Marc Alan Sperber

The U.S. National Education Technology Plan, Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology, has a goal of raising the proportion of college graduates so that 60 percent of our population holds a two-year or four-year degree by 2020.

Sloan-C sees this as an opportunity for online learning.  In a blog posting, they said:

Over the next decade, we will need to accommodate 53% growth in the student population.  Most institutions could not accommodate this kind of growth with their current physical infrastructure.  Online learning—both on-campus in hybrid courses and at a distance in fully online courses—allows us to achieve this kind of learning at the scale that will be needed as the number of students increases.

I agree with Sloan-C.  This is a great opportunity for online learning.  This plan is also a great opportunity for educational technologies.  The U.S. Department of Education’s plan progressively states:

Many students’ lives today are filled with technology that gives them mobile access to information and resources 24/7, enables them to create multimedia content and share it with the world, and allows them to participate in online social networks where people from all over the world share ideas, collaborate, and learn new things. Outside school, students are free to pursue their passions in their own way and at their own pace. The opportunities are limitless, borderless, and instantaneous.

The challenge for our education system is to leverage the learning sciences and modern technology to create engaging, relevant, and personalized learning experiences for all learners that mirror students’ daily lives and the reality of their futures. In contrast to traditional classroom instruction, this requires that we put students at the center and empower them to take control of their own learning by providing flexibility on several dimensions.

Beyond creating more generationally appropriate learning experiences for 21st century students, the report goes on to state how the implementation of various educational technologies will better prepare students for their futures as lifelong learning knowledge workers:

Whether the domain is English language arts, mathematics, sciences, social studies, history, art, or music, 21st-century competencies and such expertise as critical thinking, complex problem solving, collaboration, and multimedia communication should be woven into all content areas. These competencies are necessary to become expert learners, which we all must be if we are to adapt to our rapidly changing world over the course of our lives. That involves developing deep understanding within specific content areas and making the connections among them.

How we need to learn includes using the technology that professionals in various disciplines use. Professionals routinely use the Web and tools, such as wikis, blogs, and digital content for the research, collaboration, and communication demanded in their jobs. They gather data and analyze the data using inquiry and visualization tools. They use graphical and 3D modeling tools for design. For students, using these real-world tools creates learning opportunities that allow them to grapple with real-world problems—opportunities that prepare them to be more productive members of a globally competitive workforce.

Mobile.  Portable.  Data storage.  Data transfer.  These words can all have different meanings to different people.

For example, let’s consider Ugandaniel‘s 2,812 28-page surveys in his RAV4 vs. an iPad (which could theoretically have 2,812 28-page surveys on it) in a SCOTTEVEST.

Coincidence?  Or, are the predictions that gaming and digital media are “the future of education” true? (Of, course there must be some in-between scenarios, but those don’t make for a sensational opening paragraph.)

Last week, as I was involved in an exploratory conversation with a simulation/serious game developer (I work in higher ed, remember), I opened up my personal email inbox and saw a story via NYTimes.com’s Tech Update newsletter about the Quest to Learn public middle school in New York City, where the curriculum is based on video games.

First video here (not embedded, click to go to video):

Then, I opened my work email, and at the top, saw an email from the MacArthur Foundation which wrote about a middle school in Chicago that is using digital media to prepare its low-income students for a 21st-century workforce.  Here, students learn the skills of digital media production, from robotics to game design.

Second video, here (embedded, click to play):

And, just today, a work colleague passed on a few undergrad student quotes from an application they filled out to participate in an upcoming event.  What were these quotes about?  You guessed it.  These students were interested in applying to this event, in part because they had played a video game that introduced them to the topic in an engaging way.  Another coincidence?  You tell me.  (Good thing we don’t plan on boring these students with back-to-back-to-back lectures at this three-day event.)

How do you know when you’ve come across a hot topic?  Would you say this is a good clue:  you forward a link to your boss, she forwards it to your Director or Dean, and he forwards it straight to the CIO and Provost?  Yes?  Okay, I’m here to report that I found a hot topic:

What Does College 2.0 Look Like in Singapore? China? South Korea? India? – College 2.0 – The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The Chronicle of Higher Education writer Jeff Young is headed to Asia for the month of September to report on how digital technologies are changing higher education in Singapore, China, South Korea, and India.  The column is called “College 2.0 in Asia.”  He wrote in today’s post:

The themes I’m focusing on are teaching with high-tech tools, improving access to education through online teaching, developing digital libraries and e-textbooks, connecting researchers with collaboration tools, and moving high-tech research from the lab to the marketplace.

