tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/technology-in-higher-education-11663/articlestechnology in higher education – The Conversation2017-05-18T14:10:27Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/777282017-05-18T14:10:27Z2017-05-18T14:10:27ZTo stay in the game universities need to work with tech companies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169496/original/file-20170516-11941-p7tkp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The world of higher and professional education is changing rapidly. Digitally-enabled learning, in all its forms, is here to stay. Over the last five years, massive open online courses (<a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-dismiss-moocs-we-are-just-starting-to-understand-their-true-value-31037">MOOCs</a>) have enabled universities to share their expertise with millions across the world. This shows how rapidly developing digital technologies can make learning accessible. </p>
<p>These new technologies are shaking up traditional classrooms, too. And as the nature of work changes professionals are turning to high level, online courses to keep pace with new demands.</p>
<p>But much of this new technology is the preserve of private sector companies. This means that universities have to work with them. Yet partnerships with for-profit companies still don’t feel right for many in the higher education sphere. Knowledge has long been seen as a public good, and education as a basic right. Many of today’s universities were shaped by the principles of public funding. </p>
<p>This world was changing well before the disruptive impact of digital technologies, with tuition fees rising above the rate of inflation and the emergence of private universities as part of the higher education landscape. But there’s still unease about technology and its role. The reality, though, is that higher education institutions will have to get over their queasiness if they’re to survive in this brave new world.</p>
<p>Universities may not have the know how or the money to match the innovations coming onto the market through private tech companies. The decision by Nasdaq-listed technology education (<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/13/edtech-is-the-next-fintech/">edtech</a>) company 2U to acquire Cape Town based startup GetSmarter for <a href="http://africacapitaldigest.com/getsmarter-sold-in-103mln-deal/">R1,4bn</a> ($103million) is the largest price tag yet for a South African company working in digital education. </p>
<p>This is an indication of what it would cost a university to set up a full online division. Few institutions will have this money, or the ability to raise it. The alternative is to reconsider the advantages of public-private partnerships, taking care to retain authority over quality. For many universities this could be the only way of keeping pace with the changing world of education. </p>
<h2>The story of a start up</h2>
<p>The story of how GetSmarter got off the ground is a text book case of how a simple idea, combined with guts and luck, can reap huge rewards.</p>
<p>GetSmarter was launched in 2008 with a tiny budget and offered just one online course, in wine evaluation. By 2016 its annual revenues had grown to about R227 million. The foundation for this expansion has been a wide range of courses developed and offered in partnership with the University of Cape Town and, more recently, the University of the Witwatersrand and Stellenbosch University.</p>
<p>GetSmarter’s key breakthrough into the international realm came with professional programmes in association with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Cambridge University. GetSmarter’s first course with <a href="https://harvardx.harvard.edu/">HarvardX</a> will soon be presented.</p>
<p>After its acquisition was announced I talked to the company’s CEO, Sam Paddock, co-founded with brother Rob. We discussed the lessons for other small digital companies – and for universities that are mulling the value of digital learning.</p>
<p>The Paddock brothers leveraged the cash flow from their father’s niche law firm to launch their first online course. They then used upfront payments for that course and the courses that followed to keep financing their next offerings. In the nine years that followed, <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-report-predicts-edtech-spend-to-reach-252bn-by-2020-580765301.html">edtech</a> has become a crowded and complex field. </p>
<p>GetSmarter’s purchase price has garnered a lot of media attention: it’s high, in US dollar terms, and is a vote of confidence in the company. The price represents a valuation of a company’s assets, intellectual property and know-how, and strategic positioning for the future. </p>
<p>But what does it say about the kinds of investments and partnerships that conventional universities will have to make as they adapt to the full disruption from new digital technologies? The key aspect of GetSmarter’s success is how its partnership with universities has played out. As Paddock points out:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are starting to realise the potential of public-private partnerships, where the credibility and resources of great universities can be combined with the skills of nimble private operators. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Good news for the digital economy</h2>
