A discussion of the viability of communications technology in restructuring the educational system

 

Writing an article about the future of communications technology in education, can be compared to writing about the future of air transportation on the beaches of Kitty Hawk in 1903. In that year, observers would have had little reason to foresee our present communications and transportation networks, and for similar reasons it is very difficult to foresee today in what directions our rapidly expanding and changing communications technology is taking us in education.

For generations, education has been based on a relatively simple system which required the student to come to a central place where he or she learned. Now, however, the technology exist which can bring learning to the student, rather than the other way around.

While information-processing and communications technologies have drastically altered manufacturing and service industries, the educational system continues to cling to a delivery system that has not changed for a very long time and is lagging behind the fundamental changes that are taking place in our society.

But what is meant with "technology" in Education? Does it imply only physical entities, such as computers, or does it also include changes in organization, regulations, and general policies about what is worthwhile in education?

What kind of communications "technology" are we talking about? The technology that is presently being hunckstered will not achieve much that is new. Many educators are already disillusioned with what "technology" accomplishes. It is not surprising that when such "technologies" as computer labs are "assessed", no significant differences in learning outcomes are found, because significant differences can only be hoped to be found if something significantly different has been done to modify a learning situation. Such failures have been the result of a lack of understanding of what is meant with the "technology".

I propose that only a technology that would radically change the existing delivery system in education is worthy of consideration.

One could envisage a fully accredited educational program for primary and secondary students, completely televised, and based on a system of computer assisted instruction. It would have to be a two-way tutorial and interview system that would utilize a large capacity telecommunications network, using fibre-optics. Such a system could really restructure education and even reinstitute achievement as the first objective. It is clear that in such a system, the role of the teacher would have to change from purveyor to manager of learning.

It is self-evident that the introduction of such a technology cannot be separated from a philosophy, model, and system of education. For instance, should education foster primarily self-fulfillment and individual freedoms, or should it be expressed in terms of specific social objectives? Who should have access to education, for how long, and at what cost? Should the efficiency of the system be measured in terms of how it can teach a specific number of skills in the most efficient way, or in terms of how individuals learn to identify and solve problems? Unfortunately, there is little agreement on any of these, even in the existing system.

Who should assess what kind of technology is required? The government, labour unions, and teacher unions in particular, school boards, business associations, student and parent groups, community associations, cablevision and other communication companies? Some of these, all of them? Any one of these subsystems has special interests in education, but they do not necessarily agree on what kind of technology is needed and how it will be used.

How much more effective such a system would be as compared to the present one, is hard to assess because even the present system of education has no standard measure of needs, of goals, of cost-efficiency, or of cost-user effectiveness. The main reason for this is that capacity, in terms of flow of students, varies so much from instructor to instructor and from subject to subject, and studies done to measure the quantity of communication in the interaction process between teacher and students have not been very successful either.

It is clear, however, that no matter how measured, educational costs have been going up at a rapid rate, and tax-payers, worried about increases in expenditures have generally supported governments in their efforts of curtailing rising costs, specially because, as they perceive it, educational outcomes have not improved.

Unfortunately, public demand has not been clarified or focussed on specific needs. Public commentators and politicians talk vaguely about "increasing costs", greater emphasis on "basics", or greater "discipline" in the schools, without clearly defining where costs should be reduced without reducing efficiency, what basics should be emphasized, or why discipline should be tightened in terms of who is responsible for teaching pupils to become responsible members of our society.

 

What's to be done?

It is obvious that for any major change in society, planning and management, incorporating all existing human subsystems, are of the greatest importance. But here lie a number of serious obstacles.

As technology is becoming more voluminous and complicated, an elitist section of our society has taken control through a partnership of science, technology, and industry. The general public lacks information and as a result is experiencing considerable disillusionment.

Funding, programming, and public involvement are closely connected. In the existing system, the public is largely insulated from management through the system of government financing and curriculum development. Government agencies dealing with education and telecommunications pay lipservice to public involvement, and see their audiences in traditional terms, and decentralization in education, through the means of elected school boards, has shown that this does not mean grassroots involvement.

Lack of involvement creates lack of understanding. The tax paying public sees rapidly increasing costs in education, and lack of knowledge of the issues involved, means that simple solutions in terms of cut-backs are popular. This prevalent attitude among taxpayers puts in serious question the viability of any alternative system of education, unless it is highly visible and it is very obvious that money will be saved by its introduction.

Teachers and in-school administrators would be directly affected by the introduction of a system using advanced communications technology. Although it has been repeatedly stated by those advocating instructional telecommunications that, when properly used, the new instructional technology would assist the teacher and not replace him any more than computers and other advanced technologies have created large scale unemployment, most teachers are not convinced. They realize that investment in expensive machinery can only be cost-saving if human labour costs are reduced. Teachers are also afraid that the introduction of such a system would at least involve extensive retraining and in-service reschooling. Furthermore, a new system would involve drastic changes in teachers' performance of their roles.

However, many teachers also realize that they labour under unrealistic and inadequate curriculae, poor pre-service and in-service education, poor environmental realities, excessive teaching load, poor communications between themselves and administration, ineffectual administrative practices, insufficient and unpredictable financial support for programming, and inadequate facilities.

Teacher unions have repeatedly expressed their concern for the above mentioned weakness in the existing system. But, although they often express their concern in terms of welfare for the learner, the reality is that unions are primarily interested in the welfare of the instructor. As a result, unions have tried to find solutions in terms of labour-intensive methods of instruction rather than in terms of technological innovation. In view of declining enrollments, this is not very surprising.

 

Conclusion

Successful implementation of new technologies is most likely when only minor alterations of the existing systems are called for, or when few political, social, and economic interests and conditions are threatened. The more complex the changes, the more extensive the modifications to the old system would be. However, piecemeal introductions would lead to half-way measures which would do little to improve the system of education. We are facing a crisis in education, but the educational system is not some vast, backward terrain waiting to be exploited by communications technology entrepeneurs. It may be that a-state-of-the-art delivery system is needed in education, but before introduction, the following conditions would have to be met first:

• Development of a precise philosophy for the system.
• Establishment of an operating model to demonstrate cost-effectiveness.
• Establishment of a government agency specially concerned with the introduction of the system.
• Organization of management in instructional personnel.
• Adequate financial structures.
• Guarantees of community involvement in programming.
• Solving the conflicts between Federal control of licensing delivery systems and Provincial control over education.
• Establishment of the physical plants.
• Organization of programming.
• Relationships between existing system and the alternative system should be clearly stated.

Originally published in the PAPT - Sentinel, April 1990, vol.6, nr.1