H E P Contributions N o . 18

Communication technology for learning

Jacques Hallak M i око Saïto

International Institute for Educational Planning

Included in the same series:

I.

New strategies for financing diversified forms of education and training Sylvain Lourié

£.

Educational planning: reflecting on the past and its prospects for the future Jacques Hallak

3.

Education for all: high expectations or false hopes! Jacques Hallak

4.

Educational planning looks towards the year 2000х Françoise Caillods

5.

Partnership in education: the role of universities in the Pacific Rim Bikas С S any al

6.

Educational policies in a comparative perspective: suggestions for a research agenda Jacques Hallak

7.

Staff m a n a g e m e n t in African universities2 Bikas C . Sanyal

8.

Managing schools for educational quality and equity:findingthe proper mix to make it work Jacques Hallak

9.

Education in a period of change and adjustment: some international perspectives Bikas C . Sanyal

10.

Capacity building for educational planning and administration: HEP's Gabriel Carrón

II.

Excellence and evaluation in higher education: some international perspectives Bikas C . Sanyal

12.

Management of budgetary deficits in higher education institutions: current international experience and practice Igor V . Kitaev

13.

L'exclusion : enjeux et défis pour la planification de l'éducation Jacques Hallak

14.

Academic staffing and staff management Michaela Martin

15.

Les pouvoirs publics et l'éducation Jacques Hallak

16.

Higher education management Federation Bikas C . Sanyal

17.

Profile and trends of continuing education in France, with special reference to company training and higher education institutions David Atchoarena

1. Also published in French and Spanish. 2. Also published in French.

experience

in Western European Universities

in a period of transition with special reference to the Russian

Communication technology for learning

П Е Р Contributions N o . 18

Communication technology for learning Jacques Hallak Mioko Saïto This paper was prepared for the Fourth SEAMEO-INNOTECH International Conference on 23 to 25 February, 1994 in Quezon City, the Philippines

U N E S C O : International Institute for Educational Planning

The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this paper do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of U N E S C O or H E P concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or its authorities, or concerning its frontiers or boundaries. The publication costs of this paper have been covered through a grant-in-aid offered by U N E S C O and by voluntary contributions m a d e by several M e m b e r States of U N E S C O , the list of which will be found at the end of the document.

This volume has been typeset using H E P ' s computer facilities and has been printed in H E P ' s printshop. International Institute for Educational Planning 7 - 9 rue Eugène-Delacroix, 75116 Paris

© UNESCO May 1994

IIEP/ph

Contents

Page 1.

General trends

1

2.

Issues on learning technology

2

3.

Role of government

4

4.

Concluding remarks

4

Glossary of terms

6

References

7

V

C o m m u n i c a t i o n technology for learning by Jacques Hallak and Mioko Saïto

1.

General trends

Over the last few decades, the advancement of communication technology has been remarkable. Worth noting is the 'technomerge', as Thornburg (1991) points out, which is an overlapping of the worlds of computers, telecommunications, publishing, and television. Cable T V can n o w provide a telephone function to select and order movies. T h e idea of desktop publishing has been made possible since the birth of a graphic user interface introduced by Macintosh in the early eighties. Electronic mail, bulletin board systems, computer conferencing, and on-line retrieval, are all examples of the merge of computer and telecommunication. W h a t is well known regarding the French telecommunication endeavour, is Minitel, which appeared on the market in 1985. By the end of 1991, over six million Minitel terminals had been installed at work and at h o m e in France, and some 17,000 services had been m a d e available for consultation such as telephone directory,filmreviews, weather reports, train reservations, library search, etc. (France Télécom, 1992). Furthermore, in 1993, France Télécom announced AppleDjinn and PowerBop, a new creation m a d e in collaboration with Apple Computer. AppleDjinn, when connected with Macintosh, gives a central power of telecommunications: storage of phone numbers on hard disk, sending and receiving of faxes, Minitel, recording of incoming calls on hard disk, exchange of files with other users, etc. PowerBop is a notebook computer equipped with a cellular phone which makes the above operations possible at a distance (Apple Computer France, 1993). Although advancement in technology in the past 30 years has created the potential for change in most service sectors, the rate of adoption of technology in education, unlike in business, has been rather slow. In most schools, teaching-learning remains fundamentally the same as a century ago, even in industrialized countries. In a classroom, one teacher faces some thirty students for fifty minutes, and the textbook is still the dominant basic technology. Gradually, though, some educational programmes have incorporated advancement of technologies. In Japan, T V and radio programmes are broadcast from 6:00 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week; in China, some 1.5 million students have graduated from universities that offer T V and radio programming via satellite; in Thailand, over fifteen thousands adults are graduating every year through studying with computer software and video programmes ( U N E S C O and N I M E , 1992). M a n y other open and distance learning institutions, both in the North and South, have been developed in order to make teachers and information available to those w h o would not have access otherwise. In countries like the United States of America and France one can observe, in the last decade, a growing use of interactive technologies in the multimedia environment. T h e developments range from Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI), Computer-Assisted Interactive Video (CAIV), Compact Disc Read-Only M e m o r y ( C D - R O M ) , to Compact-Disc Interactive (CDI), Digital Video Interactive (DVI), and n o w Virtual Reality (VR) coupled with software

