Crisis on Campus_ A Bold Plan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities - Mark C. Taylor [44]
When we started the company, our courses consisted largely of recorded lectures by outstanding university and college professors. We quickly discovered, however, that the talking-heads format hardly took advantage of what the Web had to offer. We changed our strategy, creating courses that included some lecture material but consisted primarily of a rich array of media, ranging from print and film to tape recordings and music. While many of our courses were successful, the most effective one we developed was for the State University of New York system. Working with four of their best professors, we created a course in American history that students throughout the system could use to fulfill one of their graduation requirements. Each course included a required online discussion section, and all courses had papers, quizzes and exams.
Through my work with GEN, I came to understand that digital and networking technologies create different possibilities for organizing knowledge and structuring courses. As we attempted to market our classes, we discovered that some people did not want to take the whole semester and that others wanted to combine elements of courses. In response to this demand, we broke some of our offerings into small units ranging from a single class to a week or an entire semester. People could take any part of a course that interested them, or that they felt they needed. We called this practice “unbundling” courses.
As our thinking developed and our strategy changed, those of us involved in the venture came to understand what we were producing differently. As a lifelong teacher, I envisioned GEN as an extension of the classroom. My goal in the Helsinki seminar was to create a place where anyone from anywhere could come together around the seminar table. Jon Newcomb, who was then the CEO of Simon & Schuster and a member of GEN’s board of directors, understood our courses to be an extension of textbooks. With new interactive multimedia, the book has been significantly transformed, and for Jon, online courses were the next logical step after textbooks with CD-ROMs. In fact, the courses we developed were something like a hybrid between a class and a book.
By altering the way information is distributed and knowledge is shared, telecommunications technologies obscure the long-standing line between publication and teaching. At the same time that more and more books and journals are being published electronically, classrooms are being wired for videoconferencing as well as real-time and delayed audio transmission. With easy-to-use software and hardware, lectures and seminars can be readily transmitted across the globe. The increasing quality of reception on digital devices like mobile phones, the Kindle, iPod and eDGe further extends the range and availability of courses offered on the Web. With these developments, webcasts and podcasts make publication in the form of online teaching virtually ubiquitous and thus available to everyone. As networks spread and the demand for content grows, there will be new opportunities for creating and distributing educational materials.
These innovations are beginning to have a significant impact not only on the method of delivery but on the structure and content of courses. There are currently three kinds of courses: traditional (in-school) courses, online courses in virtual classrooms and courses that combine the former and the latter. As colleges and universities grapple with financial pressures and the cost of higher education continues to escalate, it is going to be increasingly difficult