Education 2000:
Tradition and Barriers Begin to Fall
Gary F. Braley
Good morning class and welcome to Psychology 101. I know how hard
it is for those of you in Honolulu to attend such an early class but don’t forget
I am eleven time zones to the east so I’ll be going to bed soon. Before we begin,
I’m happy to announce we have just set a record - there are 11,300 students participating
in this class today.
While this scenario seems pretty far-fetched, it could in fact be common place in
the next few years if the following example is any indication. Quoting Andrea Orr
in a recent Reuters News Service report from San Francisco “A group of universities
in California are building their own information highway, designed to exchange data
from libraries and laboratories at least 100 times more quickly than the Internet.
The project will form a sort of virtual university, in which students can access
books from distant libraries and take classes at other campuses. Along with expanding
the resources available to students, the schools said the new network could help
them save money by avoiding the duplication of resources.”
The report goes on to say “The network will be designed to connect campuses at speeds
of over 600 million bits per second. At that rate, a 30-volume encyclopedia could
be transmitted in under one second. Participating schools include seven campuses
of the University of California, along with the California Institute of Technology,
the California State University, Stanford University and the University of Southern
California. The network, which will be up and running next year, also will be more
reliable than today's Internet...”
What’s Behind the Push for Change?
The problems of our educational system are debated at the local and national level
on a regular basis. The blame been placed on teachers, facilities, funding, administrators,
parents, school boards, politicians and students but no amount of finger pointing
appears to have led to significant improvements in outcomes - graduation rates, test
scores, etc. With an increasingly bleak outlook it is no wonder the “revolution of
the Internet” is thought by some to be the answer to our education prayers. Indeed
when searching the World Wide Web on the Internet for articles referring to the “virtual
university” or “virtual education” search engines such as Alta Vista and Infoseek
located nearly 4,000 files. As expected with the wide range of quality and relevance
of Web material, the subjects of these files ranged from “Virtual Billiards - Resources
for Serious Pool Players” to an online textbook titled “Virtual Education” - a good
introduction to the subject matter.
One of the most common arguments against electronic publication is the problem of
peer review - or more correctly lack of peer review if anybody can publish anything
anytime.
The author of Virtual Education claims exactly the opposite benefit for electronic
classes: “Material is peer-reviewed. In traditional lectures only the students normally
see the material which is often ephemeral, being spoken or written on a blackboard.
Whilst much of this is of high quality, some is poor but can go undetected since
colleagues do not, traditionally, go to each other's lectures. Material on the Web,
however, is open to millions including experts in the field. Even if it is not formally
reviewed it will suffer strong and public peer criticism if it is of poor quality
or simply incorrect!” This “book” is available at http://www.sdsc.edu/projects/hbook/hbook/edu/index.htm.
“Virtual” - the Latest Buzzword
The word “virtual” is used in two differing but related ways in terms of information
technology. “Virtual Reality” represents the most extreme case of imaginary objects
or spaces. Computer systems present the illusion of substance through graphical representation
of three dimensional surfaces - rooms, game environments, automobiles, military strategy,
etc.
In healthcare and other fields, “virtual” is used to characterize organizations that
combine computer systems with physical plants and staffing structures to offer capabilities
not generally available in traditional models. A “virtual lab” might use information
technology to bring together the resources of widely separated facilities to present
the image of an integrated, single site operation. It is important to note that the
“virtual lab” does not replace the traditional laboratory but augments its capabilities
with information technology.
Unfortunately, the debate about “virtual education” is generally couched in terms
of a battle between the extremes. Outspoken proponents of new technology describe
the archaic physical structures, crowded campuses and skyrocketing costs of education
to illustrate why the “virtual university” is the inevitable successor to an outmoded
system that has changed little since the days of Socrates. But like any change, there
will be those who hold on to the past at all cost and argue that the process just
wouldn’t work without the “community” aspect inherent in education at all levels
today. On the one hand we are told that electronic links to campuses around the world
will make education available to everyone at a fraction of the current cost. On the
other hand, we are told learning can only take place when you meet face to face with
peers and professors.
It is likely that traditional education will exist along side a virtual model for
many years to come. No doubt a great amount of learning occurs when students congregate
in a classroom, an instructors office, in a residence hall or local “watering hole”.
However, classes have been conducted for many years over closed circuit TV, in large
auditoriums and by correspondence where classroom interaction was minimal or non-existent.
Economics and the physical limitation of current campuses will play a part in the
transition to online education. A significant part of the cost of higher education
results from the need for the student to live in an expensive city and attend classes
in buildings located on high priced real estate. The student teacher ratio is limited
by class room size and the number of students that can attend any institution is
similarly limited by the facilities available. For the student who cannot afford
a “quality education” it is of little consequence that such an education is best
accommodated in any specific setting.
Addressing an Age-Old Problem
There is one distinct advantage to electronic education that is often overlooked.
