Sunteți pe pagina 1din 5

open Learning and

Technology:
Problems and Potentials
p. A. Danaher

n 21 February' 1994 Simon Crean, the recently appointed Australian


Commonwealth Minister for Emplo\ ment. Education, and Traming,
stated in the House of Representatives:

But our commitment to open learning is our further support for spreading the
ability to expand opportunity in higher education as well as bringing much
more flexibility to enable those people who cannot physically visit a
campusfor whatever reasonto nevertheless gain learning and higher
education, including the qualifications that go with that.
...So we have seen very significant success to date in open learning. The
government and the institutions are meeting the challenge in terms of both
learning opportunities and skill formation.'

Crean's statement referred to several


elements: open learning, educational
technologies, higher education, distance education, access to education,
and the skilling' of the Australian
population. This article takes the first
two elements open learning and
educational technologies and
explores some of their reported advantages and limitations in increasing
access to educational services in
primary, secondary, and tertiary
educational settings. A description of
open learning and the range of
a\ ailable technologies is followed by a
discussion of commonly cited benefits
and disadvantages of such technologies
in extending the provision of
educational resources. The article
concludes by arguing that vigilance and
critical reflection on the part of
educational technologists, policy
makers, and policy consumers alike are
essential if 'open learning' is to be a
meanmgful term rather than simply a
rhetorical device.
Open learning and technologies

If there is agreement among academic


writers and policy makers about the
term 'open learning', it is that there is
no agreement on a common!)' accepted
definition. - In a report to the National

Board of Employment, Education, and


Training, however, Richard Johnson
presented the foUo^ving synthesis of the
elements of open learning:
Open learning is an approach
rather than a system or technique;
it is based on the needs of individual learners, not the interests of
the teacher or the institution; it gives
students as much control as
possible over what and when and
where and how they learn; it com-

monly uses the delivery methods of


distance education and the facilities
of educational technology; it
changes the role of a teacher from
a source of knowledge to a
manager of learning and a facilitator. It justifies these measures by
arguments of efficiency, costeffectiveness and equity. -

Three observations about this description of open learning are particularly


pertinent to this paper. The first point
is that an opposition is set up bet^veen
'open learning' (in which the individual learner's needs are paramount)
and 'conventional learning' (in which
the learner's needs are subsumed by
the interests of teachers and institutions). Open learning is represented
as a kind of revolutionary prophet,
returning education to what it was
originally intended to be, before it was
sullied and colonised by bureaucracies
and institutional s\'stems. The second
point is that 'educational technolog\' is
characterised as the medium of
delivery of open learning, enabling the
'traditional' role of the teacher as the
fount of wisdom to be bypassed. The
third point is that efficiency', 'cost
effectiveness', and 'equit\'' are nominated implicitly as complementary
members of a triumvirate of reasons for
mvesting financial and other resources
in the development of educational
technologies so that open learning
revolutionary prophet or at the very
least champion of learner centred
approaches to education can prosper.
P. A. Danaher is foundation lecturer in
open and distance learning in the Facult\' of Education at Central Queensland
Universit}' in Rockhampton.

Social Alternatives Vol 1 3 Nos 3 & 4 October 1 994

23

Category

Examples of Technologies

Print

Textbooks
Study guides
Workbooks
Course syllabi
Case studies

Audio

Telephones
Radio broadcasts
Audio conferencing (a teacher communicating with classes of students
via the telephone, radio channels, or satellite)
Audiographics (combining voice communication with image or data
transmission, by using facsimile machines, electronic whiteboards, or computers)

Video

Preproduced videos
Televised instruction
Interactive video (video integrated with a computer)
Video conferencing (two-way exchange of moving images)

Computer

Preproduced computer programs


Electronic mail
Computer conferencing
Access to national and global networks of information

Interactive

Videodisc (containing video and audio information)


CD-ROM (containing information accessible by computers)
Multimedia (combining computer programs, still and motion
video, audio, graphics, text, and animation)

Figure One: Examples of Educational Technologies '

A necessarily brief critique of these


points will be presented later in this
article. For the moment, a popular view
of the conceptual and practical links
between open learning and educational
technologies having been identified, it
is appropriate to describe the range of
those technologies currently available.""
There are five categories of
technologies, four based on specific
media (print, audio, video, and
computer), and one based on combinations of media and known as
'interactive' or 'multimedia'. Figure
One lists examples of technologies in
each category.
Benefits and disadvantages of
educational technologies

