Debates on e-learning

http://www.economist.com/debate/overview/121


I have come across Sir John Daniels before when reading about Mega-Universities, a phrase which he is quick to mention he first coined. I am a little surprised that he would question the impact of computers on education when he was very involved in the early days of the OU, he must surely see how being able to work online had enabled many to take part in university courses when they may not otherwise have been able to? I'll see what he says....


Ok, so he agrees with me, there's a relief - thought I'd got the wrong end of his stick previously, point 21: The secret of the open universities' success is twofold. First, they tackle real problems, in this case scaling up educational provision and taking it to people who cannot access conventional teaching. Second they combine people and technology, using the principles of specialisation, division of labour, and economies of scale, to create new learning systems that are scaleable at low cost with consistent quality.


His argument is that: Instead, they continue in the tradition of education as a cottage industry, hoping to make it more effective by providing the individual artisan, the classroom teacher, with fancier tools....This approach is doomed to failure. It increases costs because the technology is simply an add-on.


So he believes that technology can be used to enhance education but it's not being used effectively, I would have to agree with him at this point. In my experience little is being done to improve the way we use new tools. You sometimes get the feeling that technology is an answer looking for a problem. (which I've now seen he wrote in point 25....)