The demand for higher education is increasing – for more of it, and for more kinds of it. More colleges and universities are breaking ground for new buildings than are closing. New technology applications, that appear to have great educational potential, arrive from industry at an accelerating pace. While distance education isn’t catching on nearly as fast, widely, or cost-effectively as the zealots claimed and the technophobes feared, the majority of faculty, students, and administrators are rapidly embracing fundamental technology tools for communication and information management. An unprecedented foundation for educational change is being laid, but with no clear picture of the edifice that will arise from it.
Meanwhile, the “digital divide” is widening. Children of the poor have dramatically less access to computers and new information resources in their schools or colleges than the wealthy – just when more careers require information technology skills. Dozens [hundreds? thousands?] of colleges are now requiring or providing computers for all students, faculty, and staff; and these institutions are exploring the educational potential of “ubiquitous computing.” However, on many other college and university campuses, the information technology resources available to faculty and students vary markedly between departments or divisions (with schools of education often among those with the smallest budgets per student for these tools). Many undergraduates who cannot afford their own computers have family and job obligations that make it inconvenient to use publicly available labs. Even with borrowing computers from friends and getting permission to use computers in the workplace for educational purposes, students who may need it most have less frequent, less comfortable access.
The economics of higher education are shifting in unpredictable ways. The clear old line between students’ paying tuition for courses and paying fees for course-related learning materials (books, etc.) is rapidly blurring. More faculty members are assigning instructional materials that students can find on the Web, more students resist buying required textbooks, and more students are comfortable going to the Web instead of to the library for reserved readings. Consequently, new financial relationships are developing among students, faculty, publishers, bookstores, libraries, and colleges. The publishers and bookstore managers are especially eager to understand or create viable new business models. Some of these might give a more significant role to faculty members who develop course-related “online” materials and find new ways of collecting fees from students or their colleges/universities.
] in which two human beings talk AND LISTEN to
each other in the same place at the same time will be more highly valued and sought more intentionally and frequently.