<p>This acquisition is also good news for South Africa’s digital economy. Paddock says GetSmarter will employ more South African graduates and give them international experience and expertise.</p>
<p>And, he says, ecosystems often develop from one significant investment in an individual company. “This was how <a href="https://www.stanford.edu/about/history/history_ch3.html">Silicon Valley</a> started, as well as London’s ”<a href="http://www.siliconroundabout.org.uk/">silicon roundabout</a>“. Cape Town, GetSmarter’s home city, has been trumpeted as South Africa’s own Silicon Valley: ”<a href="http://ventureburn.com/2016/06/citi-announce-africas-first-ed-tech-cluster/">Silicon Cape</a>“.</p>
<p>The opportunity to lead in digital innovation and application has been widely recognised, for example through the work of <a href="http://acceleratecapetown.co.za/programmes/digital-cape-town/">Accelerate Cape Town</a>. The <a href="http://www.citi.org.za/">Cape Innovation and Technology Initiative</a> (CiTi) has a range of initiatives underway, including a three year partnership with <a href="http://www.citi.org.za/bandwidth-barn-announces-a-three-year-innovation-and-technology-partnership-with-telkom/">Telkom </a> intended to build the digital workforce. </p>
<p>Last year, cellphone giant <a href="http://acceleratecapetown.co.za/digital-skills/">Vodacom</a> announced an investment of R600m to assist in developing South Africa’s digital skills.</p>
<p>GetSmarter’s big win is good news and proof - if universities needed it - that such initiatives can bolster higher education’s offering in a rapidly changing world. Universities in Africa know that they need to keep up with the relentless march of digitally enabled learning. GetSmarter’s journey from bootstrapped startup to a billion rand enterprise is a case study, worthy of attention.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77728/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Hall advises GetSmarter on research priorities and academic governance</span></em></p>For many universities, working with private edtech companies could be the only way of keeping pace with the changing world of education.Martin Hall, Emeritus Professor, MTN Solution Space Graduate School of Business, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/502572016-01-12T04:31:14Z2016-01-12T04:31:14ZTechnology is no longer a luxury for universities – it’s a necessity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107155/original/image-20160104-29003-1021bb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Technology is evolving fast and can play a crucial role in educating university students.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the world’s new <a href="http://www.oecd.org/sti/sci-tech/1913021.pdf">knowledge economy</a>, innovation and technological change are recognised as the primary drivers of progress. Technological and digital literacy will be a <a href="http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/review/March-2011/knowledge-economy">crucial part</a> of helping many countries move beyond their reliance on material resources. </p>
<p>Such literacy, and an understanding of technology in general, will also be crucial for university students. They will have to develop the ability to collaborate across multiple contexts, filter and synthesise information from a variety of sources. These skills will be necessary if students are to contribute to the world in the 21st century.</p>
<p>We live in a world where the phone in your pocket has more processing power than the computers that were used to put men on the moon. But what is being done to make better use of the <a href="http://www.learning-theories.com/affordance-theory-gibson.html">affordances</a> of technology in higher education? Not much, unfortunately. In general, academics continue along traditional lines of thinking and practice that seem to ignore technological progress and its accelerating rate of change.</p>
<p>To address these challenges, higher education institutions must ask what steps they can take to ensure that their students are relevant in the future. The following suggestions may help the academy to think differently about how technology is used in the classroom.</p>
<h2>Access is increasing</h2>
<p>One common rationale for not bringing technology into the classroom is that access to technology is not uniformly distributed among students. This is especially true in a country like South Africa, where I teach, and on the African continent <a href="http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10539/8934/19%20Molawa.pdf?sequence=1">as a whole</a>. But access to textbooks is uneven, too, and no-one would use that as a reason to ban textbooks in class. </p>
<p>Things are changing faster than we think. When I started teaching in 2009, incorporating technology into the classroom was challenging. Few of my students had laptops or even computers at home. We didn’t have good access to wifi in lecture halls, so we had to use the computer labs. Now every student in my classroom is encouraged to use phones, tablets and laptops to search for new information that’s relevant to our topic, and to synthesise it for sharing in our discussions. They can do so because smartphones are ubiquitous. Students can also collaboratively author course notes for the module.</p>
<h2>The network is what matters</h2>
