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Opinion: Technology in Higher Education: Threat or Opportunity?

This opinion piece appeared in the April 2 Montreal Gazette
April 4, 2013
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Ollivier Dyens | Photo by Concordia University
Ollivier Dyens | Photo by Concordia University

Blended learning, Twitter, free, non-credit Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), is technology’s vast and undeniable presence a threat to a quality higher education experience? Should we fear it or embrace it? 

We live much of our lives online, we shop, bank, watch movies, play games and communicate on-line. But should we learn online as well? Can technology be used to improve the educational experience? Or is it the harbinger of a depressing future where anonymous institutions educate thousands of students who never meet their professors? 

Let’s establish some context:

Educational technology encompasses a whole range of possibilities including everything from PowerPoint to immersive virtual reality. 

Is online instruction any good? A meta-analysis of 50 studies performed in 2010 by the U.S. Department of Education found that university students and adult learners taking on-line courses “…performed modestly better, on average, than those learning the same material through traditional face-to-face instruction.”

Do online courses foster isolation? The most common complaint from our professors is the amount of work involved in answering and managing the endless stream of emails, comments, debates and questions from and among students!

Do students like online courses? This year, registration for online courses at Concordia reached 30,000. In 2010-11, they reached more than 36,000 at Université Laval. Across Canada, more than 200 university programs are now offered online.

On-line courses are more accessible to students who work full-time, are raising children or live in remote locations. These courses also allow for greater consistency where multiple sections are taught by different professors. Why do we need this accessibility? A 2012 study for the U.S. Department of Education found that 73 per cent of U.S. undergraduate students were not typical 18-22-year-old students studying full-time. In Québec, 70 per cent of university students work while attending university (40 per cent of post-secondary students in Canada do the same). A complex world demands multiple forms of accessibility to education.

But let’s be clear: Technology is not an end in itself but rather a means to an end. So the questions remain: does online instruction enhance learning? Does technology improve the transmission and acquisition of knowledge? Does it allow for an enriching academic experience for both students and professors?

At Concordia, we examine how technology impacts learning by focusing on these questions. In fact, technology forces us to assess and question our current pedagogical methods. What is the added pedagogical value of creating online courses? In what ways are they more appropriate for certain methods and disciplines? How can professors use social media to help students develop critical skills? Technology compels us to examine in detail what we do: How, when and why should one make use of technology to enhance student engagement.

The ultimate goal of higher education is to improve society. Everything we do, and that includes using technology, must help us get ever closer to that goal. Higher education is about providing women and men with the most effective and refined methods, tools and cognitive structures to achieve this. Technology can help us reach this goal.

This being said, courses are successful only when professors and students are comfortable with both the material taught and the delivery method used. Some professors use as much technology as possible, while others prefer a blackboard and some chalk. Some professors will “flip” their classroom, posting information online while using classroom time to debate and discuss, while others will tweet with their students as votes are being tallied in a provincial or federal election.

At Concordia, we recognize and celebrate this. It is up to the professor and his or her students to decide what best enhances the learning experience, what allows for the best development of critical and creative skills. And the application of technology in the educational experience can go far beyond online learning and into areas such as gaming for example. Concordia professor Jason Lewis working as co-director of the Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace research network, developed critical, linguistic and numeracy skills in young members of the Kahnawake community by helping them develop a video game based on their legends.

Education is too complex and complicated to be perfected by a single phenomenon. Technology is not its miracle solution, but rather the creation of endless new possibilities for passing on and accessing knowledge. It is unfortunate that this phenomenon was hardly discussed at the Quebec government’s Higher Education Summit, while it is fully supported by the largest Canadian and American universities, such as McGill, MIT, Harvard and Stanford. It’s time to start talking … we can even do it online.

Ollivier Dyens is Vice-Provost, Teaching and Learning, at Concordia University

Related links:
•    e.SCAPE conference
•    Centre for Teaching and Learning Services
•    Vice-Provost, Teaching and Learning
•    Ollivier Dyens’ faculty profile



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