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Digital Diploma Mills
>From reading in the first email that was sent out on Noble that he refuses
to use email or any technology in his classes, I was already somewhat
biased against him. I was afraid that he was just flat-out against
technology in the classroom in any form. After reading "The automation of
higher education" my opinion isn't very different.
I don't disagree with him on every point. The two phases of the
commoditization of the university (first of research, now of the
educational function) is sufficently backed up. Although I wonder, what's
wrong with that? Perhaps I'm just naive, but hasn't higher education
always been a commodity? I mean the universities don't provide the
classes and degrees out of the goodness of their hearts.
Noble focuses on this second phase of commoditization, of instruction, and
doesn't entirely convince me we need to be so alarmed. He sets up the
promoters as vendors, corporate training advocates, university
administrators and " ubiquitous technozealots." A premise behind his
whole argument is that these virtual universities will REPLACE the "brick
and mortar" universities. Again, maybe I'm being naive, but I don't see
this happening at all. I have always seen these online courses as a
supplement to inclass teaching. As far as I know (I don't have any data
to back this up) enrollement "offline" has continued to increase. Those
students that take classes offline will always take them offline. It's
not the courses (or even the degree for many) that draw freshmen to
campus! It's going off to college, partying and getting drunk. Those
taking the online courses take them because they are convienient. I don't
see the online courses as a replacement of offline teaching.
I thought it was funny how he whined about teachers becoming "instantly
and continuously accessible." This is happening in so many fields! And
his "inevitable extension of working time" is also a common phenomenon in
today's world. I do not agree with his claim that "Once faculty put their
course material online, moreover, the knowledge and course design skill
embodied in that material is taken out of their possession, transferred to
the machinery and placed in the hands of the administration." I mean,
it's like apples and oranges. Teaching online is just different from
teaching in the classroom. Why can't there be both? I also disagree with
his statement: "the new technology of education, like the automation of
other industries, robs faculty of their knowledge and skills, their
control over their working lives, the product of their labor and
ultimately, the means of their livelihood."
His assertion that students do not want faculty to "make fuller use of web
site technology" is just false in my eyes. Perhaps it was true in 1997,
but today, students like having schedules and syllabi online.
Perhaps if I didn't think he was such a Luddite, I might appreciate his
argument more. And while some of his fears seem somewhat valid, I don't
think that the three years since he wrote this have helped to prove his
point.
Hannah