Recap: Last week Screenboard covered apps and what they mean for students. From a short crash course on what they are and how they work, to the importance and concerns about app use by students ‘There’s an app for that’ covered it all.
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It's interesting to think that education is not just about books, practical thoughts and grades. It's also about a type of attitude found in university graduates. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it an intellectual air of superiority, but rather a sense of confidence in the source of their knowledge; which seems to influence they way they perceive and interact with the world. And this seems to hold true to nearly everyone I’ve met with a university degree in my young life. The source of intellectual thought is often respected more than the education it gives. Now, this doesn’t mean there’s somehow a lowering standard of education or anything radical like that - at least not in most universities - but it's more about the experiences, the vibe of the place. There is an inexplicable trust between the source and the students. It's almost a claim to the campus, an identity, a community, an institution, a legacy. This is a source of confidence, an intellectual outlook on life, a culture...an institutional culture.
South Africa, home to famous centres of learning and excellence in all major fields, questioned this institutional culture during the student protests of #FeesMustFall and #RUReferenceList. Now you may be wondering what a cultural studies issue is doing on an ed-tech blog, well the long and short of this topic’s relevance is: issues of race, social class, historical background, physical ability, mental ability and even prejudices are enacted in physical spaces. So if we were to take this physical place away and replace it with a digital space - where, ideally, there would be less of the institution and more of the education - would this mean the end of toxic institutional culture?
Screenboard’s post about Massive Open Online Courses brought my attention to an education dictated by physical spaces. Academic institutions often think dogmatically and are stereotyped - sometimes with good reason - as theorists who think at a level unattainable to the rest of society. I think MOOCs mark the end of institutional culture in the sense that an equally accessible platform for a high quality education has the potential to decrease negative feelings towards intellectuals in a university campus.
Since the Internet is more accessible in comparison to a university for millions of people, it has shifted the prototypical view of what education is, or should be. While universities have the necessary funding and equipment for online learning, there are strong concerns about the lack of proper human interaction. The symbiotic relationship between a learner and their instructor is important to the success of both learning and teaching capabilities. Then there is the peer-to-peer relationship that allows people to learn from each other, usually while all students are together, like in a lecture or tutorial class. These group learning processes offer learners the chance to integrate their knowledge with things they learn from others in the group. So when both these learning relationships are virtualised, and the social aspects are replaced by a digital repository of the same knowledge, it creates a schism in the learning process. This causes students to feel isolated in their learning process, or fall behind in their coursework because of poor work habits and discipline.
Apart from these concerns, students who face financial challenges cannot always afford a consistent internet connection or have easy access to a computer and software for online learning. However easy online learning seems to present itself on paper, or even through statistics from live examples, I think the structured mode of learning at a specific place within a time limit with other people makes the process of learning more social, and therefore more understandable and successful.
With affordable devices like tablets, phones and laptops, access to textbooks and learning material is easier, however the issue of low quality education and materials cannot be solved with online learning alone. Before attempting to introduce online learning as an option, I think the social, financial, and cultural contexts of South Africa must be carefully studied. Considering the high poverty rates, especially among first generation university students in South Africa, an online education is more of a privilege than a simple option in comparison to a university education which provides them with both a degree and a cultural capital.
In a society that is skeptical of universities for simply producing graduates in bulk, equipping them with only theories and basic training in how to follow instructions and meet deadlines, it is no surprise that difficult questions are asked about institutions, their culture, and its credibility in the digital world.
So the question lies in whether there will be a shift in institutional approaches to new methods of teaching and learning. While outdated methods and a strict order of social and physical compliance are demanded at institutions, I believe that although online learning can rise to challenge institutional culture, it will not be able to replace the human aspect of learning.
I now pass this question off to you - especially those of you lucky enough to make your own choices about from whom, how and when to learn - what do you think about online learning at institutions?