Open learning fundamentals

[bk...@peg.pegasus.oz.au]

This is a *long* paper. 12 A4 pages. NECF is an initiative of the
Australian Educational Council to create some guidelines for national
electronic communications in education. A number of Consultancies have been
enlisted in this effort by the AEC. It remains to be seen what will come of
it. What follows is a critical paper in response to some *conservative*
notions put forward in an early NECF discussion paper. I then try to
outline some *fundamental principles* that ought guide thinking in this
area .....

For those who have seen an earlier draft this is a rewrite with the section
on constructionism and the final section summing up (4. A general path to
go down) strengthened. Also I have included a comprehensive list of
references.

Critical comments on National Education Communications Framework (NECF)

Copyright (C) Bill Kerr
rewritten 3/4/92
This paper may be reproduced in whole or part provided the purpose is not
to make profit. Please acknowledge authorship and I would appreciate being
informed.

CONTENTS

1: Some key issues raised by NECF
2: The human side of technology
3: Principles of good educational technology design
4: A general path to go down

1: Preamble: Key issues raised by NECF

These are big questions that impact on the whole future mode of educational
delivery and methodology.

The definition of Open Learning is important because it implies an
optimistic view that Open Learning has the potential for education to be
done in a better way. Some writers have described teaching as the last
cottage industry (Ashenden) and others have described Open Learning as an
attempt to drag education into the 20th Century, an attempt to
industrialise education (Peters). I believe that the challenge is to go
beyond both of these models in developing something more forward looking,
appropriate for the 21st Century:

19th C model: cottage industry, low division of labour, based on the
textbook, lecture, blackboard, still practised in many educational settings
20th C model: industrialised, use of technologies such as the telephone,
TV, video, broadcast model, still mainly one way transmission 21st C
model??: purpose of this paper is to develop some guidelines

Open Learning could develop into a fundamental break from the past provided
it does not try to model itself on past practices. That is the danger. In
the eyes of many teachers and administrators Open Learning is seen as a
deficit model.

Summary of definition of Open learning (Webberley & Haffenden, 1987, p.
137) as provided in the NECF paper:
* based on needs of individual learners, not teacher or institution needs
* students control over what, when, where, how they learn
* technological delivery
* teachers role is manager and facilitator
* cost effective
* equity

All of these are very significant and important points. This definition is
important because the guiding educational principles of the whole project
are encompassed within it, or that is one interpretation that could be
made. Unfortunately such principles - which are crucial to the whole
exercise - are not stressed in the report as a whole.

In the context of what happens in schools in most classrooms at present
(Instructionism) the above definition of Open Learning is a progressive
definition, ie. it is student centred, it can lead into constructivism or
even constructionism (Papert). The role laid down for the student and the
teacher are better than what happens in 9 out of 10 classrooms at present
where the teacher's agenda overwhelmingly dominates proceedings.

In the absence of any other guiding educational principles for this project
the following additional points of learning theory need to be made:

*** Technology seems to be conceptualised as just a means of delivery. This
is the metaphor of communications technology as a pathway, a highway or a
channel. This metaphor is deficient. Communication is not just done through
a dumb pathway where the only issue is how wide and expensive the pathway
is. This thinking turns bandwidth into a sacred cow.

This issue is discussed in some detail and with great prescience by
Nicholas Negroponte in Scientific American, September 1991 (special issue
on Communications and Networks). One of Negroponte's many ideas is that
value added at the ends and nodes of channels is more important to focus on
than ideas like bandwidth (since optical fibre is inevitable anyway for
straight economic reasons).

Negroponte uses the metaphor of the wink to make his point. The wink
contains heaps of information (even though in data terms it only contains
only 1 bit) because of the shared assumptions between the person
transmiting and the receiver. If we use this as a guiding principle then we
will focus on electronic exchange (eg. bulletin boards, networks) with
value added at nodes and ends rather than faxes or the imaging or faithful
reproduction idea. In Negroponte's view the fax has set us back by decades.

In contrast, computers can be used to introduce a whole range of value
added services, such as:
compression "intelligent" searches personalisation (The Daily Me as
a future personalised newspaper) flexibility information remains
computer readable (preferable for retrieving, sending, filing)
information can be reformatted as desired

This is a piece of theory that casts some useful light on where to go, how
to proceed etc.