Several advantages of educational technologiesparticularly in their more


sophisticated forms are commonly
cited by academic writers and education policy makers. One presumed
benefit relates to efficiency: information
can be obtained more quickly and more
cheaply using computer networks than
with conventional methods such as
postal services. For example, in 1993 the
French teacher at a provincial Queensland high school wrote over one
hundred letters to overseas schools

24

seeking French penfriends for her


students, but received no replies. In
1994, one week after sending a single
message on the international computer
network, her students were exchanging
letters using the same network with a
French class in Canada.*'
Another advantage claimed for the
'new' educational technologies is their
capacity to enhance access to formal
education for individuals and groups
who would otherwise be prevented
from participating. These individuals
and groups are generally faced with the
barrier of distance, such as living in a
remote location or being required by
time commitments to remain at home.
Travellers, prisoners, disabled people,
and people raising children or caring
for dependent relatives are among the

HO OfMHU CHW6IN&f

potential beneficiaries of technologies


that bring information directly to them.
The perceived success of the TV Open
Learning Project in increasing access to
education for people such as these
prompted the Project's recent expansion to become the Open Learning
Agency of Australia (OLAA).^
An associated benefit claimed for the
technologies is that, in addition to
extending the versatility of schools,
colleges, and universities as sites of
learning, they have created two other
learning locations. One of these is the
home: the TV Open Learning Project, in
which students view television programs on the ABC and submit assessment items to different universities
around Australia, is a graphic demonstration of 'studying at home'. The other
location is the community centre, to
which the term 'telecottage' is sometimes applied.** The Open Learning
Centres dotted around Queensland are
an example of community centres
where students can gain access to
electronic information networks,
receive counselling and other support
from professional staff, and enjoy
mixing with their peers.
However, several commentators
have voiced their concerns that, rather
than having an integral and beneficial
relationship with open learning,
technologies can actually limit the
amount and the kind of learning that
occurs, or even prevent it from taking
place. Steven Hodas described the
phenomenon of 'technology refusal',
whereby many teachers fail to
implement technological 'reforms'
because they see them as being
unconnected to the principles and
practices of their professional work."
Mark Legg, a university administrator
in South Australia, asserted that
Australian university academics tend to
lag behind administrators in accepting
that technology can improve teaching a claim that many academics would
question.'" Richard Johnson argued
against assuming the automatic
superiority of more over less sophisticated technology in advancing the
cause of open learning:
The technology is useful, but the
essence of open learning is flexibility to meet learners' needs. Thus
a videoconference or telephone
conference or TV broadcast can
actually be taking us backwards
instead of forwards, since these
occasions require students to be in

Social Alternatives Vol 13 Nos 3 & 4 October 1 994

GO AND PULL THE PLOfrf


a particular place at a particular
time; whereas a printed package,
an audio or videotape or a computer disc or e-mail message can
be studied at any time and place
that suits the student."

consequences of being 'machine


dependent' need to be considered, and
more broadly that the social role of
education must be kept in mind.'^ Chris
Bigum and his colleagues have related
the TV Open Learning Project in
Australia to "the intersection of the
market, education and the new information media", and the restructurmg of
capital and the establishment of
'knowledge centre', both on a global
scale.^^ Under this scenario, it is not
difficult to imagine the socially
deleterious effects of global information
communications being in the hands of
a small number of media moguls.
Conclusion
There has been a tendency in the
last two or three decades to
assume that electronic aids such as
radio and television would revolutionise education and particularly
external teaching. That they have
made important contributions to
educational
effectiveness
is
beyond question, but they have not
supplanted the two basic educational media, the teacher and the

