Vision Statements

It's ironic that "Isolating!" is one of the accusations hurled at new technologies, since many accepted technologies and techniques (lecture halls, large campuses, disciplines and subdisciplines) are also isolating. Ned Hallowell argues that "connectedness" is a fundamental value in education and in life (and, among other things, an antidote to the pseudo attention deficit disorder that plagues so many of us). Can we create a vision of education that better develops connectedness: student-students-faculty-experts-society? What constructive roles might the newer technologies play in helping us develop connectedness? What threats are posed by the ways we use those same technologies?

For faculty and other educational professionals, constant arms-length access to easy-to-use, reliable equipment and services open up possibilities that were previously only the dreams of educational visionaries. Daily direct personal access to word- processing, electronic mail, and the World Wide Web. Moreover, access is comfortable, reliable, affordable and compatible throughout an educational institution. The capabilities of these basic tools support some of the most basic educational processes: manipulating text; communicating with specific individuals and groups; finding,organizing, adapting, and presenting information.

Many people have concluded that lifelong learning is a necessity in modern societies where jobs and life change so frequently. But because education can't be reduced to broadcasts or learning pills, mass lifelong learning requires mass lifelong teaching, i.e., a shift away from the vision of the teaching class as a trained minority with a monopoly role, educating only the young; a shift toward a vision of a mass teaching "force" of varied roles, including perhaps even a majority of people in society functioning as teachers some of the time, even the very young and the very old.
The growth of networks, as communications and as online archives, seems to make such a vision more feasible. However, many troubling questions stand between us and its realization: who does what, who pays, who is paid, what new organizational structures might be needed, who is accountable to whom if public funds are involved?

When you can use e-mail, what's a seminar room good for? when you can use a seminar room, what's e-mail good for? Each new option creates an occasion to revisit and perhaps redefine older options. What are we learning about how to use these options skillfully and appropriately? Are qualitatively better visions of education made possible by this wider range of options and understandings? We envision a future where teachers are consciously thoughtful and well-informed about the options of when to use and how to use electronic and face-to-face options.

The presentation "Web Course in A Box" by Steve Saltzberg highlights the elements that make up agood teaching and learning site on the World Wide Web and demonstrates how a product, Web Course in a Box (WCB), can help faculty easily create such a web site. Steve Gilbert describes WCB as an excellent example of a "wide" (as opposed to a "deep") application which makes it easy for faculty, across disciplines, to integrate technology into the curriculum.

Join the conversation: Vision Discussion
For further information about the Summer Institute please contact Amanda Antico
If you have any questions about the content of the Summer Institute, please contact Steve Gilbert

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