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12. The promise and the myths ofe-learning in post-secondaryeducationTony BatesE-LEARNING AND CHANGE IN EDUCATIONThe Internet and, in particular, the World Wide Web have had a remarkableimpact on education at all levels. In the past, new technologies such as the telephone,radio, television, cassettes, satellites, and computers were all predictedto bring about a revolution in education. However, after the initial hype, thesenew technologies left a marginal impact on the general practice of education,each finding a niche, but not changing the essential process of a teacherpersonally interacting with learners.However, the Internet and, especially, the World Wide Web are different,both in the scale and the nature of their impact on education. Certainly, theweb has penetrated teaching and learning much more than any other previoustechnology, with the important exception of the printed book. Indeed, it ispossible to see parallels between the social and educational influence of bothmechanically printed books and the Internet on post-secondary education, andthese parallels will be explored a little further in this chapter.The application of the Internet to teaching and learning has had both strongadvocates and equally strong critics. Electronic learning has been seized uponas the next commercial development of the Internet, a natural extension of e-commerce. John Chambers, the CEO of the giant American Internet equipmentcompany, Cisco, described education as the next Internet “killerapplication” at the Comdex exhibition in Las Vegas in 2001 (Moore and Jones,2001). Chambers linked several concepts together: e-learning is necessary toimprove the quality of education; e-learning is necessary to improve the qualityof the workforce; and a highly qualified technology workforce is essentialfor national economic development and competitiveness.It is perhaps not surprising that the CEO of a company that makes its livingthrough the Internet would be supporting the use of the Internet for educationand training. However, there are also strong advocates of e-learning within the271
272 Tony Bateseducation profession. Their arguments tend to be based primarily on pedagogicalissues. For instance, Harasim and co-workers (1995) have argued thate-learning represents a paradigm shift in education. Both Harasim et al. andJonassen and colleagues (1995) claim that e-learning facilitates a moreconstructivist approach to learning, thus encouraging knowledge constructionand critical thinking skills. Collis (1996: xxi) predicted that “two of the mostimportant changes to education involving tele-learning will be the importanceof virtual communities to complement face-to-face relationships in learning,and the increasing use of ‘knowledge utilities,’ particularly through hyperlinkeddistributed environments such as the WWW.”Peters (2002) is one of many commentators who believe that e-learning willforce a radical restructuring of our educational institutions. For universities,Peters argues that “the only treatment available is a bold wave of modernizationsuch as never before in the history of academic . . . institutions” (2002: 158). Boththe pedagogical and organizational issues will be explored later in the chapter.The heady mixture in electronic learning of commercialization, technology,and challenge to institutions and traditions has not surprisingly resulted in anactive body of critics. Noble, over a series of articles (1997, 1998a, b, 1999,2001), ironically available initially only on the Internet, has associated e-learningwith the commercialization and automation of education: “Here faculty... are transformed into mere producers of marketable instructional commoditieswhich they may or may not themselves ‘deliver’” (1997). Noble arguesthat such automation and commercialization is coercive in nature, being forcedupon professors as well as students, with commercial interests in mind. Heargues that online learning is not a progressive but a regressive trend, towardthe old era of mass-production, standardization, and purely commercial interests.According to Noble (1998a):the primary commercial impulse has come from non-academic forces, industrialcorporations seeking indirect public subsidy of their research needs and privatevendors of instructional hardware, software, and content looking for subsidizedproduct development and a potentially lucrative market for their wares. In bothcases also, there has been a fundamental transformation of the nature of academicwork and the relationship between higher educational institutions and their facultyemployees.Others have suggested that the use of the Internet for education increases thedivide between the wealthy and the poor, and that the Internet acts as a form ofWestern cultural dominance, with its predominant use of English and primarilyAmerican programs and materials (see, for example, Wilson et al., 1998).On a more pragmatic level, many instructors are worried about the extraworkload and skills needed to teach effectively through e-learning, andadministrators are concerned with what appear to be the high investment and
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12. The promise and the myths ofe-learning in post-secondaryeducationTony BatesE-LEARNING AND CHANGE IN EDUCATIONThe Internet and, in particular, the World Wide Web have had a remarkableimpact on education at all levels. In the past, new technologies such as the telephone,radio, television, cassettes, satellites, and computers were all predictedto bring about a revolution in education. However, after the initial hype, thesenew technologies left a marginal impact on the <strong>ge</strong>neral practice of education,each finding a niche, but not changing the essential process of a teacherpersonally interacting with learners.However, the Internet and, especially, the World Wide Web are different,both in the scale and the nature of their impact on education. Certainly, theweb has penetrated teaching and learning much more than any other previoustechnology, with the important exception of the printed book. Indeed, it ispossible to see parallels between the social and educational influence of bothmechanically printed books and the Internet on post-secondary education, andthese parallels will be explored a little further in this chapter.The application of the Internet to teaching and learning has had both strongadvocates and equally strong critics. Electronic learning has been seized uponas the next commercial development of the Internet, a natural extension of e-commerce. John Chambers, the CEO of the giant American Internet equipmentcompany, Cisco, described education as the next Internet “killerapplication” at the Comdex exhibition in Las Vegas in 2001 (Moore and Jones,2001). Chambers linked several concepts to<strong>ge</strong>ther: e-learning is necessary toimprove the quality of education; e-learning is necessary to improve the qualityof the workforce; and a highly qualified technology workforce is essentialfor national economic development and competitiveness.It is perhaps not surprising that the CEO of a company that makes its livingthrough the Internet would be supporting the use of the Internet for educationand training. However, there are also strong advocates of e-learning within the271
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