Another area of concern is the


connections or lack of them bet^veen
technologies and particular groups of
learners. Some commentators believe
that the responsibility' for ensuring that
as many learning st}'les as possible are
catered for by the available This comment was written, not in the
technologies lies with teachers and last couple of years as might be
program planners rather than with supposed, but nearly twenty years ago.
technologists and instructional des- Yet the attitude implicit in the
igners.- Others, however, contend that statement a desire to keep 'in
technologies are implicated directly in perspective' the conflicting assertions
entrenching rather than eliminating the that education will be revolutionised
marginalisation and alienation of by the 'new' communications technolspecific groups of learners. A report of ogies, or alternatively that those
data about the use of computers in technologies will be increasingly used
primary and secondary schools in as instruments of surveillance and
twenty-one countries revealed that social control'^ is worth preserving in
such use continues to be dominated by the current circumstances. In particmen, with a consequent lack of role ular, it would seem that the relationmodels for girls seeking careers in ship between 'open learning' and
computing and lower self ratings by 'educational technologies' is by no
women than men regarding their means as unproblematic as it appeared
computer knowledge and skills." More at the beginning of this article. An
generally, and ironically in view of the appropriate response to the claims
claims that technologies increase access made on behalf oi^ specific technologies
to knowledge, there is the view that in might be an insistence on asking at
the age of 'the information super- least two questions: "Whose interests
highway' the 'new illiterates' will be are being promoted if the technology is
those people who cannot afford to buy implemented?", and "How is learning
the technical hardware needed to 'log to be enhanced if the technology were
onto the network', and/or those people to be implemented?".
who lack the skills to 'read' the
More generally, if 'open learning' is
information presented to them.^""
to be a meaningful term rather than
The issue of access to social goods simply a rhetorical device used to
through educational services has led to disguise the government's failure to
critical, and in some cases sinister, meet increasing demand for higher
claims about technologies. For example, education, vigilance and critical
Tony Bates has insisted that the social reflection on the part of educational

technologists, policy makers, and policy


consumers alike are vital. If these
activities are not practised, an opportunity for making education more
genuinely 'democratic' and 'empowering' will have been lost. Even worse,
the instruments for exercising new
forms of marginalisation and alienation
will have been placed in position before
our very eyes. In other words, 'open
learning' will have become 'closed
thinking'.
Acknowledgements: Since this article was
accepted for publication, the writer has
benefited considerably from several
discussions of the general issues raised
here u'ith Professor Leo Bartlett and Dr
Leonie Rowan of the Faculty of Education
at Central Queensland Uni\ersit\\ Ms
Doone Wildin ad\ised on the illustrations.

Endnotes
l.Hansard, 1994, p. 911.
2. See for example D. P. Bosvvorth, Open
Learning (Cassell, London, 1991), p. 1; and
Roy W ebberley and Ian Haffenden, "Skills
Training and Responsh'e Management"
in Mar) Thorpe and Da\id Grugeon (eds.).
Open Learning for Adults (Longman,
Harlow, 1987), p. 137.
3. Richard Johnson, Open Learning: Policy
and Practice (Commissioned Report No. 4)
(National Board of Employment, Education, and Training, Canberra, 1990), p. 4.
4. Concise summaries of educational
technologies are provided by P. Bacsich,
A. Ka\ e, and P. Lefrere,"\ew Information
Technologies for Education and Training A Brief Survey", Oxford Surveys in
Information Technology/, Vol. 3, 1986, pp.
271-318; and by A. VV."Bates,' Technolog}'
for Distance Education: A 10-year
Prospective" in Alan Tait (ed.). Key Issues
m Open Learning: An Anthology from the
Journal Open Learning 1986-1992 (Longman,
Harlow, 1992), pp. 241-265.
5. B. D. Willis (ed.). Distance Education:
Strategies and Tools
(Educational Technology Publications,
Englewood Cliffs, 1994).'
6. R. Boggs and D. Jones, Cyberspace: The
Neu' Educational Froiitier, unpublished
paper, 1994.
7. Bruce Keepes, "The T\' Open Learning
Project; The First Year and Beyond" in Ted
Kunan (ed.). Distance Education Futures
(Australian and South Pacific External
Studies Association, Adelaide, 1993), pp.
180-189.
8. D. Horner and 1. Ree\ e, Telecottages: The
Potential for Rural Australia (Australian
Go\emmentPublishingSer\ice, Canberra,
1991).
9. Steven Hodas, "Technology Refusal and
the Organizational Culture of Schools",
Education Policy Analysis Archives, Vol. 1,
No. 10, 14 September 1993, pp. 1-28.

