Re: Text and authority in 18th-century China

Molly Freeman (mollyfreeman who-is-at telis.org)
Mon, 04 May 1998 12:27:50 -0700

Mike,

I concur that pitfalls abound with the integration of new technologies
into academe. I have been framing my approach to distance learning in
terms of complexity theory in order to talk about the controversies and
challenges in education as turbulence and as how we are learning and/or
co-adapting with the new technologies.
One of the ways some distance learning faculty respond to the challenge
of "too many" students is to engage students in collaborative research.
Not only is this pretty close, if not precisely, what the recent
Carnegie Report on Undergraduate Education is recommending, but it is
what most of the research on effective distance learning indicates. Peer
learning takes on more significance in distance learning, and in many
cases accounts for the equivalent or frequently higher grades earned by
distance learners.
Controversies around copyright and intellectual property rights are
prompted by the world wide web and telecommunications. Contractual
relations are being rewritten, or at least rethought. Our courses are
our creations. How do we share them, with alacrity and comfort? I say we
don't know yet. My guess is we will find a way.
Indeed, the Chronicle of Higher Education is a wonderful ongoing
documentary of the controversies over use of the new technologies in
academe. The intensity of the controversies are a measure of the
dramatic and far-reaching changes telecommunications is posing to
education as we have known it.The changes pertain to job security,
patterns of authority and stratification between faculty and students,
and the many issues around boundary maintenance, or distance, between
education and commerce, as well as to the added forms of expression and
avenues of access to information . This is what it means to be living
on the 'edges of chaos and order,' in society, the culture at large and
within ourselves. The controversies with colleagues and the personal
anxieties are part of our co-learning to live with a digitally networked
world.

Molly

Mike Cole wrote:

> Hi Molly-- I too see lots of potential for increased interactivity
> on the web. But we are being asked to make web classes GENERALLY
> available. The more students, the more money. Lets assume, say,
> 150 students taking a web class. How many of these people can I
> respond to? There is a story in the Chronicle of higher ed, 2/9/98
> I believe, that takes up these issues.
>
> I will try to get some URLs to post on this issue in the next day or
> two.
> mike