This week’s reading (take your pick) had a lot of information to offer. I found it difficult to latch on to just one discussion topic for this week’s blog. So I decided to discuss how I see the reading’s relating to the world in which I teach here at the Sergeants Major Academy, and across the Army as a whole.
The Army has always placed a great deal of importance in education and as of late the direction that we are headed with the Army Learning Concept and Army University only indicate that the importance of and how we look at civilian education will increase. I also find this topic important because I believe the days of never ending resources and funding are a thing of the past in the military, therefore the selection of where and how education funds are invested deserves further discussion. For this reason, I found this week’s reading by Noble (1998) to be very interesting and applicable to the teaching environment that I currently find myself, even though this piece was written nearly eighteen years ago. Noble makes several points that I can agree with, however, I do not agree with his perspective that everything to do with the automation of education is as bleak as he describes.
Noble’s (1998) discussion on “education as a commodity” really resonated with me. For as long as I have been in the military, soldiers have always been faced with the tough decision of which university to choose in order to pursue their civilian education, and now with the ever increasing choices available through distance learning and online methods the choices are even more difficult to make. The issue of which school is “soldier friendly” and which schools are accredited and offer the student the best return on investment is always a topic of conversation among college seeking soldiers. Recently many for-profit schools have come under scrutiny for practices that can be considered unethical in regards to the recruitment of soldiers into their degree programs. The US Government, rightfully so, has also increased its oversight into the use of the GI Bill and the billions of dollars invested in this program, as this program is an important component of the Department of Defense’s investment into soldiers education both in and out of uniform. I’ll be the first to admit that the amount of space in this blog is not enough to thoroughly attempt a discussion on the current use of the GI Bill. I could write an entire thesis on the GI Bill, and I believe that some of my USASMA colleagues have, but I would like to share this short video that I believe is in line with Noble’s discussion points on “education as a commodity” in his article.
What is your perspective on the authors’ notions of how institutions and pedagogies must respond to emerging technologies and practices?
Nobles (1998) article also skirts the issue of the tough decisions that administrators, educators, and students have to make in the business of education. I personally was once of the school of thought that I would never pursue an education online. I have always preferred to sit in a brick and mortar classroom to be able interact with the instructor as well as the other students. Two short tours to South Korea back in the early 90’s changed my opinion of online learning as I found myself in a situation where I had to resort to online classes in order to finish my undergraduate degree with Wayland Baptist University. This last year of online education with Penn State has also helped to reshape my opinion that a quality education can be achieved online. I believe the level of teacher presence in online education is the one piece of the COI that is most important. As Noble discussed universities may be able to turn most of their courses into courseware, however, I agree with the argument that the instructor and what he or she brings to bear during a course is of utmost importance in education delivery.
Noble also touched on the challenges that an educator may face when being asked to integrate technology and online instruction into their practice. This is a discussion that we also touched on last semester in another EDTEC class. In my opinion, online educators are being asked to shoulder much more of a workload due to the increasing use of technology in education. Sure technology provides the affordance of being able to work from home or even at more convenient hours outside of normal classroom time, however, I think that the workload that educators bear today is much more than it has ever been in the past. I would also argue that educator compensation probably has not kept pace with the seemingly increasing workload that exist today. For this reason I am debating whether or not teaching online after my time in the Army is indeed something that I want to pursue.
What other changes do you think we, as educators and learners, should be attentive to with these emerging trends? I chose to answer this question from the time I spent reading the 81 pages in the Davidson and Goldberg (2010) reading titled The Future of Thinking because I would hate for all that reading to go to waste. As we have learned, technology has totally changed and will continue to change the delivery of education and as devices continue to improve, I believe the impact will be even greater. I believe that as educators we must be willing to change and accept that technology is practically driving the train on education and we are already falling behind. Whether we would like to think so or not, education in many ways can be seen as a business, and if we as educators are not attentive to the trends in our field then we will most definitely find ourselves on the outside looking in. One of my biggest takeaways from this reading was the authors quote that:
“Conventional institutions of learning have changed far more slowly than the modes of inventive, collaborative, participatory learning offered by the Internet and an array of contemporary mobile technologies. This slow pace of change makes us think we know what a learning institution is—or we think we do”. (Davidson & Goldberg, 2010, p. 3)
Finally, this TED Talk by Steve Fiehl offers a perspective on the digital revolution and how technology is changing learning. Fiehls is co-founder and chief innovation officer of CrossKnowledge, a Wiley brand and a leading provider of e-learning solutions. I believe it adds a lot of good points to the discussion posed about emerging trends and how we must view education differently in the future. He covers several of the major topics we have discussed as a class this semester.
Until Next Time!
Carl
References:
Davidson, C. N., & Goldberg, D. T. (2010). The future of thinking: Learning institutions in a digital age. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Noble, D. F. (1998). Digital diploma mills: The automation of higher education. Monthly Review, 49(9), 38. doi:10.14452/MR-049-09-1998-02_4