Social Alternatives Vol 13 Nos 3 & 4 October 1 994

25

10. Mark Legg, "Teaching, Learning and


Technology: A View of the Future",
Unicom, Vol. 19, No. 3, September 1993, p.
91.
11. Cited in Bruce Juddery, "Senate Open
Learning Inquiry Fails to Measu re Distance
Ed", Campus Revicxo, 16-22 June 1994.
12. See for example R. Threlkeld and K.
Brzoska, "Research in Distance Education"
in B. D. Willis (ed.), Distance Education:
Strategies and Tools (Educational
Technologies Publications, Englewood
Cliffs, 1994), p. 46; and D. A. Tyckoson and
T. E. Jacobson, "Technology Instruction
and Learning Styles", Education, Vol. 113,
No. 3, spring 1993, pp. 356-357.
13.1.]. ReinenandT. Plomp, "SomeGender
Issues in Educational Computer Use:
Results of an International Comparative

Survey", Computers in Education, Vol. 20,


No. 4,1993, pp. 353-365.
14. The latter view is expressed by Ken
Stevens, "The International Contextof New
Zealand Distance Education", paper
presented at the joint regional conference
of the International Council for Distance
Education and 10th annual conference of
the Distance Education Association of New
Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand, 9 May
1994.
15. A. W. Bates, "The Educational Aspects of
the Telecommunications Revolution",
paper presented at the joint regional
conference of the International Council for
Distance Education and 10th annual
conference of the Distance Education
Association of New Zealand, Wellington,
New Zealand, 9 May 1994.

16. Chris Bigum, Lindsay Fitzclarence, and


Jane Kenway, with Janine Collier, and
Carol-Anne Croker, "That's Edutainment:
Restructuring Universities and the Open
Learning Initiative", The Australian
Universities' Review, Vol. 36, No. 2, 1993,
pp. 21 and 25.
17. Peter Karmel (chair). Open Tertiary
Education in Australia: Final Report of the
Committee on Open University to the
Universities Commission December 1974
(Australian Government Publishing
Service, Canberra, 1975), p. 73.
18. On the alternative viewpoint, see Angelos
Agalianos and Peter Cope, "Information
Technology and Knowledge: The Nonneutrality of Context-specific Educational
Software", Journal of Education Policy, Vol.
9, No. 1, 1994, pp. 35-45.

FRANKENSTEIN TRIES AGAIN...


"Upon Bill Hayden's friendly eyes I'll place
Little Johnny Howard's horn-rlmmed glasses.
To strengthen the idea that here's a face
That merits High Distinctions, not just Faseee.

Whose ears? Ah, Noddy, you, I think, perhaps


might even, on consideration, hand
The palm to Billy Big-ears whose vast flaps,
Like satellite dishes, covered half the land.

The eyebrows won't be Johnny's though {those clipped


Parentheses look weirdo...). I'll choose Ming's
Beetling pair that hopped and skipped and tripped
Whenever they encountered q^ueens and kings.

The body? Well, the face is where it's at.


The rest is secondary, hardly seen...
(Enough to generalise of this and that
Especially since we want to keep this clean!)

The nose will be a toss-up: that of Gorton


(The broken version, honourably won)?
Or Dr Hewson's, specially shaped for snortin'
At those who think his Fightback fight back's done.

Some, of course, will have their favourite things


(Genitally speaking)no sense dickering]
Such folk, for whom the annual calendar sings
Of danqllnq participles, should see Pickering...

5\nce mouths are still a necessary part


Of any monster's make-up, I must choose
One that pays lip-service to the heart.
Even if its inner demon's booze...

However, we must see our monster clothed.


Given the wretched company he will keep.
Especially In Canberra where the loathed
Spare-parts bankers schemeeven when asleep.

So will it be the down-turned moosh of hawke?


Or the predatory cuttle-fish type of Geoff or Joh?
It's not the words it chunders forth in talk
But where, image-wise, its shape will 'go'...

Yes, in that central image-store I'll find


Fine Italian threads that'll take some beating
(Stylish, expensivethose woqs rob you blind
But thank you just the same, Fadrone Keating!).

Then there's the 'thatch' you may think this quite curious.
But hair is just as critical as teeth;
The head-wool should be genuine, not spurious.
No matter what deceptions lurk beneath.

One (\uestlon still remains... Now that he's got


The best of everything, will my new creature live?
Will he serve the world this timeor lose the plot?
Having got so much, will he know how to 0\ve?

No contest there! The Silver Budgie's locks


In all their blow-waved glory stake first claim!
Crowned thus, my Mark II monster'll knock the socks
Off any Stefan model you can name.

26

Social Alternatives Vol 1 3 Nos 3 & 4 October 1994

Dawe

S-ar putea să vă placă și