*** Equity Differing style of learning are not really addressed in NECF.
The transition from teacher centred to student centred classrooms may not
make much difference to learning outcomes unless styles of learning are
addressed as well. I would argue that this is a central but neglected
reason why the much vaunted technological revolution has ended up in such a
dither and we are still crawling along at a snails pace, with half the
population alienated by computers and the religion of computer priests. It
remains a difficult one to redress because of the self perpetuating nature
or social reproduction of the 2 cultures (humanities based v. traditional
maths based). The only solution is to begin teacher and manager training
and retraining with critical thinking about epistemology. No one said it
would be easy.

For instance, some students cope well with an abstract, impersonal form of
delivery (favoured by more boys) while others are more comfortable with
opportunities for tinkering and emotional proximity (favoured by more
girls). This relates to technology because computing technology can be used
to restructure traditional subjects like maths to fit the learner. Papert
has done this with maths and logo. This is using technology to restructure
the whole learning environment to fit the learner. There is lots of
research evidence to indicate the success of this approach to ahieve more
equal outcomes for socially disadvataged students. Refer Turkle and Papert,
Epistemological Pluralism for a brilliant recent explanation. Also refer
Nevile for an Australian contribution to the debate.

So in terms of economics - the bottom line? - we begin by thinking in terms
of how much will the hardware and software cost but end with the conclusion
that the real expense is the cost of retraining both teachers and managers,
particularly the managers. Not only will this cost dollars, people will
have to change psychologically in their way of relating to others, probably
a greater challenge than the technological adjustment. The technological
base impacts on the social relations and change will continue to crawl
along at a snails pace if we only change the technological base. Also see
part 2: The human side of computing.

Optimism or pessimism?

There is a tension (in my view) in the NECF paper between the implied
optimism and forward looking nature of the definition of Open Learning,
cited above, to the implied pessimism expressed in the notion of
appropriateness (p.5). This pessimism focuses on the difficulties of change
and blaming teachers for those difficulties. When in pessimistic mode
(often mistaken for realism) the paper locks us into existing teaching
paradigms and structures that have not proved to be all that liberating in
the past. Here are some quotes from the NECF paper that illustrate what I
am talking about:

"Telecommunications which radically depart from accepted
work practices are likely to be perceived as a threat and
rejected initially (5)

Comment: A threat? I believe that many teachers will learn this stuff if
they are given time and encouragement, rather than autocratic management
styles like they are often getting at the moment. The real threat is that
it implies a whole new way of doing things that upsets the applecart or
ibmcart of existing managerial practice.

"Electronic whiteboards are used for transferring line
drawings and writing to television screens. These closely
approximate the way educators teach in standard classrooms, and
are interactive ...(8)

"Videoconferencing has the educational advantage of most
closely resembling an interactive classroom situation ...
(8)

The clear message is that we should use technology to mimic the existing
classroom. Why? Do the authors believe that this really represents the best
way of doing things or it is just too hard to change teachers, they are
irredemiably stuck in a rut, hopelessly resistant to change?

I would describe this lack of vision in the phrase: Driving down the high
tech highway of the future with eyes fixed firmly in the rear vision mirror
(after McLuhan). If the metaphor rings true then it follows that we will
not progress very far down the highway and that there will be lots of
accidents along the way. To build the clever country requires clever
leadership not conservative notions of appropriateness.

Which trend will win out in the long run?? Will we continue to crawl along
at a snails pace or will we accelerate the advance of a pedagogically and
technologically enhanced education system?? This is the real issue: to
accelerate or not to accelerate and what is required for successful
acceleration.

2: The human side of technology

Evidence is accumulating that enhanced productivity from high technology is
unlikely unless human factors are deeply considered (Bowen, Grudin, Hoerr
et al). In the educational context this not only implies redesign of
teachers work but also a radically different management style.

Recent studies point out that computer technology in business has not been
as productive as hoped for because business did not take the human factor
into full account.

One study (Bowen) indicates that white collar productivity (unlike blue
collar productivity) has not improved since the late 1960s despite the
billions of dollars spent on computers in offices. The author concludes
that redesign of the work process is just as or more important than the
technology.

