Prestigious universities may develop nationwide offerings of standard courses, such as Psych 101, taught by telegenic, internationally recognized authorities. Under this strategy, presentations with high production values would be coupled with frequent, interactive teleconferences, mentoring via electronic mail, and occasional face-to-face meetings of locally enrolled students led by a practitioner. This approach would not intrigue learners interested in a residential college experience, but could be very attractive to students at commuter campuses. With sufficient economies of scale, this delivery method would have lower costs than our present system of similar standard courses duplicated at every institution.
Predictor: Dede, Chris
Prediction, in context:In 1995, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology commissioned a series of white papers on various issues related to networking technologies. The department convened the authors for a workshop in November 1995 to discuss the implications. The following statement is taken from one of the white papers, “The Evolution of Learning Devices: Smart Objects, Information Infrastructures, and Shared Synthetic Environments,” by Chris Dede of the graduate school of education at George Mason University. Dede writes:”The evolution of technology creates new markets and expanded competitors for schools and colleges. As one illustration, prestigious universities may develop nationwide offerings of standard courses, such as Psych 101, taught by telegenic, internationally recognized authorities. Under this strategy, presentations with high production values would be coupled with frequent, interactive teleconferences, mentoring via electronic mail, and occasional face-to-face meetings of locally enrolled students led by a practitioner. This approach would not intrigue learners interested in a residential college experience, but could be very attractive to students at commuter campuses. With sufficient economies of scale, this delivery method would have lower costs than our present system of similar standard courses duplicated at every institution. While many faculty would disparage this type of instruction, state legislatures could easily see it as an attractive way to cut their expenditures for higher educationa method applicable to every course for which a substantial textbook market exists.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: E-learning
Name of publication: The Future of Networking Technologies for Learning
Title, headline, chapter name: The Evolution of Learning Devices: Smart Objects, Information Infrastructures, and Shared Synthetic Environments
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.ed.gov/Technology/Futures/
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney