Open and Distance Learning Today

Fred Lockwood

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781138435926
• eBook ISBN: 9781136165375
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The book presents a comprehensive account of research and development activities in open, ditance and flexible learning from acknowledged experts from around the world. The use of open, distance and flexible learning materials is expanding dramatically, not just in schools, further and higher education but also in industry, commerce and the social services. Most higher education institutions now have an open learning unit or educational development centre, and major organisations such as british Steel, National Westminster Bank, Leeds Building Society, Rover Cars and the Inland Revenue have formed units to develop teaching and training materials. Internationally, growth is even more impressive, with new open universities planned for Singapore, Bangladesh, South Africa and india, whist those in Malaysia, Thailand and Australia continue to expand. But current and future practice must be based on research evidence rather than intuition. With contributions from all the leading names in this field, this book will be a key sourcbook for teachers, trainers and students.

Part I

TRENDS AND DIRECTIONS

1

THE BIG BANG THEORY IN DISTANCE EDUCATION

David Hawkridge

INTRODUCTION

Join any group of distance educators today and the chances are you will hear talk of exponential expansion of distance education when the information superhighways come into being, within a decade. This might be called the Big Bang theory of distance education. You will hear enthusiastic talk about two-way communication (at last) between teacher and student, replacing the old one-way systems of print, radio and television. At last, students everywhere will be able to explore massive knowledge stores. You may also hear gloomy comments about limited access, costs and the dangers of technological determinism. You may even hear critics who seriously decry the commodification of knowledge represented by distance education. And, of course, there will be those cautious optimists who advocate slow but steady advance, but not at any price. Who is right?

This chapter outlines the reasons for thinking that distance education can expand exponentially. It examines the differences between old and new media for distance education, especially their capacities to sustain two-way communication that aids learning. It assesses the doubts expressed about access, costs and other negative aspects now looming. It looks briefly into the dangers of domination by multinational capitalist interests. Finally, it summarises The Open University’s attempts to create a Big Bang for its own students.

IS THE BIG BANG COMING IN DISTANCE EDUCATION?

When the London Stock Exchange switched overnight from paper to computers, this electronic transformation was called the Big Bang. The name doubtless reflected the megalomaniacal aspirations of stockbrokers and systems analysts who, god-like, wished to create a new universe in a single moment. It also reflected fears that the whole project would explode, severely damaging one of the largest financial markets on earth. In fact, the Big Bang worked.

Some people think that distance education’s Big Bang is due shortly, because of changes in telecommunications. Nearly twenty years ago, James Martin, of IBM’s Systems Research Institute, wrote an upbeat analysis of telecommunications (Martin, 1977). He foresaw many changes including optical fibre cables going into homes, cheap electronic mail and television news with worldwide satellite coverage. He made other forecasts that were wrong, but for the late 1990s he predicted that, ‘The wideband, rapidly-switched communication networks … [will] form an infrastructure vital to the running of industry. Nations which do not have this expensive infrastructure [will] find that their industrial productivity and hence economic strength is falling far behind the nations with advanced telecommunications.’ Today, these networks have the grand title of electronic information superhighways.

Vice-President A1 Gore, speaking to the International Telecommunications Union in Buenos Aires, ensured maximum publicity for US attempts to build these superhighways (Gore, 1994). He proposed the creation of a Global Information Infrastructure (GII), which would, among other things, ‘help educate our children’, to say nothing of adults. In the US, this ‘network of networks’ would provide telephone and interactive digital video to almost every American. With President Clinton, Gore called for the network to be extended into every classroom, library, hospital and clinic in the US by the year 2000. Every user, worldwide, would be able to reach ‘thousands of different sources of information – video programming, electronic newspapers, computer bulletin boards – from every country, in every language.’ Gore envisaged a Global Digital Library, via Internet, that would allow millions of students, scholars and business people to find the information they need. Was his speech a fantasy, or a far-sighted vision? Recent multi-billion dollar deals in the US give a foretaste of superhighways to come. Internet is growing at 10 per cent per month and may have 100 million users within a few years (Bildt, 1994).