<p>But merely providing access to devices <a href="https://theconversation.com/outdated-teaching-methods-will-blunt-technologys-power-40503">does little</a> to help students learn. Many studies still centre on access to the device, as if handing a student a tablet will magically develop the skills needed to use it effectively. It is time to change academics’ thinking to prioritise the network over the device. The device is simply a window onto the network. The United Nations weighed in on this debate in 2011 when it declared that access to the internet should be recognised as a <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/06/united-nations-declares-internet-access-a-basic-human-right/239911/">basic human right</a>.</p>
<p>There is also a shift from vertical communication channels that privilege hierarchies of control to horizontal structures – like networks – that embody coordination, cooperation and collaboration. The power of the internet is not that it provides us with new and innovative means of sharing cat videos. It is a new communication paradigm that is constructed through community engagement and participation. It allows new forms of interaction between people, information and devices.</p>
<h2>Preparing to adapt</h2>
<p>As technology progresses and its influence becomes clear in every aspect of society - apart from higher education - universities need to ask if the next 50 years are going to look anything like the last 50. It seems as if the most important skill people can learn is how to adapt to a constantly changing world. If this is true, then academics may need to radically change what is prioritised in the curriculum, as well as how they teach students to learn. How can academics prepare students to be successful in a world that we can’t predict?</p>
<p>Incorporating technology into the classroom allows academics to help students develop the skill set needed for engaging meaningfully in the 21st century. Academics cannot continue with the notion that higher education is about providing students with access to specialised knowledge. Universities and individual lecturers cannot plan curricula for the lowest common denominator in terms of digital literacy and then base teaching and learning practices on that. </p>
<p>The academic enterprise is about striving to upset established models and paradigms and to push for change in how we understand and work within the world around us. It is time that academics applied themselves to this task - and technology is a crucial way of doing so.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50257/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Rowe receives funding from the National Research Foundation. He is affiliated with Physiopedia, a non-profit organisation that aims to develop and share physiotherapy-specific knowledge, and Snapplfy, a commercial company involved with the development of educational technology.</span></em></p>Technological and digital literacy are crucial for university students who hope to truly contribute to the world in the 21st century.Michael Rowe, Senior Lecturer in Physiotherapy, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/399232015-05-06T19:48:22Z2015-05-06T19:48:22ZHow ‘digital natives’ are killing the ‘sage on the stage’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80388/original/image-20150505-8382-fbla0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Digital technology, and those who have grown up with it, are forcing the venerable lecture to adapt to the times.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">uniinnsbruck/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The idea that <a href="http://theconversation.com/ignore-the-fads-teachers-should-teach-and-students-should-listen-39634">teachers should teach and students should listen</a> presumes that teachers know more than their students.</p>
<p>While this was generally true back when textbooks were a rarity, and may have been partly true since the invention of the public library, it is most likely untrue for at least many students in this era of the “<a href="http://www1.umn.edu/ohr/teachlearn/tutorials/active/what/">active learner</a>” (AKA “<a href="http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf">digital natives</a>”). </p>
<p>After all, with a smartphone in every student’s pocket and Google only a tap away, how can the humble sage expect to compete as the font of all online knowledge?</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CZ5Vy9BgSeY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<h2>The world is a stage</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly9BPvFJfqo">very birth of the lecture</a> comes from medieval times, when books were difficult to make and experts were few and far between. Back in those days, the best way to record knowledge was for a monk to stand up the front of the room and recite the passages from a manuscript or book, while the novices below him hurriedly wrote down exactly what was said. </p>
