People come to a school like Ryerson, to interact with others interested in the same subjects. Its just not possible to get the desired level of interaction in a "shared electronic space". If this were not true, Microsoft would not insist that its' developers move to Headquarters when they sign on.
About a month ago I went to a lecture about the KMI Open University in Britain. They have had an extremely well funded distance education program going for decades, now moving into online education. They offer 400 accredited Internet-delivered courses with 150-200 thousand participants. The thing that impressed me is that they spent 30 million (pounds/dollars?-who cares) on each course. They are developing scaleable audio-streaming Java based technology to allow any number of participants in various synchronous and asynchronous learning modes, with pre-cached lecture/slide presentations, and gesture-animated representations of instructors responding to questions. The other thing that impressed me was how lame the best learning mode they had come up with to date- the competitive team Pub quiz- effective mainly because the students were somehow engaged. I think the novelty has not yet worn off.
Basically the presenter said that undergraduate learning institutions are finished and that their long term fate is to be research centres harbouring academics who develop knowledge and create online courses.
I don't think so. This is just more global tech-hype. When it comes down to it, its what people have stored in their onboard RAM and their ability to put it to use in "knowledge behaviours" including knowledge-sharing that counts. Mentors/professors are part of that process.
If people need access to a machinery to function in society and they can't learn about it without investing $2000 upfront, that will leave a lot of people out of the picture, especially if they are un/underemployed CE students. If the answer is to let them borrow money to do so- a lot of people's credit is shot these days, so that won't work either.
No, Ryerson needs to knuckle under and install the machines people will use on the job, just as it always has, replacing some of them every year.
Why not think about using those labs for instruction more hours of the day? In other words open the institution to eager students willing to study from midnight to 6 in the morning for discounted tuition. Hire more tutors at student wages. Also, I hate to mention it but in Ontariarioio's corporate driven "global economy" - professors are eventually going to have to take a cut in pay too. I'm not arguing for it, but... its coming.
Sure, beef up the ethernet pluggin connection situation for those with the equipment, but still maintain the close clustered lab atmosphere where people studying the same material can feel comfortable asking questions of one another.
IMO anyways. As enticing as it is to catch Mike Harris's edu-techno carrot, there are costs too.
Ken McCracken
Forwarded message:
From: <aa319@freenet.carleton.ca> (Marita Moll)
Not really sleeping. Just concentrating on a different aspect of this
behemoth for awhile. See below:
Press release... (please repost where relevant)
ANNOUNCING THE RELEASE OF A NEW BOOK ON CANADA'S
EDUCATION SYSTEM
TECH HIGH: Globalization and the Future
of Canadian Education
Edited by Marita Moll
--------
"The public policy goal to connect all schools to the
information highway, to use the tools of the new communications
technologies to 'reinvent' education, is the one reform from which, if
universally adopted, there is no retreat."
This warning by Marita Moll, head of research and technology
with the Canadian Teachers' Federation, sets the tone for Tech High:
Globalization and the Future of Canadian Education, a new book that
sharply questions the wisdom of turning our schools into computerized
employment centres for business.
Edited by Moll, the book is a collection of meticulously
researched essays by leading educators who share a deep concern about
the current "restructuring" of Canada's institutions of learning. They
examine the computer craze, the attacks on schools and teachers, the
destructive underfunding of education, and the profit-driven invasion
of the classroom by the rapacious private "education industry."
They trace these and other alarming assaults on public
education to the growing power of transnational corporations, which
want students to be taught how to be compliant workers rather than
independent thinkers.
At stake, ultimately, the authors maintain, is the
preservation of democracy itself.
In addition to Moll, the authors include educators Barrie
Barrell of Memorial University in St. John's; Jean-Claude Couture, a
high school teacher in Alberta; Larry Kuehn, director of research and
technology for the B.C. Teachers' Federation; David Livingstone of the
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education; Alison Taylor of the
University of Alberta; Charles Ungerleider of the Faculty of Education
at U.B.C.; and Langdon Winner of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
"This unique collection of essays firmly establishes the
link between an 'anytime, anywhere, at-any-cost' devotion to
information technology in schools and the 'at-any-price' agenda of
corporate power," says Heather-jane Robertson, co-author of Class
Warfare: The Assault on Canada's Schools.
The book, a 223-page trade paperback, is co-published by the
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and Fernwood Publishing, and
sells for $19.95. Copies may be obtained from either of the
co-publishers.