Technology & Workforce Development

Balancing the Tech and the Touch

Janet Poley, President
American Distance Education Consortium (ADEC)

April 21, 2001

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1. Technology & Workforce Development
   Balancing the Tech and the Touch

2. 21st Century Workforce
   
   • Technological Literacy
   • Adaptable/Flexible
   • Able to Do the Job
   • Critical Thinking - Problem Solving
   • Develop Ideas
   • Take Initiative & Responsibility
   • Willingness to Learn & Collaborate
   
   

3. The Learning Society
   
   • Values and fosters habits of lifelong learning-responsive and flexible learning programs and learning networks
   • Socially inclusive - communities of interest and communities of place
   • Local-Regional-National-Global
   
   

4. Information Technologies
   
   • Tools for enriching learning by tailoring instruction to societal, organizational and individual needs.
   • Help provide equity of access to learning-wide variety of teaching and learning opportunities and approaches
   • Convergence & Blurring (geographical & research/education/training)
   
   

5. Puerto Rico’s Unique Situation
   
   • Have and Have Not Situation
   • Great Value in Bi-Lingual Population
   • Relatively Low Wages
   • Gateway to Caribbean
   • Pharmaceutical - Biotechnology Industry
   • Shift - Manufacturing - Professional & Service
   
   

6. Comparative Advantage
   
   • Educated Workforce WITH High Skills Everything I need to do the job I didn’t learn in school
   • First Movers - Technology is Necessary but Not Sufficient
   
   

7. E-Learning - Killer App?
   
   • Consortial approaches
   • Learner Centered
   • Educational Effectiveness
   • Trusted Source
   • MIT - Way of the Future?
   
   
8. Accountability
   
   • Duplication is expensive
   • Use of Technology for Efficiency
   • Careful to Retain Concern for Individual and Personal - Local
   • Lessons Learned So Far…. -templates & learning resources -communication -feedback, assessment & outcomes
   
   
9. New Strategies and Models
   
   • Wisconsin Meteorology
   • International Marketing
   • Journalism
   • Wireless Research 2 Big Factors: Getting the People and the Computers “doing it right”
   
   
10. Learners Need 3 Things
    
    • Access to authentic communities of learning, interpretation, exploration and knowledge creation
    • Resources to help them work with both distal and local communities
    • Widely accepted representations for learning and work Brown and Duguid
    
    
11. AdvancedInternet Satellite Extension Project
    
    • 3 year, NSF
    • $4 million
    • Partnership
      
      • ADEC, Internet 2 Universities, smaller and minority serving institutions, rural and remote learners
      • Tachyon.Network
      • CAIDA, NLANR
      
      
    
    
12. Project Goals
    
    • Explore and Evaluate:
      • satellite technology to deliver Internet to underserved audiences; and
      • deployment and integration of distance education applications.
      
      
    
    
13. Research objectives include:
    
    • “pretty good Internet?”
    • requirements for satellite-based IP network
    • QOS issues per last mile
    • network performance measurements
    • teaching and learning applications
    • business model
    
    
14. Tachyon.net
15. Concentration of Poverty Deconcentration of Opportunity
    
    • Inner cities and isolated rural areas
    • Lack of infrastructure in poor neighborhoods
    • Lack of investment leads to fewer economic opportunities
      
    
    
16. Concentration of Poverty Deconcentration of Opportunity
    
    • Relevant content
    • Social, cultural and professional activities online
    
    
17. The "Engaged" University
    
    • Outreach & Extension Important
    • Meeting Lifelong Learning Needs
    • Development of Skilled Workforce
    • New Partnerships/Relationships with Private Sector
    • Knowledge Networks -Economic Engine
    
    
18. Broadband Access to All
    
    • Rural and Remote Areas
    • Learning Centers
    • Historically Black Colleges & Universities
    • Tribal Colleges
    • Reaching Out to Overcome Distance
    
    
19. Technology Access Necessary - Not Sufficient
    • Applications
      
      • Learning Modules/Objects
      • Digital Libraries
      • Asynchronous/Synchronous Communication
      • Simulations
      • Virtual Reality
      • Teleimmersion
      
      
    
    
20. New Teaching and Learning Models
    
    • Four generations
      • Correspondence study
      • Multi-media with print
      • Online learning
      • Internet2 applications
      
      
    
    
21. New Research Models: Beyond Comparative Studies
    
    • No significant difference
    • Instructional design and operational environment
    • Media attribute theory
    
    
22. Attribute Analysis (Smith & Dillion 1999)
    



23. Blurring Research/Education
    
    • Collaboratories/Collaborative Worktools
    • Grand/Global Experiments
    • Participatory Research
    • Modeling
    • Instruments
    • New Creative Conceptualizations