No aspect of higher education remai

No aspect of higher education remains untouched by the technological developments of the 1980s and 1990s. Academic administration, as well as the instructional process, has been dramatically altered by new technologies. When compared to other college and university operations such as student services, housing, and administration, however, the teaching and learning process probably is being changed most dramatically by technology.

Traditionally, professors have used much of their class time with students to disseminate information through lectures and follow-up discussion. This was especially the case in introductory-level courses, where students lack a foundation in the basic concepts and principles of a field. In an era of advanced technology, this approach to instruction seems archaic and inefficient. Computers, especially web-based resources, can disseminate basic information more efficiently and more cost effectively than human beings can. For example, Gregory Farrington recommends that instructors use the web to do what it can do well. This includes presenting information to students in a variety of formats, twenty-four hours per day. Students can access course material when it is most convenient for them and return to it as often as they need to achieve basic comprehension, competence, or mastery.

This approach to information dissemination can save precious class time "for the intellectual interactions that only humans can provide" (Farrington, p. 87). Following this revised method of facilitating learning, traditional lectures can be replaced or pared down. In their place, classes can be more informal, seminar-like sessions with more free flowing discussion structured by students' interests, questions, and concerns. In other words, appropriate use of technology applications can help instructors to structure more active learning opportunities. Research shows that active engagement in the learning process helps to motivate students and enhance their learning outcomes. New technologies can facilitate active engagement in learning by reducing the amount of class time where students sit passively listening to lectures.

Technology can also help to make education a much more interactive and collaborative process. Email, course-based websites, and computer-based chat rooms are some of the technology-enabled resources that facilitate communication and teamwork among students. Research by education scholars has shown that collaborative learning opportunities enhance recall, understanding, and problem solving. Technology can greatly ease the work of collaborative design teams, peer writing groups, and other types of collaborative learning groups, even among students who do not live in the same geographic area and who cannot meet face to face.

While technology helps to promote collaborative learning, it also helps to personalize and individualize education. By reducing the need to deliver vast amounts of information, technology can free an instructor to devote more time to individual students. With more time to interact and get acquainted, professors can adapt their teaching strategies and assignments to bring them more in line with the interests and needs of the students in their classes. Technology's capacity to deliver large quantities of information over networks also expands the potential for tailoring educational programs to the specific needs of each learner. Dewayne Matthews argues that technology-enhanced programs "can be custom-designed around the needs and interests of the recipient instead of around the scheduling and resource needs of the provider" (p. 3). With the help of technology, educational programs–even full degrees–can be structured around flexible course modules that students can combine in a variety of forms to meet their personal and professional objectives. Matthews suggests that technology-mediated education makes traditional academic calendars and rigid curriculum structures obsolete because it can adapt education so well to individual learning interests and needs.

If education's goal is to help the learner reach his or her full potential, why should education be designed for the convenience of the instructor or the educational institution? Essentially, technology is empowering learners to take more control of their education than ever before. The expanded reach that technology affords educational institutions has encouraged many new providers to offer educational services. This increased competition enables consumers to choose the learning opportunities that best meet their needs within the constraints of their life circumstances. As technology transforms the educational marketplace, the balance of power is shifting from the education provider to the education consumer. Education consumers are now freer to pick and choose, from a variety of sources, the learning opportunities that meet their goals. In this fluid educational environment, the old system of accumulating credits from one or two nearby institutions becomes too restrictive for many students who are balancing a variety of personal and professional roles.

There is a related shift underway as technology transforms the teaching and learning process. The traditional higher education measure of educational achievement, the credit hour, is also being questioned. Matthews argues that "learning outcomes, as measured by student competencies [rather than course credits], is the quality measure that makes the most sense to consumers" (p. 4). In the new educational environment defined by technology, innovative institutions such as Western Governors University award degrees by certifying that students have achieved certain required competencies, regardless of where those competencies were acquired. Such a dramatic shift in the way educational achievement is documented would have been unthinkable before the advent of the free market educational system stimulated by the technology advances of the late twentieth century. Measuring competencies rather than credit hours represents another shift in favor of the consumer. As long as a student can document competence in a subject or skill area, it makes no difference where or how the learning occurred.

Technology's potential to lower the cost of education has been one of its principal appeals. The ability of computers and telecommunications to reach large audiences with the same high-quality educational programs has raised hopes for economies of scale never possible in the very labor-intensive traditional forms of instruction. To date, technology's promise to lower instructional costs has not been realized. Developing the infrastructure to support technology-mediated teaching and learning has been a very expensive proposition. The possibility remains, however, that new, advanced technologies may eventually lower the costs of higher education as researchers and educators learn how to blend technology-delivered and traditional instruction in a more cost-effective manner.