The traditional classroom requires all students to learn in one way on one schedule
with equal doses of lecture, written material, assignments and examinations in spite
of the fact that students do not all learn in identical ways. One person may grasp
information on the first hearing while another requires repetition. Additionally
a student’s situation at a given time - class load, medical condition, personal problems,
etc. - may mean he or she gets little or nothing from a class on a particular day.
Electronic systems accommodate a great degree of choice in style, timing, quantity
and repletion of material because the student has control over the process.
In a broader context, we believe that education is a life long process where most
learning will take place in “real life”. If this really works, why would the early
formal aspect require a totally structured setting such as a college campus? In fact,
how does a class room approach prepare students for life long learning taking place
in an entirely different milieu - particularly with the elaborate graduation ceremonies
which seem to celebrate the “end of the process” not the beginning - in spite of
the typical graduation speaker’s pronouncements to the contrary.
Technology Advancements
Specifically, what are some of the future technologies that will facilitate the virtual
university.
1) World wide access through the Internet to any campus any time.
2) Stored course materials going beyond lectures and including animation as well
as audio and video. Materials can be updated and “distributed” with little cost outside
of the professor’s time.
3) Electronic text books with wide spread distribution and ease of updating at very
low cost.
4) Incorporation of the best of several instructors ideas into a curriculum
5) Electronic audio and video conferencing along with online chat and bulletin boards
as a replacement for physically coming together on a campus.
Why wouldn’t these technologies cause the rapid extinction of the education system
as we know it?
1) There are instances where physical contact is necessary - particularly physical
sciences where experimentation is part of the process.
2) Technology is not sufficiently developed for us to feel that electronic conferencing
is nearly as good as face-to-face meetings.
3) The informal discussion that takes place outside of the classroom is impossible
to replicate even with the “chat” and bulletin board systems currently available.
Speed is a Major Barrier
Electronic communication of all kinds is currently hampered by limited “bandwidth”
- a high tech term for inadequate speed. We’ve come to expect quick response from
modern desktop computers and the delays encountered in online transactions are annoying
to say the least. Because the Internet is “transparent” - we don’t really see the
computers involved or have any idea of the route our messages take to leapfrog around
the world - we have an unrealistic performance expectation of a system that many
would consider a miracle that it works at all. Fortunately, help is coming in a way
that could directly impact electronic education.
Two initiatives involving universities and the federal government - Internet2 (I2)
and Next Generation Internet (NGI) are aimed at drastic improvement in online data
transmission rates. While it will be many years before this affects the home user,
it could introduce an intermediate stage of the virtual university with significant
benefits. Just as the original Internet connected universities years ago, it is likely
the next generation system will provide interactive video conferencing among dispersed
classrooms so a student might take classes in a local college and “attend” lectures
by an expert based at a distant institution with the help of high quality two way
video.
While initial trials will be limited, it is possible education could go though the
same transition we have seen in healthcare. Prestigious institutions could bid for
electronic affiliation with lesser known universities around the country in an attempt
to maintain market share. Healthcare is limited in geographical coverage because
patients must be physically present for most activities. Where communication of knowledge
is the primary concern, affiliates could truly span the globe. The better systems
would involve integration of curriculums to include the best of both worlds - a local
community of students using electronic means to study under the best experts in the
world. It is not inconceivable that professors could strike out on their own and
offer their services on a free lance basis to the highest bidders. Electronic communication
is dramatically altering the way businesses including healthcare operate. Would it
be impossible for similar dramatic change to occur in our educational systems?
Major Changes in Communications Technology
It may seem ludicrous to talk about worldwide communication over the Internet when
the vast majority of people in the world do not even have telephones due in part
to the difficulty of “wiring the world”. The costs of stringing telephone wire to
remote locations is just too high. That situation could change dramatically in the
next ten years since major aerospace and electronics firms are vying for the chance
to put hundreds of communication satellites in orbit capable of providing wireless
connections world wide using relatively inexpensive transmitters. While it is unlikely
that every family could afford such a device, it is certainly possible that villages
and small towns almost anywhere could be on the Internet in the not too distant future.
To Learn More
It is not surprising that the best sources to learn about electronic education is
the Internet itself. The power of the technology is also demonstrated by the speed
with such information and ideas are communicated. Without waiting months or years
for conferences or scholarly publications to be distributed, numerous Web sites have
offer a wealth of information for the asking. Two that will serve as “jumping off
points” are Cape Software’s
CASO Internet University (www.caso.com)
and the University of Texas
World Lecture Hall (www.utexas.edu/world/lecture).
The CASO site covers a wide range of topics including Articles, Course Descriptions,
Providers and Study Resources. The company is doing what many commercial organizations
have done and that is providing valuable free information (which can be distributed
world wide) presumably with the hope of interesting people in their products and
services. The University of Texas site provides a listing of academic topics from
Accounting to Zoology with lists of classes in each category and links to those classes.