Clearly these findings have implications for the management of technology
education and management style in general by the education department:

"The old idea that a manager's main function is to control
workers is replaced with the concept that a manager should
encourage employees to use initiative. This goes against the
grain of everything managers have been taught since the early
years of the century ... To accept the commitment model of
work ... managers have to go through a personal paradigm
shift, which is a deep psychological process." (Hoerr et al,
p.359-61 in Forester)

The same article cites a table from Business Week about old and new
management assumptions about workers:

Old way New way

Work is fragmented and Work is multiskilled and deskilled. Worker
is performed by teamwork where confined to narrow job.
possible. Worker can Doing and thinking are upgrade whole system.
Doing separated. and thinking are combined.

Top down military command Relatively flat structure with worker at
bottom of with few layers; worker many supervisory layers;
makes suggestions and has worker is expected to power to
implement changes. obey orders and has no power (Hoerr et al, p.362 in
Forester)

In the Open Learning context the notions of the conflicting models between
Fordism and post Fordism is very relevant (Campion). I don't have time to
go into this in detail at this stage.

The main issues arising is not just technologically retraining of teachers
but also ideological retraining of managers!!!

3: Principles of good educational technology design

The most useful thing to do at this stage is to develop some guiding
principles of educational technology design with communications in mind:

i) Grasping real change

"Independence of space and time is the single most valuable
service and product we can provide humankind"
- Negroponte

"In the industrial age, we go to school. In the information
age, school can come to us. This is the message implicit in the
media and movement of distance education."
- Ohler

In the educational context this implies a radical redesign of teacher's
working conditions. I concluded my article 'The Global Classroom' (CEGSA
Journal, 1991) with this:

"Hypothesis: Electronic bulletin boards have the potential
to eliminate the tyranny of distance in education, thus
creating a global classroom.

"This is true but several implicit assumptions of traditional
schooling have to be challenged and knocked over before the
potential is realised:

"1. The assumption that students are empty vessels to be
filled up with knowledge from standard textbooks. Bulletin board
based education will be more diverse, democratic and
participatory than traditional, teacher centred, textbook
centred education. The strong point of bulletin boards is
interaction and discussion.

"2. The assumption that most of our education ought to occur at
one fixed site during set working hours. Bulletin boards help to
liberate learning from the restrictions of place and time.

"The tyranny of distance could become a thing of the past. The
global classroom could become a widespread reality. The
technology is there waiting to be used. Will our inflexible
social structures, including the organisation and structure of
teaching at schools, get in the way?"

These comments are just as valid in the context of the NECF. The NECF with
its pessimistic notion of appropriateness, taking the current classroom
model as the most appropriate paradigm, is unlikely to usher in significant
change, despite the rhetoric.

ii) Enhanced communication

Open Learning already occurs by phone, by fax, by post, by video and by
organising face to face meetings and conferences.

The important question is not what new technologies can do but what can
they do better than other means of communication at a distance?

For instance, the MAIN advantage of electronic bulletin boards is that they
permit far more INTERACTION and DISCUSSION than other means of
communication at a distance. This is a different, more forward looking,
notion of appropriateness than the NECF notion that the best thing to do is
to simulate a face to face classroom. If technology is used to promote
interaction and discussion then we have a better chance of achieving
constructivist learning environments.

iii) Constructionist learning ideas

Technology must be used in the context and under the philosophical
leadership of a sound, modern learning theory. The underlying assumptions
of this constructionist model are:

* The most important factors influencing learning is what the learner
already knows AND how she/he feels about this knowledge.

* We learn by building on what we have. There is a continual, ongoing
interaction between existing cognitive structures and new experiences.
Learning is an internally active process where we continually construct and
reconstruct our own meanings (Piaget's word was equilibration - other parts
of Piaget are outdated, this part is not)

* We learn best by doing, by actively making or manipulating external
constructions

* We learn best by creating something that is personally meaningful

In this context the teacher's role ought to include:

* Discovering by interaction the learner's ideas, questions and interests.
* Exploring new ways to make the content to be covered meaningful and
interesting. New content ought to be structured to fit the learner, not the
other way around.
* Offering freedom of choice and then putting the learner in charge of
their learning pathways by negotiating with them about this choice.
* Creating an enriching learning environment or culture that the learner
will want to immerse themselves in.
* Assessing and evaluating whether meaningful learning has occurred.
* Allowing time and encouragement for successful individual progression.

