Digital Diploma Mills
With regard to David F. Nobel’s article on Digital Diploma Mills „Part III: The Blossom Is Off the Rose“ (November 1998) I will give a short review about the concerns because of technical renewals taking place in educational systems. Worries about commercialization, copyrights on course material, intellectual property and the status of high education brought universities all over North-America on barricades. But in cause of time students and lecturers figured out that the technical-renewals were no enemy of education standard. In practice there was - and still is - less acceptance among students than people did expect.
In particular the flagship Western Govenors’ Virtual University opened a business in 1998 offering hundreds of online courses. The expectations where about 5000 participants with following result: The offerer received just 75 inquiries, only 10 people enrolled for a course. For State Universities a new online-campus was from interest to bring up specialized distance education. But it didn’ work out eather. According to the Wall Street Journal some professors attribute it to unconvincingly method’s of instructions. These two examples are proof that high-tech-structures allone cann’t make a good education. As Nobel mentions in his article: In first place the most important educational tool will still be teachers’ dedicaton and ability.
However, the initially concerns about new technologie in educational sector are understandably. It is an uncomfortable feeling to change „a (still) running system“ and go over to something new and mainly unexplored. But there is also a need to adjust our education system otherwise it is too far away from reality and our lifestile. One of the worries was the fear the technical renewances would step into competition to traditional methods of teaching. But in reality it is the opposite way. With this new options and tools we are able to recreate our education system and bring it closer to our postmodern lifestile in designing it more creative, intensive and practical.
Worldwide cooperation amoung students and universities also time-flexibility are benefits which can’t be discussed away. Students, who live in the countryside or cut off valleys are able to participate in online-discourses via forums, chats and so on. The mainproblem is that the new tools are also very new to the instructors. So there is still the question how to install computer-mediated communications meaningfully in existing instruction methods? How do we get students to use the new technical supplies? And how can we create the education interesting and responding in our „new“media flooded world?
The job for media paedagigics in future will be to find out how the studying materials have to be prepared it is going to be used from pupils and students. How to use the network effectively to have an impressing and catching teachingtool. And the knowledge to have a good handicraft which allows us to train further to get to independently informations of our interests.
An interesting phenomen is that good made computergames catch the attention and concentration of people - old and young - for hours. To reach this high participation with learning moduls we have to aim at.
Maybe we should think about the differences between games and learning materials. Of course exclusive the puplic relation and commercial industry which is working hard for a successful productintroduction.
How are computergames concepted that they get so many people into there ban? Good computergames have an thrilling entry. There intro arouses the players interest who gets curious and wants to know how it is going on in this game. The game has to have an intelligent structure and an appealing design in every level. Projected on eductational instructions means that not the technic is decisive. Intelligent content is a must.
Where does the motivation come from? To keep a game exciting the players are getting eather points for good playing or are allowed to ascend to the next level. Also phenomenic is that we like to compare with others. Our capitalistically thinking let us compare in numbers and charts. The higher the better and the faster the better. We want to see the results virtually and have a benefit. For our achievements we want to get something evidently. I got the feeling that in our western culture, people just do things where they can get a benefit from for themselves.
We have to „sell“ the new-technology in education system as a feature everybody can benefit from – which is correct but also needs a considered methode of use. First, we still have to surge for this methodes, second the great benefit computer-mediated communication didn’t get thrue to the users yet.
Today we can say that the ensures about diploma-mills and lower education standard where groundless. Time is the most valuable thing in our life. Postmodern people have to be much more critical and selective because of the enormous information flood every day. They select very carefuly what time is going to be spent for. Therefore they will be open minded for new tools like online-communications to have the opportunity for indepentend and lifelong learning.
The fact is we have phantastic options by using computer-mediated-communication and it has to be included in our educational system. There is no way arround. Yet we can see the bud of the rose. It is beginning to open up now. We suspect the colour of the bloom, but when it is going to be open the whole way people will be surprised about it's beauty.
In particular the flagship Western Govenors’ Virtual University opened a business in 1998 offering hundreds of online courses. The expectations where about 5000 participants with following result: The offerer received just 75 inquiries, only 10 people enrolled for a course. For State Universities a new online-campus was from interest to bring up specialized distance education. But it didn’ work out eather. According to the Wall Street Journal some professors attribute it to unconvincingly method’s of instructions. These two examples are proof that high-tech-structures allone cann’t make a good education. As Nobel mentions in his article: In first place the most important educational tool will still be teachers’ dedicaton and ability.
However, the initially concerns about new technologie in educational sector are understandably. It is an uncomfortable feeling to change „a (still) running system“ and go over to something new and mainly unexplored. But there is also a need to adjust our education system otherwise it is too far away from reality and our lifestile. One of the worries was the fear the technical renewances would step into competition to traditional methods of teaching. But in reality it is the opposite way. With this new options and tools we are able to recreate our education system and bring it closer to our postmodern lifestile in designing it more creative, intensive and practical.
Worldwide cooperation amoung students and universities also time-flexibility are benefits which can’t be discussed away. Students, who live in the countryside or cut off valleys are able to participate in online-discourses via forums, chats and so on. The mainproblem is that the new tools are also very new to the instructors. So there is still the question how to install computer-mediated communications meaningfully in existing instruction methods? How do we get students to use the new technical supplies? And how can we create the education interesting and responding in our „new“media flooded world?
The job for media paedagigics in future will be to find out how the studying materials have to be prepared it is going to be used from pupils and students. How to use the network effectively to have an impressing and catching teachingtool. And the knowledge to have a good handicraft which allows us to train further to get to independently informations of our interests.
An interesting phenomen is that good made computergames catch the attention and concentration of people - old and young - for hours. To reach this high participation with learning moduls we have to aim at.
Maybe we should think about the differences between games and learning materials. Of course exclusive the puplic relation and commercial industry which is working hard for a successful productintroduction.
How are computergames concepted that they get so many people into there ban? Good computergames have an thrilling entry. There intro arouses the players interest who gets curious and wants to know how it is going on in this game. The game has to have an intelligent structure and an appealing design in every level. Projected on eductational instructions means that not the technic is decisive. Intelligent content is a must.
Where does the motivation come from? To keep a game exciting the players are getting eather points for good playing or are allowed to ascend to the next level. Also phenomenic is that we like to compare with others. Our capitalistically thinking let us compare in numbers and charts. The higher the better and the faster the better. We want to see the results virtually and have a benefit. For our achievements we want to get something evidently. I got the feeling that in our western culture, people just do things where they can get a benefit from for themselves.
We have to „sell“ the new-technology in education system as a feature everybody can benefit from – which is correct but also needs a considered methode of use. First, we still have to surge for this methodes, second the great benefit computer-mediated communication didn’t get thrue to the users yet.
Today we can say that the ensures about diploma-mills and lower education standard where groundless. Time is the most valuable thing in our life. Postmodern people have to be much more critical and selective because of the enormous information flood every day. They select very carefuly what time is going to be spent for. Therefore they will be open minded for new tools like online-communications to have the opportunity for indepentend and lifelong learning.
The fact is we have phantastic options by using computer-mediated-communication and it has to be included in our educational system. There is no way arround. Yet we can see the bud of the rose. It is beginning to open up now. We suspect the colour of the bloom, but when it is going to be open the whole way people will be surprised about it's beauty.
freizeit - 19. Mai, 22:30
