture, building, odontology/dcntistry, mechanics, physics and clcctromagnctics. Although brief, thcsc papers arc well-supplied with diagrams and examples. The British case studies address foreign language learning, land use (crop/licld experiments). mathematics. and chemistry. These projects were all part of the Computers in Teaching Initiative and each of the authors reflects in an intcrcsting way on their own involvcmcnt in the work, the impact of the initiative on their univcrsitics and the evolution of the purposes of funding for computer-based learning projects in a higher education system undergoing rapid change. Heath notes. for instance, that whcrcas the key aim of project funding from the University Grants Committee in the 1980s was to enhance Icarning, the successor bodies of the 1990s. the Higher Education Funding Councils, arc looking for projects that increase the productivity of universities. Rcadcrs who want to follow up on a particular case study will find that the book helpfully gives all the details necessary (telephone. fax, Internet address) for contacting the authors quickly. Although the case studies inevitably refer more to the recent past than to the world of 1998 a genuine attempt to look forward is made in thtfive working group reports that make up the final section of the book. Thcsc reports address how communications technology will change learning: how learning technology will change the role of the teacher; how computers will affect international collaboration; what computer-based learning materials will bc available; and how computers will influence the life of the student in 1998. The topics overlap and so do the reports of the working
323
32-I
Book Review
groups. This is helpful because it makes the overall picture that emerges more nuanced and realistic. There is general agreement that by 1998 ail undergraduate students will have their own computers which will be used intensively for access to resources within, and especially outside, the home university. By the end of their university careers graduates will reach for the computer as automatically as they would reach for the telephone. Reflecting Ehrmann’s conclusions the groups expect the main emphasis on software development to be on worl&zre. There will be much more publishing through IT and online printing. However. better authoring tools will not necessarily produce better courseic’are. Some of the software of interest to students will be shareware that is freely available but products developed for the world market will have to be paid for. The groups envisage a large increase in the amount of work that students will do from home and, as a consequence, a blurring of the current distinctions between modes of study and between full-time and part-time status. Although there will be a continuing role for standard learning materials in print there is an expectation that much distance learning will be done by a combination of telephone and Internet. A strength of computer-based learning is the visualization that can be achieved. However, there is a worry that the traffic generated by vastly increased network use will limit the use of broadband communication by students and thus access to highly visual material. Whilst it extolled the benefits of computers for students, the conference was less sanguine about the impact on academic staff. Staffwill need extensive training for this more demanding environment, but at a time when the administrative and research pressures on them arc also increasing, Academics may resist joining course teams to develop instructional modules, believing that the bittiness of a modular curriculum may not be desirable anyway. With vastly increased opportunities for undctcctable plagiarism student assessment will need to be more rigorous and this challenge will not bc wclcomc either. It is not clear that academics want to be “educational rcsourccs” rather than tcachcrs, even if the trend stems to be in that direction. This is a useful, intorcsting, and well-produced book, at a rcasonablc price. which should bc in the library of any institution that is developing an IT strategy and wishes to cncouragc its stalf to proparc for a future in which the USCof computers by undergraduate students will be taken for grmtcd.
The Open Urriversity Milton KCJWS MK7 6 AA U, K.
JOHN DANIEL
Pergamon
BOOK REVIEW
by JOYCEMARTIN,JONATHAN 1994. 95 pp. ISBN 0-9513896-6-l paperback.
Higher Education 1998 Transformed by Learning Technology. Edited
DARBY and BENGT KJ~LLERSTR~M. CTISS,Oxford. f8.00.
