Teaching, Learning and the WEB

Recently several articles or comments have appeared regarding the opportunities for teaching offered by the web. Most of these approaches focused on the teachers’ advantages; some, however, discussed the trainees’ situation {Becker G.S. (former Nobel laureate): How the web is revolutionizing learning. Business week/dec. 27.11; 1999). The most constant remarks deal with: -the remote situation of the actors involved “The growth of the Internet may revolutionize this system by allowing ‘distance learning\ in which teachers and students interact closely even though they are separated both physically and in time”. -the time saved in having locally made sessions easily organised “The key economic advantage of distance learning over traditional on-site schooling is that it saves students time. The value of the time spent learning is the principal cost of investment in human capital among adults with even moderate earnings”. “Online instruction also allows greater time flexibility for students to interact with course materials, “chat” with other students, take quizzes, and submit written papers”…. “Chat rooms” encourage group discussions among students and teachers and reduce the feeling of isolation fostered by sitting alone in front of a computer”. Attention is paid to continuing education rather than initial teaching in most instances “Distance learning appeals mainly to adults who want to take courses toward a bachelor’s or master’s degree`, or maintain and upgrade job skills that have grown dated”. The teachers’ point of view is sometimes unpredictable and gross “The spread of faster and, ultimately, of broadband access to the Web enables online teachers to move about and gesticulate as if they were in front of live audiences”. “Internet instructors can also customize their question and discussion to fit the needs of individual students”. The commercial aspect is not far from all these educational considerations “WORK FARE. For example, to better assess and manage their considerable investments, financial officers of large companies need to understand the use of modern options markets to reduce risks. And growing numbers of men and women in many nations want to learn to read and write English, the global language of trade and commerce”. It sounds like global thinking, and sheds doubts on future innovation if the model applied is unique: one model, one market, one language, one education. Are there any forms of education that create more dependence than independence? “Distance learning offers an opportunity to outsource teaching to specialized companies without taking employees away from their work”. Between market opportunities and professional actors and bodies, joint ventures will take the pragmatic aspect of university budget problems to contribute to “modern” solutions. “Meanwhile, for-profit companies have begun to provide online instruction in numerous subjects. To gain faster acceptability and recognition, some of these companies have entered into cooperative arrangements with accredited colleges and universities”. The author’s analysis revolves almost exclusively around the financial benefits of teaching from a distance. One could even say that teaching disappears in this article, leaving only the discussion on the financial benefits of the web. Teaching is presented as a one-way process : information is broadcast worldwide to several individual sites, where groups of students are left on their own to interact with the teaching material and among themselves after the “course” – not unlike the Tupperware organization? The advantage of worldwide broadcasting of teaching material which would have otherwise only benefited a few is clear. But the teacher is not just an eloquent “gesticulating” tumbler whose supposedly educational mimics could help teach audiences throughout the world. The fact that teaching may be one-on-one (although forbidden by law), at best (legally) in a small classroom situation, in a 300-seat amphitheater, in an auditorium of several thousands, or on a world scale, calls for specific techniques but is based on the same fundamental principles. The goal and the talent of the teacher is to adapt to his audience and to adjust to the inflexions of collective moods so that his first objective may remain to enrich the audience. Enriching the audience is certainly not incompatible with personal financial benefits. But both principles should be placed in that priority. It is a well-known fact that the larger the audience, the more difficult it becomes to adapt the educational discourse. When the audience exceeds an amphitheater of 300, only a few teachers can really adjust their course to a more or less resistant group. Beyond those numbers, or for most lecturers teaching simply becomes information sharing. Pedagogy is not a marketing or communication technique. The idea of having groups of students is interesting, on the condition that they are “chaired” by a professional teacher who will organize and lead the discussions and the interaction with the teaching material. If self-teaching was so easy, people would have been learning on their own for a long time in libraries or with television programs. But it simply doesn’t happen. Although we live in a “global system”, it is enclosed within the boundaries defined by legal and ethical standards. The object of teaching is also to help people understand these rules, to conceptualize them and to share the benefits of the methods, so that information may secondarily become true knowledge, and a source of liberty and progress. Information is but material for the teacher, a vehicle for education. The teacher as described by Becker represents a single educational scheme that has neither the means nor the time, and probably not the training to consider the cultural differences of an international audience. Becker claims one can deliver raw material to students in a user-friendly way, which doesn’t mean it is educationally efficient. He presupposes that by discussing the material, it will automatically become fertile sediment or a pleasant discourse. However students, whether on their own or in groups, are not all systematically or always intelligent and truth will not necessarily spring from their conversations. The broadcast conferences must be relayed locally by another teacher. Just as the patient must remain at the center of discussions in health and hospitalization systems, so the student and the teaching of knowledge must remain at the center of discussions in educational techniques. The web is an incredible resource for educational projects. It offers educational documents just as a large library does. If for a given topic there are for example five different books, the key is not in the book itself but in the authors. The availability of all five books anywhere on the planet at any time is only a bookstore’s stock problem resolved. The decrease in time to obtain such information does not reduce the time needed to learn it, and probably even to interpret it. Understanding remains an intellectual process and not a technological challenge.