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Communication technology for learning

design m a d e possible by an authoring system, within hypermedia and expert systems using artificial intelligence. Although there is a lack of world standards (Paine; M c A r a , 1993), these trends seem to give potential for changing the traditional teaching-learning models depending entirely on the teacher/pupil/textbook/classroom package. 2.

Issues o n learning technology

The adoption of emerging technologies in education is likely to raise a few potential issues: firstly, the implication on equity. There is likely to be a potentially growing disparity in the gap between the poor and the rich in terms of access to technologies as exemplified at present by existing disparity in access to textbooks. But going beyond what w e m a y call the 'quantitative gap', what is more critical is the qualitative gap: h o w differently computers are used a m o n g different groups. According to some partial indicators, it seems that females tend to remain at the 'word processing' level leading only to clerical use whereas males tend to reach toward science-oriented uses. Female's general avoidance of computing is usually related to that of mathematics. However, it is not due to the mathematical aptitude but rather to sex-role perceptions (Martin; Hearne, 1989). Martin and Hearne point out that m u c h of the earlier development of computer-assisted instruction w a s in the domain of drill and practice, which encourages competition, which in turn could discourage computer utilization a m o n g females, w h o have been brought up to be less competitive. They further mention that access to computers in m a n y schools is decided on a first-come-first-serve basis, due to the lack of equipment, and consequently competitive students still dominate a m o n g the users of computers. Equity issue applies to all kinds of geographical, social, economical, demographical disparities: for instance, poor rural schools, handicapped students, deprived ethnic groups, disadvantaged countries, etc. Lapointe and Martinez (1988) argue that the difference in computer competence and attitude are related to the out-of-school computer access, which is related not only to parents' socio-economic status but also their ideas about social role. T h e more technologically advanced a group of the population is the more chance there is that it profits from the computer potentials. For example, students at more disadvantaged schools spend more time on drill and practice exercises, whereas those at advantaged ones not only use the drill and practice software for remedial purposes but also explore with the simulation and problem-solving software in order to help develop decision-making ability, logical thinking ability, and creativity. In fact students using drill and practice are being told by the computer what to do, while those using simulation would be telling the computer what to do (Martin; Hearne, 1989). Another issue stems from the impact of technology on the important distinction between information and knowledge. W h a t matters most is not h o w to facilitate access to information but to knowledge acquisition, which lends to the major question: what kind of knowledge? T h e issue is particularly relevant if commercial education channels expand rapidly. O n one hand, the trend of hardware has been 'smaller, faster, cheaper', garnished with massive information overflow and, recently, with 'more m e m o r y , more functions, less wiring', and on the other, this trend is moving so fast that one never k n o w s the right time for investment, since today's computer systems might be obsolete tomorrow. In addition, software publishers are putting out a tremendous amount of software in every subject matter at all levels of education using various strategies: gaming, animation, sounds, colour, etc. in various formats: on diskettes, C D - R O M S , cartridges, etc. Unfortunately, not all of these software are of 'sound, good quality', not all are reliable, not all the contents/information included are valid. Teachers are not only overwhelmed

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ПЕР Contributions No. 18

by this vast amount of information, but actually m a y not be keeping up with the cutting edge of technology due to lack of time or skills to evaluate and select good hardware and software that are relevant to the curriculum, or due to the resistance to change their pedagogical practice (Fulton, 1993). So, in brief, although w e have more information, it is not certain that w e have more access to knowledge, and it is likely that w e are experiencing more access to the wrong kind of knowledge. If access to "knowledge is the most democratic source of power" (Toffler, 1990, p . 20), then a real challenge is h o w the State and other social institutions can contribute to the governance of the trend in educational technology. There is another issue related to the difference in treatment between communication and education, or linkages and knowledge: these are the increasing imbalances in resources, progress, and development between the hard side of technology (communication) and the soft side of technology (education). It has been observed that development of communication is supported not only by private investment but also government funding; for instance in France, the expenditure on education in 1990 was about one third of that for communication (United Nations, 1993). A t the same time while communication, to a large extent as 'a private good' could be regulated through free market mechanisms, education is predominantly a 'public good', and hence the responsibility of governments is crucial in regulating it. Put differently, communication invites free markets, competition, and appropriate alternatives to m a k e it a more effective system. O n the other hands, education demands more effectiveness but also more concern for quality, norms, and equity, at a m o m e n t w h e n educational effectiveness would not be assured in terms of increased productivity, reduction in the cost of education, countermeasures for teacher shortages in critical areas, tailored instruction to individual needs, and provision of educational choices to parents. T h e fourth issue concerns the problem of copyright. In general, copyright laws exist in order to protect creative work and give incentives to creative people. Copyright owners, defined in the copyright law of m a n y countries, possess some exclusive rights; i.e. to reproduce the work; to prepare derivative works; to distribute copies to the public; to perform the work publicly; and to display the work publicly. Also developed are adjustments in laws and amendments to allow the potential users of the copyrighted products to consider whether a certain case is regarded as 'fair use' based on some factors. For example, in the U S A , the criteria for judging fairness are: purpose and character of the use; nature of the copyrighted work; the amount and substantiality of the portion used; and the effect of the use upon the potential market of the work (Helm, 1984). This has at least three different implications: students, teachers, and the software market. Firstly, teachers w h o are concerned in transferring information into the knowledge for their students, also face the situation where, as the role models, they m a y be giving students an idea that piracy is acceptable. Secondly, teachers are themselves risking their career as educators unless there is an umbrella protection for piracy either at school or at the national level. It is not yet clear whether education is or is not a safe enough purpose of copying. In a learning situation, the purchaser of the original should not copy software unless there is a need to protect the original and unless she keeps possession of the original. Thirdly, copying software discourages the software publishers to produce creative educational software due to less potential profit m a d e by piracy. W h e n it comes to users and publishers across country boarders, international copyright law regarding computer software requires special considerations.

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Communication technology for learning

3.

Role of government

If w e assume that the recent technological trend will continue and will affect several social and public services - particularly education, the following questions m a y be raised. W h a t would be the future role of government? W h a t are the foundations of the government's role, and what kind of initiative should they take to discharge their responsibilities if any? Without taking an extreme view that government should avoid any interference or risk of breaking the trends, w e still need to ask ourselves a few questions which spring from the earlier considerations. If the education profession is to be solicited to give its fair contribution in the growing use of technology in education, there is a clear need for a package of measures to, at least: i) regulate teacher training and upgrade teachers, ii) provide incentives to higher and better involvement of the educational profession for the sake of protection of quality, and iii) finance experiments and programmes with potentially high social rates of return. In more general formulation, one could say that governments should play more of a role in facilitating the development of partnership between the educational profession and the other actors involved in the technological progress, to mediate the transformation of information into knowledge. A more obvious responsibility stems from the risks of aggravation of the equity issue. In order to ensure reduction of disparities in access to technologies and software, more targeted systems of financing, different mechanisms of resource allocation involving diversification of financing, and s o m e systematic shifts in breakdown of expenditures, should be considered. Finally, a more challenging task faced by governments both nationally and internationally is h o w to reconcile the need for respecting copyright system and at the same time avoiding overconcentration of its control by the mega-financial group and monopoly. In some other areas, and in s o m e countries or geographical entities (like the U S A and the European Union), there are reasonable examples such as laws against monopolies or market domination. In other numerous areas, including in pharmaceutical products and in neurological and genetic research, the recent trends in licensing and protecting m a y have potentially adverse effects on equity and development worldwide. Similar challenge relates to the need for balancing between the free market and the censorship on educational content. There is no single answer to these challenges which sooner or later m a y prove to b e c o m e a crucial item on the agenda of policy-makers particularly in education.