I, for one, am looking forward to reading Jeff’s updates.  I even set my Twitter account to send his Tweets as text messages to my mobile phone.  Now, that’s serious business.

According to Li Feng in a recent UMass Online Blog, e-learning is becoming widely adopted in Chinese corporations.  In her post, Li discusses how some of the observations found in the corporate sector confirm what she has found to be true about online learning, in general, in China.

Three of her observations:

1. Chinese students strongly prefer videos of lectures over text-based courses.
2. Chinese students value a certification at the end of a course.
3. Chinese students enjoy interactivity with their course content and with the instructor and other students in the course.

Of course the implications of this news stretch far beyond those of online education.  But, this is an educational technologies and distance education blog, so I’ll keep my focus narrow.

First, the news.  According to the UK’s Guardian,

East Africa shed its tag as the only major inhabited coastline excluded from the global broadband map today when an undersea fibre-optic cable linking it to networks in Europe and India went live…

Aly-Khan Satchu, a financial analyst in Nairobi, compared its significance to the construction of the railway network in east Africa a century ago.  “With the arrival of mobile phone and now broadband internet, we are leaping from the medieval age connectivity-wise into the 21st century in a very short period of time. This represents an enormous economic boost and a political game changer given how information is now going to be spread.”

Sure, there have been ways to deliver distance education to East Africa, but these ways have been stripped down versions of what could have been done elsewhere.

Significant technical challenges aside, it is difficult to ensure academic success when students are deprived of information, instructor feedback, and social presence.  Gone have been the opportunities for students to explore the vast resources available on the Web, gone have been the opportunities for students to use online collaboration tools, gone have been the abilities to allow for webcasting, webconferencing, or videoconferencing.  But, with one thin cable, that is all changing.

How are Africans reacting to the Seacom cable and the increased speed and lower costs that it will bring to East Africa?  Global Voices, a community of international bloggers, highlights some of the debate that has been occurring around the blogosphere since the arrival of the cable.  It appears there is both optimism and skepticism.

What do you think?

Why the name change?

Why go from “Marc Alan Sperber – Educational Technologies & International Online Education” to “Marc Alan Sperber – Educational Technologies & Distance Education?”

Well, partly because I’m indecisive.  And, partly because I realized that with the former name, I was unintentionally limiting myself, or heading in the direction of having a blog title that did not align with the topics of my posts.

Beyond those reasons, distance education is a broader term which encompasses international, national, or transnational online education.  It also encompasses online, hybrid/blended, and face-t0-face education.  I plan on covering all of the above here on this blog.

There… I feel better now.

Thanks to funding from a Duke Center for Instructional Technology (CIT) “Jump Start Grant,” I am involved with a very exciting project – exploring the use of iPads as a fieldwork research tool for the Duke Global Health Institute (where I am their Educational Technologies Consultant).  First, this fall, the tool will be explored in a master’s-level research methods course (taught by faculty member Jen’nan Read), where students will be learning about qualitative field research, quantitative survey research, evaluations, and interventions.  Students will receive iPads to use throughout the semester and will have the opportunity to use the devices in local fieldwork exercises.  Then, next summer, as part of their global health research projects, some of the students will bring the iPads with them to remote, low-resource settings, all around the world.  Read more about the project on DGHI’s website.

Screen grab from the DGHI article (my quote may make more sense after you have read the first part of the story):

Already a few magazines and websites have picked up the story:

• Campus Technology
• Research
• iMedicalApps.com

I will certainly keep folks up to date.  Because I have linked to several stories about the project, I will not write much more about it here, now.

Currently, I am still exploring applications, working with Jen’nan to come up with fieldwork exercises, having discussions with IT about how we should configure the iPads for students (of course, iOS 4, the new, but still unreleased operating system for the iPad, looks like it might come out right around the time we want to hand these over to students!), etc.

Please feel free to ask me any specific questions – - use the comments section of this post and I’ll respond.