<p>As universities emerged, this tradition continued, with the expert at the pulpit and the juniors in the audience. Hence was born the “sage on the stage”: the expert providing their knowledge to others so that they could learn from this font of all wisdom.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80386/original/image-20150505-8411-lyayfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80386/original/image-20150505-8411-lyayfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80386/original/image-20150505-8411-lyayfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80386/original/image-20150505-8411-lyayfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80386/original/image-20150505-8411-lyayfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80386/original/image-20150505-8411-lyayfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80386/original/image-20150505-8411-lyayfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80386/original/image-20150505-8411-lyayfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lectures haven’t changed a great deal since Michael Faraday delivered a Christmas lecture at the Royal Institution in 1856.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Faraday_Michael_Christmas_lecture.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
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<p>Since then the role has evolved, but the basic principle has remained the same. Throughout the decades leading towards the end of the 20th century, models were extended with tutorials, laboratories and workshops. But the academic remained the expert, providing their knowledge to (sometimes eager) students. </p>
<p>As part of this role, it’s the academic’s job to entertain, and we have all known academics who take this part of the role very seriously, getting dressed up for class, using props or even planning out a performance with costumes and mask in advance. </p>
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<p>These academics are embracing the “stage” part of the job, in line with the recent article noted above on <a href="https://theconversation.com/ignore-the-fads-teachers-should-teach-and-students-should-listen-39634">explicit teaching</a>, but the core idea still remains: they are the font of knowledge, the single basin from which students should ‘drink’, building their knowledge of the subject matter through contact with an expert.</p>
<h2>The 21st century: when it all changes</h2>
<p>But something happened around the turn of the millennium. With the rise of the internet and the beginnings of search engines such as Google, no longer was the expert (or the public library) the only place to acquire knowledge. </p>
<p>All of sudden, if you were out to dinner and somebody asked you who directed The Lord of the Rings movies, it was a quick tap and a search for you to yell out “Peter Jackson”. Pub quizzes changed forever, and all of a sudden we found ourselves with a wealth of knowledge at our fingertips. Even worse, the answer you read in (or copied faithfully from) a book several years ago may no longer be the answer now.</p>
<p>This change flowed to academia. But as with much in academia, it took some time to take root. While students were already starting to bring their mobile phones into the classroom (to the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/nov/27/should-mobiles-be-banned-schools">chagrin of some academics</a>), academia was struggling to <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-vs-face-to-face-learning-why-cant-we-have-both-34135">move away from tradition</a>. </p>
<p>By and large, lectures still existed. But they were supplemented by blended learning, flipped classrooms and Massive Open Online Courses (<a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/massive-open-online-courses">MOOCs</a>). All of these technologies looked to keep the “sage on the stage” mentality, but supplement it with other resources, so that the internet and its resources could serve as a supplement to the expert on the pulpit.</p>
<p>But we’ve started to notice something over the past couple of years. All of sudden, students don’t think lectures are as important as they once were. We already know students sometimes don’t attend their timetabled lectures, but what has changed is the reason. </p>
<p>Rather than sleeping in or being too busy with homework, the common reason we now hear from our undergraduates is that there is no need to come to the lecture. Why come and listen when they can access YouTube videos on the subject, or read a host of web pages where experts lay it out step-by-step? </p>
<p>And yes, they can even do this from their iPad after they roll over in bed after a big night out! </p>
<p>No longer are academics the sole expert at the pulpit, the sole basin from which students can drink. We are now just one of many possible fonts from which a student can sate their thirst for knowledge.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80380/original/image-20150505-8426-rysgpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80380/original/image-20150505-8426-rysgpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80380/original/image-20150505-8426-rysgpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80380/original/image-20150505-8426-rysgpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80380/original/image-20150505-8426-rysgpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80380/original/image-20150505-8426-rysgpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80380/original/image-20150505-8426-rysgpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80380/original/image-20150505-8426-rysgpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">When students are standing up and recording a lecture on their phone, you know you’re doing something right.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of Denver/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