All of this could be achieved through Open Learning as defined above.

iv) Multimedia

Garth Boomer's Axiom 8, derived from Jerry Bruner, outlined in an address
to the Computers in Education Group of South Australia in October 1989 is
that:

"Learning power is increased each time we transform knowledge from one
medium to another."

In developing the system that became the Macintosh, Alan Kay cites the
influence of Jerry Bruner and the importance of taking different types of
thinking into account:

"... learning takes place best environmentally and roughly in
stage order - it is best to learn something kinesthetically,
then iconically, and finally the intuitive knowledge will
be in place that will allow the more powerful but less vivid
symbolic processes to work at their strongest ..." (195) (NB. for the
purposes of discussion I should point out that Turkle and Papert advance a
more pluralistic viewpoint - they argue that there is no good reason for
regarding abstract, symbolic processes as a higher stage of thinking than
concrete thinking)

If you think about it, this is a description of the Macintosh desktop!
Point with the mouse (doing) at an icon (images) to produce something more
abstract (symbols). The highly successful Macintosh desktop is designed on
advanced, modern learning theories, indicating that this is the way to go,
the path to follow, putting the learning ideas in command not the
technology as such.

There are human-machine user interfaces, graphical user interfaces or GUI's
that promote this type of learning: Macintosh or Windows on the IBM.

There are computing software packages that are clearly multimedia and
constructivist or constructionist (Papert) in their design. Eg. Hypercard,
LogoWriter, LEGO TClogo, CAD, CAM etc.

Similar communication based packages need to be explored and further
developed for educational purposes. This could be achieved by a team of
programmers under the leadership of epistemologists, with a current,
practical knowledge of school needs.

v) Cost effective

The new technology should be more economical and reliable for the quality
of communication provided when compared with the alternatives that are
currently in place (phone, fax, post, face to face meetings).

The cost of computer hardware is dropping by a remarkable 40% per year,
while communication transmission costs remain high (eg. STD phone calls
from Adelaide to Ernabella, for instance, cost 57 cents per minute, peak
rate). Open Access College, South Australia, had a phone bill of half a
million dollars in 1991.

To achieve value for money in this context the way to go is to decentralise
the computing hardware by setting up sophisticated nodes in remote regions
and buy fast modems (eg. 9600 baud) for rapid transmission over long
distances. In this way you will have something to show for the money spent
(computing hardware with its diverse applications) and transmission costs
will be minimised. The value will stay with education and not go to
Telecom.

In this way I believe that transmission costs (Telecom bill) would be
dramatically reduced for an equivalent volume of information flow. Some
information that is currently prepared by word processing, printed and sent
by post would be more economically and more quickly sent by this BBS.

Money would have to be spent on the computing hardware, perhaps lap-tops
for those who don't have computers, user friendly communications software,
fast modems, extra phone lines and training people to operate the bulletin
boards.

vi) Culturally catching

The entertainment industry is far more aware of these issues than
educationalists. Negroponte points out that:

"Nintendo currently has an installed base in the US of more
than 30 million electronic game machines; they are found in
more than 70% of all the homes with a child between the ages
of eight and 12 years. In short, Nintendo is America's largest
domestic computer presence and potentially the country's
major force for educational change.... On a network, these
machines would change the face of our culture." (78)

Many educationalists tend to conceive of Nintendo as a diversion or danger
to the educational process, with fears of computer addiction and
anti-social behaviour never far from the surface, rather than to see the
potential. I would suggest that while we work on a model of educational
change that has to be cultural continuous with the present cottage industry
model of education then many opportunities in the broader culture will be
missed.

4: A general path to go down
and concluding comments

The present path is market driven, user friendly, culturally continuous,
technologically conservative. Hence the main technologies used in Open
Learning are print, phone and video because that is what the masses of
users are most familiar with already. Computer applications that are used
such as the Electronic Classroom are promoted on the basis of simulation of
the existing classroom model - voice over one phone line, graphics and text
over another. This is a simulation of a chalk and talk lesson using the
blackboard: into the 21st Century with 19th Century simulations!

The liberation from space and time that is conceptualised above does not
occur in this model. This is very restrictive timewise amongst a group of
very busy people - teachers!

