Fall 1998
Vol 7 Issue 1
IN THIS ISSUE...
Peeking Around the TechnoCorner
Getting Rid of (Visible) Instructional Technology
A Philosopher's View of the Net and the Future
Demo of a Real Time Remote Experiment
What the Future Holds for Learning Languages
SEE ALSO...
The Forum
Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction
Getting Rid of (Visible) Instructional Technology
David Weaver, CGCC
Education was, is, and forever shall be rooted in effective communication: faculty/student, student/student, and with oneself. Great lectures, good books, classroom collaborative learning, and effective study groups can all foster learning due to their ability to enhance communication. These communications 'technologies' are reasonably mature, so they are mostly transparent in an effective learning environment. Computer-based instructional technologies are burgeoning and, with them, come promises of enhanced communication/learning. However, the relative immaturity of these technologies means that they are far from transparent in our college classes. In fact, I would place computer-based instructional technologies somewhere between opaque and translucent.
Over the last quarter century or so, we've seen instructional technology playing a larger and larger role in conversations about teaching and learning. From early conversations about Computer Based Training (CBT) packages like Plato, through the hubbub surrounding the introduction of microcomputers, up to the cacophony over the World Wide Web (W3), the proportion of our energy focused on the technology itself has grown. A major part of national physics conferences focuses on CBLs (Calculator Based Laboratories), MBLs (Microcomputer Based Laboratories), the W3, computer simulations and the like while a relatively small part engages us in dialogue about the physics we teach and why. Math conferences and English conferences suffer from a similar technology bloat. The current crop of classroom communication technology is simultaneously ubiquitous and intrusive.
Because of all the possibilities, we focus much of our energy on the communication technology rather than the communication itself. We need the technology to fade into invisible infrastructure so we can turn our attention back to the essence of teaching and learning: communication.
Many of us live in an electronic Tower of Babel with so many devices forcing us to speak so many digital languages that actual communication seems coincidental. I currently have: a pager, cell phone, voice mail on three different phone systems, Palm Pilot Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), two graphing calculators, notebook computer and desktop computer. When the new RocketBook electronic book comes out in Q3, '98, I will likely be in line. My wife suggests that this plethora of personal communications products is due to the fact that I'm a heat seeker (and my business card DOES say that I am a Physics Faculty and Technology Dilettante). However, I prefer to think of this cornucopia of communication gadgets as being proof that I: 1) have so much good stuff to say to and/or 2) have so many neat things to learn from so many people in so many places that I need to be maximally wired. We could probably all agree that I have too many high-tech toys to be practical. I certainly have less time available to communicate since I'm so busy learning how to operate all of these communications tools.
A solution to all of this techno-babel is integration among hardware, programming environments, operating systems, and networks. NexTel and others are now starting to offer combo communication devices which feature pager, cell phone, web browser, and walkie-talkie in one package. My Palm PDA has a major overlap with my notebook because they are on a first name basis with each other and share data freely (sort of). My Palm has a modem and supposedly can surf the W3, but I haven't taken the time, yet, to explore that cyberscape. Sun Microsystems and others are promoting cross-platform programming environments like Java and operating systems like Jini which are being designed to link devices from high-end workstations to coffee pots. Phone companies are starting to offer cable TV, cable companies are offering phone and high-speed Internet connections, and satellite companies are offering the heavens in addition to all the earth. Iridium, Teledisc, et al will soon be further unwiring the planet with hundreds of additional low-orbit satellites. This integrative trend will only continue with the Y2K+ users being able to ignore the individual devices they are using, if we get our network act together.
We probably face a few more years of network proliferation before we see the inexorable ebb. As with communication tools, I see communication networks reducing in number and being much more tightly integrated for the X (and Y and Z) generation(s). The tools and networks will then fade into the background from their current positions of center stage. Then, we can get back to talking about learning rather than how do we use this technology to teach. I predict that we are at or near the peak of complex, computer-centric conversations about learning. Early in the new millennium, the technology (and the network they rode in on) will be both be so ubiquitous and transparent that we will never have to suffer through another "The W3 in your Sociology classroom" presentation at a professional conference. That is a future to look forward to -- isn't it? Technology will certainly be involved in a major way, but, in a minor way as well. It's just around the corner.