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<h2>The lecture as a performance piece</h2>
<p>So, what is the humble sage to do in this new paradigm? How do we deal with the fact that our stage is gone, replaced by an garden of different fonts of knowledge? </p>
<p>One option could be to embrace the performance art aspect of the role even more.</p>
<p>Talk to any creative type and they will tell you that the real impact of their work is not just the performance, but how it makes the audience change. How it makes them think deeply about the subject. </p>
<p>A creator has really done their job when a movie such as The Imitation Game is not only entertaining, but encourages the viewer to read more about <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/alan-turing">Alan Turing</a> or the Enigma machine. Or perhaps even to contemplate the attitudes to homosexuality in the early 20th century and now. The performance serves as a launching point for investigation of the area, and “moving the furniture” in the mind.</p>
<p>Perhaps the academic needs to aim for the same? Make the lecture an entertaining performance piece on the area that causes the students to look into it more deeply. Recognise that students can get information from many places and embrace this by aiming for the lecture to be a highlight reel and a teaser rather than an expert at the pulpit. </p>
<p>Yes, this means every lecture should be a special occasion, but is that really a bad thing? If it gets our students thinking, then hasn’t it done its job?</p>
<p>If academics begin to do this, then maybe we can reclaim the role of “sage on a stage” in a different way. We can move from our old fashioned pulpit to a digital stage, providing a highlight reel of our discipline and becoming a truly digital sage for the active learner. </p>
<p>If this happens, then maybe the measure of success will be a measure of how many students are using a mobile phone in the classroom rather than how many are putting it away!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39923/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cris Brack has received a cash prize (Carrick Institute) for teaching using digital educational technology. He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Cowling does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Lectures and lecturers will have to adapt to modern times in order to stay relevant.Michael Cowling, Senior Lecturer & Discipline Leader, Mobile Computing & Applications, CQUniversity AustraliaCris Brack, Assoc Professor Forest measurement & management, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/308422014-08-29T15:02:21Z2014-08-29T15:02:21ZWhy replacing teachers with automated education lacks imagination<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57741/original/294zjxh2-1409302389.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We can be more imaginative. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/bostworld/2152048926/sizes/o/">dbostrom</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The belief that technology can automate education and replace teachers is pervasive. Framed in calls for greater efficiency, this belief is present in today’s educational innovations, reform endeavours, and technology products. We can do better than adopting this insipid perspective and aspire instead for a better future where innovations imagine creative new ways to organise education.</p>
<p>In the 1920s and 1930s, American psychologist Sidney Pressey worked <a href="https://openlibrary.org/books/OL13530790M/Psychology_and_the_new_education">to create a future</a> in which machines would eliminate “the grossly inefficient and clumsy procedures of conventional education,” freeing teachers from routine tasks, to be “real teachers” instead of “clerical workers”. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57651/original/zn5kxv7z-1409240294.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57651/original/zn5kxv7z-1409240294.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57651/original/zn5kxv7z-1409240294.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57651/original/zn5kxv7z-1409240294.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57651/original/zn5kxv7z-1409240294.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57651/original/zn5kxv7z-1409240294.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57651/original/zn5kxv7z-1409240294.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Pressey testing machine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pressey_Testing_Machine_1.jpg#filelinks">Gomer Bolstrood</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pressey created the “Automatic Teacher” to realise this vision. This was a <a href="http://teachingmachin.es/">teaching machine</a> that presented information, accepted a response, and returned pre-recorded feedback. Since then, numerous educational technology initiatives have sought to automate the delivery of instruction and assessment. </p>
<p>For example, during World War II, <a href="http://books.google.ca/books/about/The_Evolution_of_American_Educational_Te.html?id=s1ThX561Z58C">filmstrips were used to train</a> large numbers of civilians and military personnel in the United States. The radio, television, computer, and internet have been used in a similar fashion.</p>