4.

Concluding remarks Let us conclude with some more general comments. (1)

4

There must be an effort to define and unite education and technology into a meaningful and comprehensive system. T h e real question, however, should be "what should be done?" rather than "what can technology do?" (Nickerson, 1988, p. 8). Fundamental issues on the goals and objectives of education and h o w technology will be utilized to support these goals should be addressed first; the feasibility of objectives due to the technology is not a sufficient rationale for setting these objectives. All levels of our society must direct their attention to the capabilities of technologies in schools: for the learning of higher-order thinking, for

ПЕР Contributions No. 18

motivating self-learning, for catering for individual differences, and for making mass education more efficient. (2)

Policies which promote the flow of research into design and development, validation, and distribution of technology, must be formulated. S o m e positive trends have been identified recently: Nintendo's $3 million investment in furthering the research to help m a k e their games ' m o r e educational'; and I B M ' s creation of EduQuest to specially serve the K - 1 2 level of education to develop and market technology with particularly important features for educators. But a somewhat better co-ordinated policy, funding, political support, and organized research and development ventures, must take advantage of all viable opportunities.

(3)

Research which will identify the unique features of each potential application of technology must be initiated. Research must identify what are the unique roles of technology and media in the educational system, as well as to enable us to design and develop instructional and learning strategies that best utilize these characteristics and strength. Additional research is also needed in discerning h o w different media/technologies assist or inhibit the acquisition of varying cognitive abilities and learning skills.

(4)

It must be noted that teachers' creative use of technology enhances the learning process. The belief that technologies will solve the problems of contemporary education is a misconception to be avoided. Like any delivery system, the quality of the product is dependent on the time and on its interactions with the other parts that comprise the whole of the educational process. The college of teacher education is the critical point to ensure that technology is adopted rapidly and effectively. T h e decision as to whether the adoption of technology would have an impact on the learning process will be m a d e by the n e w cadre of teachers w h o are entering the teaching profession.

(5)

Government and business must be challenged in order to encourage and support teachers in their efforts to assess and promote technology in their classrooms. There have already been s o m e positive movements; for example, recent announcements on several projects such as: U S A ' s 'superhighway of information' or 'numeric highway' - a $5 billion project; and 'highway of Enropean data', a 67 billion ecus project of the European C o m m u n i t y ; and creation of an interactive educational channel, a FF500 million project by the French government (Cerquant; Florin, 1994; E E S Echos, 1993; Filloux, 1994; M o n r o y , 1994). They all provide a network accessible to every citizen and will be set forth for possible collaboration not only with private investment but also with teachers' input on the substance.

W e have a responsibility and the opportunity to consolidate the best of technology into the image of education in the twenty-first century.

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Communication technology for learning

Glossary of terms Computer-assisted instruction (CAT) educational software with which users can learn n e w concepts, drill and practice the learned concepts, simulate real situations, develop logics, etc. This is the earlier form of incorporation of computer in classroom. Computer-assisted interactive video (CAIV) early form of multimedia; video segments can be accessed by different choices that learners m a k e within С A I . Compact-disc read-only memory

(CD-ROM)

a standard format for placing any kind of digital data on a compact disk; typically over 640 m e g a bytes of data can be stored on a single C D - R O M . Compact-disc interactive (CD-I) interactive product in which audio, digital data, still graphics, and limited motion video are stored on one disk. Digital video interactive (DVI) it allows real-time compression and decompression and display of digital grapics and fullmotion video with audio. Virtual reality (VR) surrogate environment created by communications and computing systems; simulated environment into which a user enters, moves around, and interacts with objects in a virtual world. Hypertext and hypermedia approach to non-sequential information management in which data (text, graphics, audio, video, or source code) are stored in a network of nodes connected by links. These links provide an interactive, multi-level, integrated knowledge system that allows the users to determine the paths of inquiry, and provides the user with a means to share insights and discoveries with other users. Expert system environment where extensive amount of knowledge and expertise in specific domains are codified so that the computer plays a role of h u m a n experts.