Not everyone thinks this vision is correct. Syfret (1994) doubts whether progress towards the GII will be as fast in Europe as in the US because of problems of investment and payback. Digital superhighways can carry all kinds of traffic. He says that it is conceivable that ‘one or two of these, like videophony or home shopping, will be so profitable in their own right that they alone can carry the burden of highway construction’, but other kinds of traffic will incur their own specific investment costs, and will be expected to run profitably too. On the other hand, he quotes George Gilder, a Canadian, who foresees a million-fold increase in the cost-effectiveness of computers and their networks, resulting in the death of broadcast television and other ‘mass media’ and the birth of interactive systems that suit individuals’ needs. Digital videocompression is a revolutionary technology that will allow instant access video-on-demand. Videos held in a massive computer store will be available through the telephone network or cable, or via satellite, says Forrest (1994).

Other countries besides the US are certainly trying to create these superhighways, some with an eye for education (for a European discussion, see Eraut, 1991). Sweden, for example, is creating a national infrastructure for information, with new digital networks being constructed all over the country. Its government wants everyone to be able to retrieve information and communicate with each other quickly, easily, safely and cheaply by electronic means. ‘It is a matter of saving lives, creating jobs, revealing opportunities for each of us to obtain access to the best education offered in the world,’ said Carl Bildt, Prime Minister. He chairs a cabinet-level commission on information technology with the task of sweeping away barriers and providing about one billion Swedish crowns (about £865 million) for research and development in this field (Bildt, 1994).

In the United Kingdom, BT (formerly British Telecom) may be stalled on the superhighway (Bell, 1994). A report by Parliament’s Trade and Industry Committee on fibre-optic networks recommended that the government should keep them under urgent review, but it did not give the go-ahead to BT to build such a national network, and actually prevented BT from offering any television services before 2002. Instead, the US-owned cable companies received some encouragement. Despite these recommendations, Bell reported authoritative sources as saying that the UK is at the forefront in creating a superhighway, with faster investment than in the US. Cable is being laid at an incredible 280 miles a week. Numbers of cable connections are projected to pass satellite dish installations by the year 2000, although another competing system, involving digital television, radio, telephone and data transmissions via satellite may be about to be born that could remove the need for cable (BBC, 1994).

The question of which companies would provide a service that included education was not addressed, let alone answered, by the Parliamentary Committee’s report. It is just as well that SuperJANET, the British universities’ superhighway for education and research, will soon offer advanced distance learning, remote library access, instant document delivery, electronic journals and interactive browsing. BT carries the network, paid for by the government, and plans to offer wide access to it within the UK and abroad (Yeomans, 1994).

These political and technological developments certainly hold out the possibility of a Big Bang in distance education, perhaps not on a single day but more likely over a period of 5–15 years, in which institutions switch from essentially a paper-based system to one that is electronic. It is hardly surprising to hear that 600 US universities and colleges, plus 100 corporate associates, are busily planning a National Learning Infrastructure Initiative which could remove constraints of time and place from much of US higher education (Graves, 1994). The Big Bang is not so much a theory as a vision supported by much reasoning and speculation about the benefits for students of such a revolutionary change. In particular, exponential expansion seems possible, given sufficient students, because the superhighways could overcome many of the difficulties of supporting these students while they study. Indeed, they could transform the way the students are taught. One advocate of a Big Bang is Duning (1993). She suggests that fundamental changes are approaching with lightning speed, fostered by those who believe in distance education through telecommunications, rather than by educators. She cites the rapid expansion of electronic networks, belonging to multi-site companies and other organisations in the US, and used for video teleconferencing for training staff. IBM’s Interactive Satellite Television Network is a prime example, serving an average of 18,000 employees each working day. Says Duning, ‘With the classroom doors flung open by satellite … the effects on interactive teaching are likely to be profound.’

While some people think about the Big Bang, others are ready for it. Mapp (1994) mentions plans to create a virtual campus in a British university – unnamed – with most learning materials and transactions available through an electronic network. At least one already exists in the USA:

For Immediate Release	Contact: Robert Donnelly
16 July 1994	[email protected]
	Dr William Painter
	[email protected]

Virtual Online University is For Real!

The Virtual Online University, Inc. (VOU) announces beginning classes on the Internet in September 1994. VOU was founded in April 1994, and incorporated as a non-profit educational organisation in June to provide a novel approach to alternative education by offering fully online, accredited distance learning using the Internet. The goal of VOU is to provide low-cost, high-quality education and training.

Current offerings include an accredited Liberal Arts degree program, emphasising numeracy, literacy and critical thinking as components of its interdisciplinary approach to distance education. Future offerings will include post-graduate programs, anticipated to begin during the second half of 1995. VOU has temporary space at (telnet) falcon.cit.cornell.edu 8888 and is seeking permanent server space prior to beginning classes in September.