<p>These historical examples illustrate the belief that education can be standardised, neatly packaged, and efficiently delivered to large numbers of people, and replace teachers in the process.</p>
<h2>Upping the automation ante</h2>
<p>The same belief is embedded in today’s debates about education. In January 2014, writing for the Washington Post, futurist blogger Dominic Basulto <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2014/01/07/10-bold-predictions-for-2014">predicted</a> that an “artificially intelligent machine” could teach Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), “lecturing, grading and engaging with students … making the delightfully erudite college professor a quaint artifact of the non-digital past.”</p>
<p>Later, in an article published by the Association for Computing Machinery, academic Yoav Yair <a href="http://inroads.acm.org/article.cfm?aid=2614522">argued</a> that: “with the menial job of checking and grading assignments taken over by computers, we (human teachers) will be left with the responsibility to intervene and mentor our students.”</p>
<p>Numerous politicians promote the idea of automating aspects of education and replacing instructors with machines. In July, Rand Paul, a Kentucky senator, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/rand-paul-african-american-vote-national-urban-league-109328.html">said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you have one person in the country who is, like, the best at explaining calculus, that person maybe should teach every calculus class in the country … You’d still have local teachers to reinforce and try to explain and help the kids, but you’d have some of these extraordinary teachers teaching millions of people. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>A few days later, Newt Gingrich, a former US representative, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/01/opinion/gingrich-schools-blended-teaching-technology/index.html?hpt=hp_t3">wrote</a>: “The cost of educating each student declines in blended-learning environments, in part because schools require fewer teachers to manage the classrooms.” Blended learning is when a student learns part online, part face-to-face with a teacher. </p>
<p>While these ideas appear mainly in the US, they seem to have a global appeal. In the UK for instance, the academy chain <a href="http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storyCode=6433255">Ark Schools anticipates</a> creating new roles for teachers using blended learning to achieve “staffing efficiencies” that reduce the number of current teachers but “increase the reach of great teachers.”</p>
<h2>The search for efficiency</h2>
<p>Educational technology products frequently highlight efficiency. One <a href="https://www.ankiapp.com">flashcard app</a> claims that its “proprietary spaced-repetition algorithm delivers high-efficiency learning.” And the automation of teaching is perhaps most evident in the context of some MOOCs which not only use recorded lectures and automated assessment to scale, but appear to run <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/quora/why-do-professors-spend-t_b_4534762.html">“fully-automated” without a faculty members’ participation</a>.</p>
<p>While technologies have evolved dramatically between 1926 and 2014, the parallels are striking. These examples are not intended to be exhaustive. Rather, they illustrate an ongoing fascination with efficiency. The focus is on saving time and money via software, videos, and algorithms that lecture, grade, and manage. </p>
<p>Research suggests that automation tools can <a href="http://mitopencourseware.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/mechmooc_ponti.pdf">be designed to facilitate learning activities</a> and learners may have <a href="http://www.veletsianos.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/veletsianos_miller.pdf">socially engrossing experiences</a> with artificially intelligent instructors. But, do these innovations serve the learning needs of contemporary societies?</p>
<h2>Other ways of learning</h2>
<p>We can do better than this impoverished view of the role of technology in education. The innovations that we need are ones that imagine creative new ways to <a href="http://femtechnet.newschool.edu/docc2013/">organise education</a>. They are ones that use technology to provide learners with <a href="http://www.veletsianos.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/designing_opportunities_for_transformation.pdf">opportunities for personal transformation</a>. </p>
<p>Such innovations draw from <a href="http://connectedcourses.net/about/">the expertise of multiple instructors</a> and allow learners to create (and not just consume) knowledge, such as by writing <a href="http://pm4id.org/">textbooks</a>. They promote <a href="https://class.stanford.edu/courses/HumanitiesSciences/EP101/Environmental_Physiology/about">experiential learning</a> and encourage academics to share their scholarship, such as their <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/%7Ersb2162/bigdataeducation.html">teaching</a>, frequently and <a href="http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1313/2304">openly</a>.</p>
<p>Such innovations resist the reductionist agendas of the efficiency narrative and encourage content experts, learning designers, computer scientists, and education researchers to work together in the design of future learning environments. </p>