IN SUMMARY:

The path to go down should be based on the following conceptual framework:

** Open Access as a positive, modern model of education provided that:
it is based on the needs of the individual learner modern
technology used to promote interactivity management uses a
flexible, commitment style

** Accelerating technological transformation of education by taking the
strategic path of using technology to help build a bridge between the 2
culture (humanities v. maths). A suitable name that gives the flavour of
the approach would be Humanistic computing studies. I have recently written
another paper called 'The Yin and Yang of Computing Education' outlining
the problem of cultural exclusion in more detail.

** Cross cultural think tank: People who have great educational ideas
People who have great technical expertise. Bring them together and see
what they come up with!

** A notion of appropriateness that uses technology to promote
interactivity and restructuring of traditional subject to fit the learner,
not mimicing a 19th C model.

** Management and teacher retraining based on modern constructionist
learning ideas (not one way Instructionism)

** Recognition that equity can be better achieved by promoting alternative
learning styles that, despite our current cultural biases, are appropriate
for the hard sciences: intuitive tinkering with a personal approach, rather
than abstract distancing.

** An open mind and research into the educational potential offered by the
entertainment industry, eg. Nintendo

** Taking the liberation from space and time seriously: the global
classroom and the 24 hours a day classroom. The user is in control of the
time they chose to be educated.

** Electronic transfer by computers with value added at the ends and nodes
(Negroponte). With the development of applications this path will become
progressively enriched. Through retraining progressively phase out non
value added communcations like the fax

** Multimedia as costs permit, eg. slow scan video could be introduced now
at low cost (?)

REFERENCES:

Ashenden, Dean. Award Restructuring and Productivity in the Future of
Schooling, 1990 Frank Tate Memorial Lecture, May 1990. Ashenden and
Associates, 118 Subiaco Rd., Subiaco, W.A. 6008

Bowen, William. The Puny Payoff from Office Computers, In: Computers in the
Human Context: Information Technology, Productivity and People. Edited and
introduced by Tom Forester. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts
(1989).

Boomer, Garth. Beyond Excitement: An Exploration of Computing in Education,
Australian Educational Computing: Journal of the Australian Council for
Computers in Education, Vol. 4, No. 2, 1990.

Campion, Michael. Distance education and the debate about Fordism, In:
Critical Issues in Distance Education: Technology in Distance Education,
Deakin University/ University of South Australia, 1991.

Grudin, Jonathon. Groupware and Co-operative Work: Problems and Prospects.
In: The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design. Edited by Brenda Laurel.
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1990.

Hoerr, John, Pollock, Micheal, Whiteside, David, 'Management Discovers the
Human Side of Automation', In: Computers in the Human Context: Information
Technology, Productivity and People. Edited and introduced by Tom Forester.
The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts (1989).

Kay, Alan. User Interface: A Personal View. In: The Art of Human-Computer
Interface Design. Edited by Brenda Laurel. Addison-Wesley Publishing
Company, Inc., 1990.

Kerr, Bill. The Global Classroom, CEGSA Quarterly: Journal of the Computers
in Education Group of South Australia, Vol. 3, Numbers 1 & 2.

Nevile, Liddy, 1991. Can Epistemological Pluralism make Mathematics
Education more Inclusive? in PME XV, Proceedings of the Fifteenth PME
Conference, Assisi, (Italy). Genova: University of Genova.

National Communication Education Framework (Draft discussion paper, 19pp.)

Negroponte, Nicholas. Products and Services for Computer Networks,
Scientific American, Special Issue: Communications, Computers and Networks,
September 1991

Ohler, Jason. On Line Journal of Distance Education and Communication,
published electronically from the University of Alaska, BITNET USERID:
JFJBO@ALASKA

Papert, Seymour. Using Computers to Combat Illiteracy: Towards a
Constructionist Theory of Creative Learning. A Proposal to the MacArthur
Foundation. The Epistemology and Learning Research Group, The Media
Laboratory, Massachussetts Institute of Technology (1987)

Peters, Otto. Distance teaching and industrial production: a comparative
interpretation in outline, In: Introduction to Distance Education
(Readings), Deakin University/ University of South Australia, 1991.

Turkle,S. and Papert, S., 1990. Epistemological Pluralism: Style and Voices
within the Computer Culture, in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and
Society 1990, Vol 16, no.1. Chicago: University of Chicago.