8009
Alternative adult education
Dr. John Hobrough, University of Surrey
In medieval times castles were built with high thick walls providing walkways protected by crenellations from which marksmen could shoot. Unscaleable towers taller than these walls, to protect vulnerable areas, with arrow slits of various design giving opportunity for flanking fire were also erected. Defence was therefore vertical and geared to prevent scaling.
With the onset of the new technology of gunpowder, when missiles could be used to destroy these walls, change had to occur. Initially such change was produced by refining existing defence systems. Arrow slits were enlarged, changed in shape to accept the new weaponry. Thicker walls were built with ‘cannon slits’ of similar model and concept of previous times. Defence was however, still vertical. This radical change in offensive weaponry eventually demanded a radical change in fortification. The concept of the angle-bastion revolutionised fortification. The high thick stone walls were replaced by lower, stone faced and shaped earth mounds so that cannon balls could be deflected or the energy absorbed on impact. The bastion was not a gun tower but a platform thrust forward to obtain as wide a field of fire as possible.
A horizontal system of defence had been developed. An alternative concept had been produced. The new technology had revolutionised the design of fortifications.
In modern times a new technology in the form of the microprocessor has been developed. Its effect on society has wide reaching implications and already there are fears that the microelectronic ‘revolution’ will affect employment, productivity, politics and education in an adverse way.
The question is ‘whether the existing system of adult education will be refined by this new technology, or will the new technology demand a revolution in adult education?’.
Crombie[1] when referring to the future of adult education in British Universities states that ‘in times of rapid change and sweeping transformations, an illustrious past is no guarantee of a secure future, and may even become an impediment when its basic assumptions need to be examined’. His re-examination of the liberal tradition leads him to a ‘catholic’ alternative in which universities more closely embrace adult education within their walls to provide for research and training.
Another alternative model, not in any way competing with Crombie’s view, is one in which the whole university becomes involved in the education of adults. Not a take-over bid, but a partnership in teaching and learning within the community. A partnership in which the resources of the University can be made available to all sectors of higher and adult education. Such resources will include microtechnology as a vehicle for education.
The concept of microtechnology within an education system is by no means new. Its impact upon the next ten years is under current discussion.
the exciting, speculative study of futurology has become a popular pastime mainly in the USA where change is traditionally regarded as a desirable yardstick of progress. Academics have long indulged in what appear to be sweeping and fanciful predictions of dramatic transformations of our daily lives, which were just round the corner. Until quite recently, these forecasts were widely regarded as little more than science fiction; or, at any rate, as changes which were too remote and gradual to cause immediate concern.
Now the truth is beginning to catch up. The massive arrival of the microprocessor in particular, is propelling the entire world economy into the next stage of scientific evolution with irresistible force and unprecedented acceleration.[2]
Johnson[3] states that the advance of technology poses serious questions relating to education and training. He suggests that there are problems in learning to handle such gadgetry in everyday life, yet conversely it is considered that as students become increasingly aware of microprocessor applications they will undoubtedly have an expectation of their use in education[4].
A third of a million applicants to the Open University per year are prepared and expect to use this new technology. There has been a concept of ‘openness’ developed over the last ten years in which broadcasts, home kits and group tutorials have been the hallmark of that University. Recently in response to the microprocessor CYCLOPS has been developed. Such education, however, which has fulfilled a perceived need has been a refining process of the conventional correspondence course using the new technology within that conventional model. It is still an institutional approach with institutional concepts, but has been successful, has had its place, without necessarily developing radical change or a new concept for the education of adults.
What then should be the response of the University Departments of Adult Education? We can continue to refine our existing models in an attempt to prepare for the future or we can rethink alternatives and make this, as Crombie suggests, our priority task. At the same time SCUTREA provides an opportunity for this rethinking so that any new alternatives can be researched within a national context. Just as radical changes in fortifications only took place when there was radical change in offensive weapons, so radical change in adult education can only take place when there is radical change of educational resource. Resource which on the one hand is enhanced by the microprocessor and yet on the other reduced by economic policy. This context must be understood and the opportunities realised so that a new concept can be developed.
The context in which adult education now finds itself is one of stringent economic cuts, and a recession of some magnitude. Such economic difficulties have arisen out of, amongst others, an energy crisis and increasing unrest in that area of the world which provides that energy. Such an energy crisis was forecast in ‘Blueprint for Survival’ in 1972 and dismissed then as hysterical nonsense. Had that information been heeded and alternative technologies researched then problems of today may well have been averted. Instead we have a society in which educational decisions, based on economic principles are developing spirals of educational deprivation not only in schools[5] but also in higher, further and adult education. It is in this climate that an alternative strategy for adult education should be found. Not as a last ditch stand, but with a sense of opportunity. In an increasingly technological society these real opportunities do exist. Suggestions of the likely outcomes of current technical developments have been proposed by C.E.T. in ‘The contribution of Educational Technology in Higher Education in the 1990s’ (See Appendix 1). The importance of these developments is recognised at school and college level with the recent injection of £9 million of government funds.