<p>In a recent <a href="http://survey.royalroads.ca/index.php?sid=56569">research project</a> I conducted with colleagues from Stanford University, we interviewed a number of individuals to learn about their MOOC learning experiences. One student reported experiencing demeaning and abusive comments on a discussion board that was never visited by the professor and/or their assistants. </p>
<p>The student said that it was “like that course didn’t have an instructor … there was someone who built the class and created the reading but that was it.”</p>
<p>We should be aspiring of a better future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30842/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>George Veletsianos receives funding from the Canada Research Chairs program and the U.S. National Science Foundation.</span></em></p>The belief that technology can automate education and replace teachers is pervasive. Framed in calls for greater efficiency, this belief is present in today’s educational innovations, reform endeavours…George Veletsianos, Canada Research Chair and Associate Professor, Royal Roads UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/296572014-07-29T20:27:09Z2014-07-29T20:27:09ZTechnology improves higher learning, it doesn’t kill it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54975/original/5my66p7z-1406508138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It was thought the printing press would make lectures redundant, but instead universities used the technology to their advantage. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/seattlemunicipalarchives/4112145071">Flickr/Seattle Municipal Archives</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As MOOC mania approached its peak in 2012, Anant Agarwal, the president of the Massive Open Online Course platform <a href="https://www.edx.org/">edX</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn5MkE-djxA">claimed</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Online education for students around the world will be the next big thing in education. This is the single biggest change in education since the printing press. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The claim was repeated many times. Indeed, 15 years earlier, management guru <a href="http://www.forbes.com/forbes/1997/0310/5905122a.html">Peter Drucker</a> had anticipated this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Thirty years from now the big university campuses will be relics. Universities won’t survive. It’s as large a change as when we first got the printed book.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That seemed improbable since university lectures have been as important in the five-and-a-half centuries since Gutenberg invented the printing press as they presumably were for the three-and-a-half centuries before. Yet printing had profound and pervasive effects on society, as has been established by many, notably Elizabeth Eisenstein in her study on <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/ca/academic/subjects/history/european-history-after-1450/printing-press-agent-change">The Printing Press as an Agent of Change</a>.</p>
<p>In a paper published recently in <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/thed20/current#.U9Woh4BdUVk">History of Education</a>, I considered <a href="https://www.academia.edu/7757072/Gutenbergs_effects_on_universities">how printing changed universities</a>, such as their lectures and libraries.</p>
<h2>How did printing change lectures?</h2>
<p>At least some medieval universities had cursory lectures in which bachelor students read set texts to undergraduates to take notes or dictation. Cursory lectures were necessary when undergraduates did not have access to set texts because manuscripts were far too expensive to be afforded by most students. Printing greatly increased the availability and affordability of texts, thus removing the need for cursory lectures, which were therefore ended at Oxford at least by 1584.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55087/original/yqtdzm6g-1406595407.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55087/original/yqtdzm6g-1406595407.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55087/original/yqtdzm6g-1406595407.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=688&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55087/original/yqtdzm6g-1406595407.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=688&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55087/original/yqtdzm6g-1406595407.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=688&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55087/original/yqtdzm6g-1406595407.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55087/original/yqtdzm6g-1406595407.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55087/original/yqtdzm6g-1406595407.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Early manuscripts were so expensive, they would be read to students in lecture halls to transcribe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/58558794@N07/7740984838/in/photolist-cN3z6Q-bQycRa-bQycQg-9UkTQE-e89quR-e8f5C3-9UfkRg-9G3r1x-e8nP4F-e8f5Ab-9LEcxd-9LBpFx-ccHkAQ-9G3r4n-9UfkWM-9Yo3M5-9G78au-9Vct5k-kra4za-e89rL2-czmwWA-cMnzTG-a4NG3z-9U1f9n-9ZU1Ch-9ZRatD-bQeWHM-cMnA7W-9UkTRU-9PERK7-bQeWPP-9ZU2tW-fyf4JP-9Ufmsa-9Uia49-fmhtrN-drfpei-9upGKb-fyf3PV-9Vct7r-jsUjqg-9upGLE-jsWccN-kyC5Zh-bJiqeZ-9Vctae-9VfiDm-9U1frg-fyumcs-9mPk4V">Flickr/POP</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Masters at all medieval universities offered at least one other type of lecture, “<em>cum questionibus</em>” (with questions), or expository lectures which posed problems and questions arising from the text. Some contemporaries suggested that printing would make even these lectures redundant. </p>
