The-Ave.US

Unfortunately, opposition to real educational technology now comes from all sides.  Union advocates are worried about losing faculty jobs. The politicians want to save bucks now, no matter what that costs later. :Luddites, lack Glen Beck, don’s care because they think learning is  worthless anyway.

Now  I read that the House State Senate Higher Education Committee will hear HB 1822, a bill establishing Western Governor’s University as an official state university. HB 1822 is the companion to Senate Bill 5136, which the Senate Higher Education and Workforce Development Committee has already heard.

Bill Lyne of the United Faculty  of Washington points out that HB 1822 appropriates NO MONEY!!

There seems to be a weird idea that online eduction comes at no cost.  I guess the image is of a modern Abe Lincoln readin books by candlelight.  Of course this is silly.

On the other hand, I agree with the Gates Foundation that there are huge opportunities to use the web not only to cut costs but to improve how we teach.  As mad as it is to believe students can learn while they read courseware on a Kinlde by candlelight, it is equally mad to believe that putting 500 students in an auditorium to listen to an outstanding prof is good use of the prof’ 0r the student’s time.

I was very lucky to have been a student of Skinner and to experience excellent programmed instruction.  What distresses me today is that little o no effort seems to be going into using that technology to make better use of talented lecturers. Material that could easily be taught by programmed instruction, including my own area of pathology, is till taught wastefully by faculty acting as performers paid to cover the “mastery” material.  Mastery is a euphemism for minimal material needed to pass a course.  Those hours wasted in emulation of a Nova show could easily be replaced by good programmed instruction with the saved time used to help those students who want to move onto real challenges the machines can not teach.

This is one of those cases where we need to INVEST money to save money.  Quick fixes like community colleges as replacements of  freshman and sohmore years will give us diploma mills. Degrees from universities,without investment in faculty to support and extend the online work students can do, will simply psread the decay of American education to another level.