According to Dr William Painter, Executive Director, VOU will “… target two primary audiences: first, current college and university students in traditional education paths who wish to broaden their opportunities with online education; and second is the non-traditional, learning-disenfranchised person, that is, individuals who have limited access to traditional education due to financial restrictions, physical challenges, being part of at-risk populations, or with responsibilities which preclude pursuing traditional educational paths.”

The corporate mission statement of Virtual Online University is:

• to provide low-cost, high-quality education;

• to offer distance education using interactive, interdisciplinary methods outside of traditional learning paths;

• to assist traditional and non-traditional learners in furthering their educational objectives;

• to form working relationships within business and industry to provide students with valuable hands-on experience to supplement a liberal arts education;

• to conduct research and provide a practical forum for investigation of online environments and applications in distance education, telecommunications and electronic delivery systems.

Virtual Online University operates within a Virtual Education Environment using Multiuser Object-Oriented environment database software (a MOO). Some MOOs are programmed as virtual cities and research centers, others as educational environments. VOU will use various MOOs as online virtual campuses, including a ‘traditionally designed’ university campus and one designed as an orbiting space station in Geosynchronous Earth Orbit. Others are currently in planning, including an undersea environment.

HOW DO OLD AND NEW MEDIA FOR DISTANCE EDUCATION DIFFER?

Whether or not a MOO successfully provides an undersea teaching environment in the Virtual Online University must be a matter of doubt. There is a rumour abroad that old media are used for good new teaching methods, while new media are used for bad old ones. It is certainly true that methods of using older media such as print, television, videocassettes, radio and audiocassettes are now highly developed. There are plenty of examples of high-quality teaching materials based on these media: in 1994 The Open University received an ‘excellent’ rating for its distance teaching in management, chemistry and geography when these were assessed by the national Quality Assessment Unit. Methods of using newer media such as computers, teleconferencing and interactive television are so far rather underdeveloped. Bad, old programmed learning is still possible on the new computers. Many teachers resort to bad, old methods on new interactive television. Bad old ‘full frontal teaching’ and talking-head lectures go out over new videoconferencing channels. Even IBM’s two-way video distance learning system for staff and customers uses a lecturer-plus-visuals format (Scott, 1993). There is widespread ignorance concerning how best to exploit the new media, despite analysis and evaluation by Laurillard (1994) and many others.

The greatest difference, however, between the old and new media is in their capacities to sustain two-way communication that aids learning. Two-way communication between teacher and student(s) is replacing the old oneway systems of print, radio and television. Laurillard (1993), in her analysis of teaching in higher education through media, emphasises the power of two-way communication systems to enhance reflection and understanding. She points out that academic learning is mediated rather than experiential: it deals with other people’s conceptions of how the world is understood. Reflection, in particular, is difficult to foster in distance education without two-way communication, therefore the new media have something valuable to offer. Laurillard raises warning signals about them, however, because she sees each as having disadvantages as well as being of benefit to learners.

A second substantial difference between old and new media is that through the latter students are able to explore massive knowledge stores – the databases. If this were simply a matter of being able to search bibliographies, that would be an advance on many 1994 distance education courses, which expect students to do no more than read what is sent to them. It is more than this: students on the superhighway can search whole libraries, obtain electronic copies, consult distant experts, and so on. This can radically change their approach to learning, and their teachers’ approach to teaching. Of course, it is easy to exaggerate what is immediately available. Students will repeatedly end up in cul de sacs simply because digitisation has not proceeded fast enough in a particular back street off the highway. On the other hand, it is also easy to be unaware of the pace of change in this field. For example, new educational television programmes in several countries will be entirely digitised within a few years, print production is already digitised, and so on. With digitisation, creation of massive knowledge stores is feasible.

DOUBTS ABOUT ACCESS, COSTS AND OTHER NEGATIVE ASPECTS

Quite rightly, people have serious doubts about limited access and h...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Notes on contributors
• Preface Sir John Daniel
• Part I Trends and Directions
• Part II The Student Experience
• Part III Information Technology
• Part IV Learner Use of Media
• Part V Course Design and Assessment
• Part VI Learner Support and Management
• Part VII Textual Materials
• Part VIII Evaluation and Quality
• Index