The danger is that these are refining influences using the new technology as an information giver, and, as the overhead projector replaced the blackboard so the visual display unit replaces the tutor. Our decision should be to tackle the process in the full knowledge that modern technology can take away the problems of ‘reaching’ institutions and people, but cannot replace entirely the tutor-student dialogue.
Providing that a new concept allows groups to work with and through the technology and to develop their own educational process, then the process becomes - not, how do we use the ‘new technology’ - but an experience in which it is essential.
In Surrey, a project is being launched which initially is based in the extra-mural area of adult education, and uses the expertise of a number of departments. The learning vehicle is an integration of the geological and biological sciences. Group activities linked with learning kits for both theoretical and practical investigations are to be made available and linked discussions, via the telephone, with other groups are planned. Computer links will enable the analysis of field work, which will be carried out by individuals or in small groups (see Appendix 2). This use of microtechnology enables more than one group to ‘tap in’ to the expertise of a tutor but also allows a certain amount of peer learning to occur giving a flexible educational experience.
The content of the software is immaterial to the concept. The packages however need development, evaluation and constant editing in whatever ‘discipline' they are written. The process for each may well be different and in each the curricula use of the technology justified. Perhaps university departments with the next ten years in mind, should together prepare for an alternative, providing a national network of interchangeable packages, ideas and information which will develop the interdepartmental support both within and between universities and provide a new initiative in the teaching and research in adult education.
Whether this is a true alternative remains to be seen. Research should evaluate both the learning potential for the student as well as acceptance of the student and tutor to a new process which can actually expand adult education in a contracting situation.
Our ‘Ivory Towers' may well be the medieval castles of yesteryear. The new bastions could be an all embracing national network of tutors maintaining academic links with colleagues whilst working within the community; at the same time reaching people in their homes through the microprocessor link yet personally interacting with them in small local groups.
The fact is we have the technology. Do we know how, and are we prepared, to use it, not as a refining influence, but as a true radical alternative in educating adults?
Appendix I
New Technical Developments
Technical development is now moving rapidly, especially as microelectronics begin both to affect existing systems and to permit the introduction of new systems. Much of the public impact of microelectronics will be in making ordinary things easier to use, cheaper and more reliable (for example, watches and clocks, scales, calculators) and it is likely that students, knowing that universities and polytechnics are contributing to the development of these new systems, will expect that the teaching and learning methods which they encounter in those institutions will keep pace with developments in commercial and domestic life.
The following outcomes can be expected in less than five years from current technical developments.
Improved microcircuits will make television and audio equipment (both receivers and recorders) cheaper, more robust and more reliable.
Digital recording techniques should greatly improve the reliability of video-recording systems.
Automatic control systems for multi-screen slide projection and synchronised tape/slide presentations will be cheaper and easier to use by students working alone. Remote control of a wide variety of electromechanical devices will be easier to achieve.
Television receivers will become more versatile. Circuits already being built in to permit their use with viewdata services could lead to their serving as receivers for a variety of data transmission systems via telephone lines, and as ‘intelligent terminals’ able to store small computer assisted learning programmes.
Improvements in the public switched telephone network will permit far more extensive use of the telephone for teaching and counselling (for example, through multiple connection techniques), for rapid access to computer-based information systems (for example, Prestel), for direct transmission of written and diagrammatic material (for example, by the telewriter or electronic blackboard), and for the transmission of more detailed texts and also photographs by telex and facsimile services.
The trend towards the availability or smaller, cheaper and more powerful computers will accelerate, making it possible for each teaching department (and eventually each group of students) to have its own micro-computer. This will permit much wider use of electronic management systems for such tasks as library and learning resource management, timetabling and scheduling, as well as a great development in computer-assisted and computer-managed learning. It will also encourage the wider use of computerised data bases for the storage and retrieval of, for example, the results of scientific research, permitting the individual research worker to cope more easily with the rapid expansion of scientific knowledge.
The use of word-processing systems will enable research information to be put directly into appropriately structured data bases, and retrieval programmes will enable searchers to be updated automatically with the results of new research.
It is apparent from this list that, over the next five years, there will be considerable growth in the technical facilities available for, and appropriate to, teaching in higher education. It is also apparent that students, who will come into increasing contact with the commercial and domestic applications of these developments, will have an expectation of their use in their education.
Appendix II
Purpose of Pilot Scheme
To give opportunity to evaluate a course using distance teaching techniques with two groups over a 20 hour period.
Viz.:
Tape slide programme
Printed group learning kits
(i) for theory
(ii)for practical investigations
To maintain discussion through a linked telephone system.
To give opportunity for visual display analysis through Computer Link up and interactive analysis
Teaching and learning vehicle
Fluvial processes, freshwater ecosystems and analysis by biotic and statistical method.
Comparative analysis of two streams. Systems in close proximity to the groups who are testing.
Objectives
to give opportunity to understand the relationships of geological, physical, chemical and biological components of the freshwater ecosystem. The analysis of these relationships and the effect of man upon the ecosystem.
Strategy
to use a Geologist and Biologist in a teamed situation.
Programme of Ewell Link with Dorking
Tuesdays 11.00 - 12.30 p.m.
In association with a Geologist (Martha Taft)
[1] A. Crombie, 1979, Does university adult education in Britain have a future?
[2] Editorial, BACIE Journal