Digital Diploma
Noble's article argues about a new era in which higher education implements new technology with little regard for pedagogical and economic costs.
The article is a warning to students about the dangers of online education.The warnings are not new.
A warning echoes TS Eliots poems "Choruses from the Rock" which goes something like this
...where is the life we have lost in living?
...Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Brings us farther from God and nearer to Dust.
My concern is line 2/3 of this poem written in 1934 before the internet, or CD's or mass production of TV or DVD's, cell phones, computers or websites.
The endless cycle of idea and action,
endless invention, endless experiment
TS Eliot was concerned amount the overabundance of information in 1934,
With the oversaturation of information available to us, have we lost knowledge and more importantly, have we lost true wisdom?
Does the poem echo what Noble is claiming?
More so have we lost integrity in our fear of getting left behind by the pressures of progress, consumerism, economics?
At the heart of some of most vivid debates within higher education is the question of knowing; what constitutes knowledge? Who is the knower? What do we mean by knowledge? These questions are raised in multiple ways by professors, students, lecturer. But these inquiries extend beyond the academic walls, they are at the heart of popular culture.
Which is? ....Commercialism of higher education, consumerism, computer based education.
Nobles concerns are real when he says quality education could become the exclusive preserve of the privileged but there are many advantages;
* digital education provides a time and place, self paced environment for learning
* fosters crtiical thinking
* opportunity to work globally and collaboratively
* less paper - better ecologically
* opportunities for those living in rural areas
The process of integrating digital technologies into higher education raises foundation questions because there are myriad ways in which we are facing new choices/ new possibilities.
We have to keep asking the hard questions.
* What is the social infrastructure that makes it possible to use species technologies?
* What kind of investment does it require of us both financially as well as socially?
* Can instructional technology be exploited?
* Does it develop student's individual skills/talents?
* What long time effect will this way of education have on the global environment?
Computers exist in high numbers (esp Western world) at the expense of high consumption of natural resources elsewhere, not to mention significant amount so of cheap labor in other parts of the globe.
Global cooperations exert their power to control the media and create the psychological and physical needs that satisfy the requirements of their own growth. Not only the affluent but the poorest people of the world are being usesd as pawns in the hands of the powerful capitalist technology.
Our task as religious educators in this new education milieu is to become explorers and revelers of religious imaginations, The world of digital media is not an alien world. And we should enter the word with integrity and boldness.
The web site for Noble's article sorry but link not working .
Te atapo - the dawn
The article is a warning to students about the dangers of online education.The warnings are not new.
A warning echoes TS Eliots poems "Choruses from the Rock" which goes something like this
...where is the life we have lost in living?
...Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Brings us farther from God and nearer to Dust.
My concern is line 2/3 of this poem written in 1934 before the internet, or CD's or mass production of TV or DVD's, cell phones, computers or websites.
The endless cycle of idea and action,
endless invention, endless experiment
TS Eliot was concerned amount the overabundance of information in 1934,
With the oversaturation of information available to us, have we lost knowledge and more importantly, have we lost true wisdom?
Does the poem echo what Noble is claiming?
More so have we lost integrity in our fear of getting left behind by the pressures of progress, consumerism, economics?
At the heart of some of most vivid debates within higher education is the question of knowing; what constitutes knowledge? Who is the knower? What do we mean by knowledge? These questions are raised in multiple ways by professors, students, lecturer. But these inquiries extend beyond the academic walls, they are at the heart of popular culture.
Which is? ....Commercialism of higher education, consumerism, computer based education.
Nobles concerns are real when he says quality education could become the exclusive preserve of the privileged but there are many advantages;
* digital education provides a time and place, self paced environment for learning
* fosters crtiical thinking
* opportunity to work globally and collaboratively
* less paper - better ecologically
* opportunities for those living in rural areas
The process of integrating digital technologies into higher education raises foundation questions because there are myriad ways in which we are facing new choices/ new possibilities.
We have to keep asking the hard questions.
* What is the social infrastructure that makes it possible to use species technologies?
* What kind of investment does it require of us both financially as well as socially?
* Can instructional technology be exploited?
* Does it develop student's individual skills/talents?
* What long time effect will this way of education have on the global environment?
Computers exist in high numbers (esp Western world) at the expense of high consumption of natural resources elsewhere, not to mention significant amount so of cheap labor in other parts of the globe.
Global cooperations exert their power to control the media and create the psychological and physical needs that satisfy the requirements of their own growth. Not only the affluent but the poorest people of the world are being usesd as pawns in the hands of the powerful capitalist technology.
Our task as religious educators in this new education milieu is to become explorers and revelers of religious imaginations, The world of digital media is not an alien world. And we should enter the word with integrity and boldness.
The web site for Noble's article sorry but link not working .
Te atapo - the dawn
1 Comments:
Nobles article is informative in that it reveals how the 'cult of management'has infiltrated the education system. It has become increasingly apparent that this has been happening for some time - education has been commdified into a market. The cynical nature of a market led economy results in just that. It is all about money and power going to the top and is primarily about profit rather than anything truly educational liberating or altruistic.
The commercialisation of higher education seems also to have led to a diminshing of the humanities as they are not such hot commercial proposition.
Noble writes about intellectual activity turning into intellectual capital using technology as a vehicle and disguise aided and abetted by administration.
I do think it is a worldwide trend.
What I continue to find amazing is how university admin goes against the wishes of students and teachers alike. It shows how the agenda has changed and who is really in control.
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