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Không có khía cạnh của giáo dục vẫn còn nguyên vẹn bởi những phát triển công nghệ của thập niên 1980 và thập niên 1990. Quản lý học tập, cũng như quá trình giảng dạy, đã được thay đổi đáng kể của công nghệ mới. Khi so sánh với các hoạt động trường cao đẳng và đại học khác chẳng hạn như dịch vụ sinh viên, nhà ở, và quản lý, Tuy nhiên, việc giảng dạy và quá trình học tập có thể đang được thay đổi đáng kể nhất của công nghệ.Theo truyền thống, giáo sư đã sử dụng phần lớn thời gian lớp học của họ với các sinh viên để phổ biến thông tin thông qua các bài giảng và thảo luận tiếp theo. Điều này đã là đặc biệt là trường hợp trong giới thiệu-cấp các khóa học, nơi sinh viên thiếu một nền tảng khái niệm cơ bản và các nguyên tắc của một lĩnh vực. Trong thời đại của công nghệ tiên tiến, cách tiếp cận này để hướng dẫn có vẻ cổ lỗ và không hiệu quả. Máy tính, đặc biệt là dựa trên web tài nguyên, có thể phổ biến các thông tin cơ bản hiệu quả hơn và thêm chi phí có hiệu quả hơn con người có thể. Ví dụ, Gregory Farrington khuyến cáo rằng giáo viên hướng dẫn sử dụng web để làm những gì nó có thể làm tốt. Điều này bao gồm trình bày thông tin cho học sinh trong một loạt các định dạng, 24 giờ mỗi ngày. Sinh viên có thể truy cập tài liệu khóa học khi nó là nhất thuận lợi cho họ và trở về nó thường xuyên như họ cần để đạt được hiểu cơ bản, thẩm quyền, hoặc làm chủ.Cách tiếp cận này để phổ biến thông tin có thể tiết kiệm thời gian quý giá lớp "cho sự tương tác trí tuệ con người chỉ có thể cung cấp" (Farrington, p. 87). Theo phương pháp sửa đổi này của tạo điều kiện học tập, truyền thống bài giảng có thể được thay thế hoặc pared. Vị trí của mình, các lớp học có thể là hơn không chính thức, hội thảo-giống như buổi với thêm thảo luận miễn phí chảy cấu trúc của sinh viên lợi ích, câu hỏi, và mối quan tâm. Nói cách khác, thích hợp sử dụng ứng dụng công nghệ có thể giúp giáo viên hướng dẫn để cấu trúc tích cực hơn cơ hội học tập. Nghiên cứu cho thấy rằng sự tham gia hoạt động trong quá trình học tập giúp để thúc đẩy sinh viên và nâng cao kết quả học tập của họ. Công nghệ mới có thể tạo điều kiện cho sự tham gia hoạt động trong học tập bằng cách giảm số lượng thời gian lớp học mà học sinh ngồi thụ động nghe bài giảng.Công nghệ cũng có thể giúp làm cho giáo dục một quá trình tương tác nhiều hơn và hợp tác. Thư điện tử, trang web dựa trên khóa học và các máy tính dựa trên trò chuyện phòng là một số các nguồn lực kích hoạt công nghệ tạo thuận lợi cho giao tiếp và làm việc theo nhóm trong số sinh viên. Nghiên cứu giáo dục học giả đã chỉ ra rằng cơ hội hợp tác học tập nâng cao thu hồi, sự hiểu biết và giải quyết vấn đề. Công nghệ rất nhiều có thể dễ dàng công việc của nhóm hợp tác thiết kế, peer viết nhóm, và các loại khác của nhóm hợp tác học tập, thậm chí giữa các sinh viên những người không sống trong cùng một khu vực địa lý và những người không thể gặp mặt đối mặt.While technology helps to promote collaborative learning, it also helps to personalize and individualize education. By reducing the need to deliver vast amounts of information, technology can free an instructor to devote more time to individual students. With more time to interact and get acquainted, professors can adapt their teaching strategies and assignments to bring them more in line with the interests and needs of the students in their classes. Technology's capacity to deliver large quantities of information over networks also expands the potential for tailoring educational programs to the specific needs of each learner. Dewayne Matthews argues that technology-enhanced programs "can be custom-designed around the needs and interests of the recipient instead of around the scheduling and resource needs of the provider" (p. 3). With the help of technology, educational programs–even full degrees–can be structured around flexible course modules that students can combine in a variety of forms to meet their personal and professional objectives. Matthews suggests that technology-mediated education makes traditional academic calendars and rigid curriculum structures obsolete because it can adapt education so well to individual learning interests and needs.If education's goal is to help the learner reach his or her full potential, why should education be designed for the convenience of the instructor or the educational institution? Essentially, technology is empowering learners to take more control of their education than ever before. The expanded reach that technology affords educational institutions has encouraged many new providers to offer educational services. This increased competition enables consumers to choose the learning opportunities that best meet their needs within the constraints of their life circumstances. As technology transforms the educational marketplace, the balance of power is shifting from the education provider to the education consumer. Education consumers are now freer to pick and choose, from a variety of sources, the learning opportunities that meet their goals. In this fluid educational environment, the old system of accumulating credits from one or two nearby institutions becomes too restrictive for many students who are balancing a variety of personal and professional roles.There is a related shift underway as technology transforms the teaching and learning process. The traditional higher education measure of educational achievement, the credit hour, is also being questioned. Matthews argues that "learning outcomes, as measured by student competencies [rather than course credits], is the quality measure that makes the most sense to consumers" (p. 4). In the new educational environment defined by technology, innovative institutions such as Western Governors University award degrees by certifying that students have achieved certain required competencies, regardless of where those competencies were acquired. Such a dramatic shift in the way educational achievement is documented would have been unthinkable before the advent of the free market educational system stimulated by the technology advances of the late twentieth century. Measuring competencies rather than credit hours represents another shift in favor of the consumer. As long as a student can document competence in a subject or skill area, it makes no difference where or how the learning occurred.Technology's potential to lower the cost of education has been one of its principal appeals. The ability of computers and telecommunications to reach large audiences with the same high-quality educational programs has raised hopes for economies of scale never possible in the very labor-intensive traditional forms of instruction. To date, technology's promise to lower instructional costs has not been realized. Developing the infrastructure to support technology-mediated teaching and learning has been a very expensive proposition. The possibility remains, however, that new, advanced technologies may eventually lower the costs of higher education as researchers and educators learn how to blend technology-delivered and traditional instruction in a more cost-effective manner.


Read more: Technology in Education - Higher Education - Learning, Educational, Students, and Technologies - StateUniversity.com http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2496/Technology-in-Education-HIGHER-EDUCATION.html#ixzz3OiRtrqcN