There are some assumptions in Ana's analysis that are perhaps worth
thinking further about. One is that the power of marketing/advertising will
remain an ally of large-scale producers of edu-ware. This may not be the
case if internet technology shifts us away from the current oligopoly of
news and entertainment vendors; if there are no longer just a few mass
distribution outlets for information, then it is harder to reach a mass
market, and to monopolize the attention of a mass market, whether with
programming or advertising. I believe that the major edutainment providers
today are looking to a future in which they will try to control hundreds of
channels of diverse content for niche markets. I don't think this strategy
will succeed, but I cannot be sure. If the capital costs of production and
distribution fall as I expect they will, and as they already strikingly
have done, then the monopoly providers will be in competition in each niche
market with specialty providers. I don't think that their capital advantage
will allow them to win market share except in a very few more
capital-intensive markets. There will be a lot more Stars in our future, I
hope.
A second issue is the nature of the educational experience that private,
including good-guy, providers of edu-ware will offer. Ana's analysis seems
to assume a continuing dichotomy between alone-at-the-screen and
happy-family-seminars. I quite agree that students need to participate in
communities of learners, both communities of other novices and communities
that include both novices and various degrees of experience. But on-line
learning systems can easily provide these. This is the basic difference
between the textbook, or CD-ROM model, and the Web-based model. In my brief
sketch I deliberately included provision for collaborative learning and
communication in/with communities, that do not need to be, except
occasionally, face-to-face. What we really do not know in education is just
how much face-to-face engagement is really needed for various kinds of
learning and kinds of learners; or what its role really is. This has never
been an area of educational research because there has never been a
realistic alternative. It is no longer a question of isolated independent
learning in a library vs. participation in a face-to-face community of
learners. It is now a question of a mix of independent and collaborative
learning approaches in face-to-face vs. non-FTF modes. And even so, it is
an issue of more-or-less, not all-or-nothing.
My GUESS is that some learners need initial and various degrees of
continuing personal contact in FTF situations to establish the kind of
affective bond that enables trust and meaningful encouragement for
learning. I guess this for younger learners, and for learners lacking in
self-confidence about the learning of some subject. They need more FTF
experience, but even they still probably need a lot less than what they get
in the present system (in terms of hours per week), but they may need a
higher quality of personal contact than the present system affords.
Teenagers seem to find on-line chat addictive. That seems to me to argue
that even low-bandwidth (no voice tone, no visual cues) communication can
provide the basis for a sense of personal engagement and community. It
certainly works on xmca as well. I do not doubt that the added dimensions
of FTF communication are important in some respects -- but we do not know
what those respects actually ARE! it seems clear that verbal discourse
alone, if it has certain semantic qualities, suffices for many purposes
essential to learning communities. Asynchronous, synchronous, with audio,
with video ... in many-to-many group modes, with common virtual
participation in 'joysticks on' activities, sharing media materials,
co-constructing multimedia projects... all this will add vastly more to
learning, while still not requiring FTF interaction. What icing does FTF
actually put on the communicative community cake?
I know of only one relevant fact towards an answer to this critical
question about FTF and learning communities. And it is not a positive one.
The teleconferencing 'disinhibition' effect suggests that the one key
element missing from high-bandwidth (realistic) non-FTF group interaction
is the fear of personal violence. This is quite an important feature if you
at all accept my darkside theory of enculturation, according to which pain
and the fear of pain are fundamental to primary socialization in most
societies (more or less, depending). Socialization is not just empowerment,
it is also an effort to get people to internalize prohibitions; it is a
mode of control. That control effect is weakened if threats of
pain/violence are diminished. I think our own society relies far too much
on coercive control, so I am in favor of reducing power effects in
education. Too much reduction could also lead to trouble.
The inverse of this thesis is, of course, that only in FTF situations can
there be the hope of a hug as well as the fear of a hurt. The critical role
of the FTF component in human interaction and communication may well turn
out to be the bodily calculus of pleasure and pain, or to put it a bit less
crassly: the foundation of the social bond in the touching of bodies. Not
an area considered appropriate for research on humans after sexual maturity
because of the inhibitions in this area in middle-class euroculture (we
study such matters only for rhesus monkeys and pre-pubescent human
children, and then mainly in family contexts -- how many teachers are
allowed to hug their students these days? even when the students want it?)
So I agree that communities of learners can neither be replaced nor fully
simulated with edu-ware systems, but I believe that communities sufficient
for many learning purposes can exist through technological mediation and
will form the basis for more and more of education in our future. JAY.
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JAY L. LEMKE
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
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