Dear Organlearners,
> Vana Prewitt wrote:
>> Steve brings up a good point, and I see the dilemma. A
>> university, by its very nature, history, and values, would
>> counter distance learning technologies as unsatisfactory to their
>> goals and values, regardless of the extent of learning that
>> occurred with the medium.
>> The purpose of a university education goes beyond learning. And
>> many of those objectives cannot be met with learning technologies.
>> They can assist, however, and I have not found it difficult to
>> convince professors of this fact. Rote drill and practice is one
>> of the best uses of learning technologies in university settings.
>> It individualizes the learning activity and frees the instructor
>> from mundane tasks.
and Leslie Lax <leslax@cnx.net> writes in response to it:
> I spent two years with a University in South Africa that was
> reaching out to communities and for which distance learning is
> an integral part of its approach to learning.
(snip)
> One approach adopted was to have mentors in the villages,
> students who gad successfully competed the course before, to
> help with many of the day to day problems.
>
> Another example of distance learning technology was the development of
> video-conference components of a course.
(snip)
> This University embraced distance learning as an integral part of its
> mission of broadening access while contributing to development.
It seems as if Vana and Leslie have two opposite viewpoints on the
value of technology assisted education at university level,
especially with respect to distant learning.
However, it is not the case. The key to Vana's arguments is "A
university, by its very nature, history, and values, .." while the
key to Leslie's arguments is "distance learning as an integral part
of its mission of broadening access". These two keys are clearly not
opposing each other. Let us call these two keys X and Z.
It is only when the third member Y, namely technology, is brought
into the picture that associations X * Y * Z of Vana and Leslie seem
to oppose each other. Why?
It seems to me Vana and Leslie think differently about the value of
technology to sustain "higher ordered learning". However, this
comment of mine does not apply to Vana and Leslie since none of them
have actually used the term "higher ordered learning". I am now going
to leave their debate because I want to go deeper into this term.
What exactly do I mean by "higher ordered learning"? I can answer it
by two words: "creative learning". Unfortunately, we do not have a
common understanding of the word "creative". Thus each person will
have different thoughts on all the things which are involved with
"creative learning".
On the one hand I can explain what the word "creative" means to me.
That will require many screens. Furthermore, after having done that,
we are still confronted with the X * Y * Z dilllema, Y being
technology. Some will claim that technology cannot assist in
sustaining a higher orderd X * Y * Z association while the others
will claim that it can do so. Why this difference of opinion?
I think it has very much to do with the relationship between
creativity and technology. Let us think about the collection of ALL
possible technologies (and not merely information and learning
technologies). Another way to think about them is to call them human
artifacts. A computer is a human artifact, but so is also a bowl to
put food in.
All these technologies are the result of human creativity! Animals,
plants and even inanimate nature create, but non of these creations
will ever be considered as a technology. In other words, the
ORIGIN (beginning) of technology is human creativity.
Likewise, technologies have to be applied by humans. Animals, plants
and even inanimate nature, when they do use these human artifacts,
will use them for their own purposes. We will use a bowl to put food
in, but a hyenna will chew it as a jaw excerciser, a bird will make a
nest in it or a plant will grow in it when enough dirt has
accumulated in it for a seed to germinate and grow. In other words,
the EXTENT (ending) of technology is human creativity.
The far majority of our problems with technology arises from a
mismatch between creativity and technology, both in its orgin and
extent. Sometimes very little creativity has been put into the
origin of a specific technology while very much creativity is
expected in its extent (application). This had been usually the case
up to the twentieth century. Otherwise very much creativity has been
put into the origin of a specific technology while very little
creativity is exhibited in its extend. This is becoming more and more
so during the latter half of the twentieth century.
The associative pattern X * Y * Z with X = "nature, history, and
values of universities" and Z = "broad access to a university" will
not make much sense if we use any technology as the "umlomo"
(mouthpiece) Y. We will keep on beating around the bush because of
the mismatch between technology and creativity. But should we use
creativity as the "umlomo" Y, we will get much more insight into the
associative pattern X * Y * Z. This is especially important when we
have to deal with technology and learning. Why?
I have stressed above the intimate relationship between human
creativity and technology. But I have not yet stressed (except in
some contributions long ago) the intimate relationship between
creativity and learning. The basic reason why all humans learn, is to
become more creative. (I have yet to find a person who's goal is to
learn more of life in order to become less creative.) Unfortunately,
although the purpose of learning is to become more creative, the
learning itself is often most uncreatively done. Again this terrible
mismatch. Yet the relationship between creativity and learning is
deceptively simple: to learn is to create.
A learning technology should never hinder creative learning. If it
does, a false perception of both the technology and learning will
evolve. The tradegy of these false perceptions is like that of any
other false percpetion - it causes addiction to the false perception.
The more complex (creative) any technology, the higher the costs
involved in the origin (developement) of that technology. Now why do
we persist in developing more complex technologies if it becomes more
expensive on the origin side? Because on the extent side we have the
possibility of cheaper reproducability. Making more copies of that
technology entails a lesser fraction of the developmental costs to be
carried by each copy.
Again we have the mismatch problem, but now between money and
technology. Again creativity is the missing link needed to understand
what goes on. For example, a lot of money might have been spent on
developing a particular technology, but little of it has been spent
creatively. Thus we will have to pay a lot when buying that
technology, only to find out that its use is very limited.
The second example is that little money may have been spent very
creatively. Thus the effectiveness of the technology causes much
more copies to be sold than that originally estimated. Thus we will
again have to pay a lot when buying that technology only to find out
that it could have been delivered cheaper.
The third example is worst of them all. A little money has been spent
and little of little has been spent creatively. But destructively
creative advertising and marketing cause many copies to be
sold at a high profit margin to buyers unaware of the little
creativity involved. The ignorant mass become the milking cows of the
clever initiates. We see it happen everywhere - fertiliser, food,
medicine, clothing, music, periodicals, etc.
Unfortunately, technology delivered learning resources also belong to
this last list. And it will remain on this list unless we see the
intimate connection between creativity, techmology and learning.
Best wishes
--At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za
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