<p>Autodidacticism, or self-directed learning, was one of the points raised by the Benedictine scribe Filippo de Strata in his argument against printing in 1473. Yet lectures persisted after printed books became ubiquitous, despite problems with attendance (then, as ever!).</p>
<p>This is because lectures and other traditional face-to-face and mediated teaching modes help students to manage their learning: maintaining motivation, identifying and using resources to support their learning, planning and scheduling their study, assessing their progress and adjusting strategies. Students also need modelling, help and support in mastering material, diagnosing individual problems and overcoming their specific difficulties.</p>
<h2>How did printing change libraries?</h2>
<p>The effect of printing on scholarly libraries illustrates a different point. Libraries in medieval European universities loaned manuscript books to masters to use in their teaching and scholarship. This role became redundant when printing made books affordable for masters and students (although libraries were closed to undergraduates who at Cambridge were subject to a fine even for entering them in the early 17th century). As scholar Andrew Pettegree observed in <a href="http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300110098">The Book in the Renaissance</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the library had struggled to find a role in the new age of print. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>University libraries did not develop a new role until the 18th century when books became so numerous that scholars could no longer have in their personal collections all the texts that they would routinely use. A pedagogical role emerged for libraries in helping students structure, navigate and manage the texts relevant to their learning.</p>
<p>This pedagogic role was of course new and very different from any role that libraries had served before printing. A contemporary analogy might be what is often called <a href="http://www.netliteracy.org/digital-literacy/">digital literacies</a>, which libraries are also supporting.</p>
<h2>Technology improves universities</h2>
<p>Print, like digitisation, greatly increases and facilitates access to information, making learning resources much more accessible. But while printing greatly expanded the provision of information, it did not change the way people learn.</p>
<p>It is clear that the current information revolution is transforming society and that it is at least facilitating contemporary universities’ teaching. But by extension from printing’s effects on early modern universities, the central issue is the extent to which the information revolution is transforming in addition to facilitating universities’ teaching.</p>
<p>Clearly neither MOOCs nor online learning generally have fulfilled the predictions of what Canadian higher education analyst <a href="http://higheredstrategy.com/udacity-has-left-the-building/">Alex Usher</a> called the</p>
<blockquote>
<p>techno-fetishist windbags who tried to make us all believe that the VC-funded MOOCs were an unstoppable wave of the future.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Online learning experts <a href="http://blog.edtechie.net/about/">Martin Weller</a> and <a href="http://www.tonybates.ca/tony-bates-associates/tony-bates-biography/">Tony Bates</a> are rightly annoyed that the MOOC-hypers felt no need to inform themselves on 40 years’ <a href="http://blog.edtechie.net/openness/stop-me-if-you-think-youve-heard-this-one-before/">expertise</a> and <a href="http://www.tonybates.ca/2014/01/21/a-review-of-a-harvardmit-research-paper-on-edx-moocs/">experience</a> of mediated learning and <a href="http://www.tonybates.ca/2014/04/15/time-to-retire-from-online-learning/">20 years of online learning</a> because their self-declared “disruption” somehow made all previous knowledge about teaching-learning redundant.</p>
<p>While MOOCs have usefully woken elite universities to online learning, which they <a href="http://www.tonybates.ca/2014/04/15/time-to-retire-from-online-learning/">mostly ignored for two decades</a>, they are unlikely to “disrupt” universities any more than Gutenberg’s information revolution disrupted early modern universities. Rather more likely is that, as with printing, informal, open and online learning will be absorbed within existing universities to augment and improve their practices.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29657/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>RMIT supported the work upon which this piece is based. Gavin does not know whether RMIT will be advantaged or 'disrupted' by online education.</span></em></p>As MOOC mania approached its peak in 2012, Anant Agarwal, the president of the Massive Open Online Course platform edX, claimed: Online education for students around the world will be the next big thing…Gavin Moodie, Adjunct professor, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.