This publication is the proceedings of a workshop held at the University of Lund, Sweden under the title High- Edrtcntion in f998. The workshop brought together some 30 members of the British Computers in Teaching Initiative (CTI) and a similar number of Swedish academics interested in promoting computer-based learning in the universities of Sweden. Reflecting the structure of the workshop itself, the publication contains an introduction and three sections: keynote papers; case studies; and reports of working groups. Some of the keynote papers provide a useful and authoritative summary of the lessons learned in 20 years of attempts to use technology to transform undergraduate learning. Laurillard asks why we are still forced to talk so often about the potential of learning technologies to improve learning instead of citing evaluative studies to show that they do. Her answer is that WC have not yet created the context rcquircd to integrate these technologies into the educational system. The cottage industry model based on enthusiastic amateurs has done all it can. An infrastructure on an industrial scale is now rcquircd. Two papers by Ehrmann arc rich in lessons from the U.S. cxpcricncc. Hc dcscribcs the assumptions that guided the Fund for the Improvcmcnt of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE) from the early 1970s. in particular the paradigm that distributed courscwarc would rcvolutionizc university teaching. In the cvcnt what he calls wrldwtrrc, meaning productivity tools (e.g. wordprocessing; sprcadshccts), dcsigncd for uses other than undcrgraduatc instruction, had a much grcatcr impact in univcrsitics. Looking forward to 1998 hc predicts that univcrsitics will bc chitlk:ngcd to bccomc more acccssiblc, more clIizctivc and cheaper. Graduates must bc tolerant of diversity. good at teamwork and skilled with the tools for using information. He argues that project-ccntrcd Icarning. in which tcchnologics help students cngagc with problems, will provide an important part OT higher education’s answer to thcsc challcngcs. The nine cast studies adopt a very dif’fcrcnt style, since each focuses on the application 01 information technology and computer-based Icarning to a particular discipline. From Swcdcn there arc descriptions of projects in architecture, building, odontology/dcntistry, mechanics, physics and clcctromagnctics. Although brief, thcsc papers arc well-supplied with diagrams and examples. The British case studies address foreign language learning, land use (crop/licld experiments). mathematics. and chemistry. These projects were all part of the Computers in Teaching Initiative and each of the authors reflects in an intcrcsting way on their own involvcmcnt in the work, the impact of the initiative on their univcrsitics and the evolution of the purposes of funding for computer-based learning projects in a higher education system undergoing rapid change. Heath notes. for instance, that whcrcas the key aim of project funding from the University Grants Committee in the 1980s was to enhance Icarning, the successor bodies of the 1990s. the Higher Education Funding Councils, arc looking for projects that increase the productivity of universities. Rcadcrs who want to follow up on a particular case study will find that the book helpfully gives all the details necessary (telephone. fax, Internet address) for contacting the authors quickly. Although the case studies inevitably refer more to the recent past than to the world of 1998 a genuine attempt to look forward is made in thtfive working group reports that make up the final section of the book. Thcsc reports address how communications technology will change learning: how learning technology will change the role of the teacher; how computers will affect international collaboration; what computer-based learning materials will bc available; and how computers will influence the life of the student in 1998. The topics overlap and so do the reports of the working
323
32-I
Book Review
groups. This is helpful because it makes the overall picture that emerges more nuanced and realistic. There is general agreement that by 1998 ail undergraduate students will have their own computers which will be used intensively for access to resources within, and especially outside, the home university. By the end of their university careers graduates will reach for the computer as automatically as they would reach for the telephone. Reflecting Ehrmann’s conclusions the groups expect the main emphasis on software development to be on worl&zre. There will be much more publishing through IT and online printing. However. better authoring tools will not necessarily produce better courseic’are. Some of the software of interest to students will be shareware that is freely available but products developed for the world market will have to be paid for. The groups envisage a large increase in the amount of work that students will do from home and, as a consequence, a blurring of the current distinctions between modes of study and between full-time and part-time status. Although there will be a continuing role for standard learning materials in print there is an expectation that much distance learning will be done by a combination of telephone and Internet. A strength of computer-based learning is the visualization that can be achieved. However, there is a worry that the traffic generated by vastly increased network use will limit the use of broadband communication by students and thus access to highly visual material. Whilst it extolled the benefits of computers for students, the conference was less sanguine about the impact on academic staff. Staffwill need extensive training for this more demanding environment, but at a time when the administrative and research pressures on them arc also increasing, Academics may resist joining course teams to develop instructional modules, believing that the bittiness of a modular curriculum may not be desirable anyway. With vastly increased opportunities for undctcctable plagiarism student assessment will need to be more rigorous and this challenge will not bc wclcomc either. It is not clear that academics want to be “educational rcsourccs” rather than tcachcrs, even if the trend stems to be in that direction. This is a useful, intorcsting, and well-produced book, at a rcasonablc price. which should bc in the library of any institution that is developing an IT strategy and wishes to cncouragc its stalf to proparc for a future in which the USCof computers by undergraduate students will be taken for grmtcd.
The Open Urriversity Milton KCJWS MK7 6 AA U, K.
JOHN DANIEL