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ПЕР Contributions No. 18

References

Apple Computer France. (1993). Coup de génie! Apple News, N o . 1, December, p. 8. Cerquant, J-P.; Florin, V . (1994). Internet, l'autoroute électronique des écolières. Le monde de Г éducation, février, pp. 26-28. E E S Echos. (1993). La chaîne de la connaissance et de la formation dans les starting-blocks. EES Echos, 14 décembre, p. 24. Filloux, F. (1994). Al Gore "balise la superautoroute de la communication. Libération, 13 janvier, p. 12. France Télécom. (1992). Les chiffres 1991. La lettre de Télétel, hors série, N o . 8, avril. Fulton, К . (1993). Teaching matters: The role of technology in education. ED-TECH Autumn/Winter, pp. 5-10.

review,

Helm, V . (1984). Software quality and copyright: Issues in computer-assisted instruction. Washington, D C : A E C T . Lapointe, A . E . ; Martinez, M . E . (1988). Aims, equity and access in computer education. Phi Delta Kappan, September, pp. 59-61. Martin, В . ; Hearne J.D. (1989). Computer equity in education. Educational technology, September, pp. 47-51. Monroy, C . (1994). Incarner une nouvelle génération de la télévision. Le Monde RadioTélévision, 31 janvier, pp. 34-35. Nickerson, R . S . (1988). "Technology in education in 2020: Thinking about the not-distance future", in R . S . Nickerson; P.P. Zodhiates (Eds). Technology in education: Looking toward 2020, (pp. 1-9). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Paine, N . ; M e Ara, P. (1993). "Interactive multimedia technology: A summary of current developments", in C . Latchem, J. Williamson; L . Henderson (Eds). Interactive multimedia: Practice and promise. London: Kogan Page. Thornburg, D . D .

(1991).

Edutrends 2010: Restructuring, technology and the future of

education. Monterey, C A : Starsong Publications. Toffler, A . (1990). Powershifi: Knowledge, wealth and violence at the edge of the 21st Century. N e w York: Bantam Books.

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U N E S C O ; National Institute of Multimedia Education. (1992). New papers on higher education studies and research 7: Asia and the Pacific: A survey of distance education 1992, vol. I and II. Paris: U N E S C O . United Nations. (1993). Statistical yearbook, 38th issue. N e w York: United Nations.

8

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IIEP Contributions N o . 18 Although advancement in technology in the past 30 years has created the potential for change in most service sectors, the rate of adoption of technology in education, unlike in business, has been rather slow. In most schools, teaching-learning remains fundamentally the same as a century ago, even in industrialized countries. In a classroom, one teacher faces some thirty students for fifty minutes, and the textbook is still the dominant basic technology. However, it is possible to identify some gradual changes in the teaching-learning models. In this context, this paper discusses the potential issues linked to the adoption of emerging technology in education: the equity issue, the distinction between information and knowledge, the distinction between knowledge and linkages, and copyright concerns. T h e paper further questions the role of government in this area in terms of financing, regulation, equity assurance, quality monitoring, and partnership.

T h e authors Jacques Hallak is Director of the International Institute for Educational Planning ( U N E S C O ) . H e is the author or co-author of numerous books and articles on educational costs and finance, h u m a n resource development, planning the location of schools, and policies for educational change and development. Mioko Saïto (Japan) worked as an Associate Expert in the Education Sector at U N E S C O Headquarters from December 1990 until she joined the IIEP in M a y 1992. She is currently involved in IIEP research studies on monitoring and evaluating the quality of basic education for policy analysis, as well as management of information systems for educational planning.