"Being Digitally Educated, Dewey, Technology, and Distance Learning" - by Michael Brint, Associate Professor and Director, Integrated Program in Humane Studies
Michael Brint reminds us of Nicholas Negroponte's emphasis on experiential (learn by doing) and constructivist (creating one's own bases of understanding) approaches. Michael connects Negroponte's comments to the positions on education held by John Dewey earlier in this century, and claims that many modern educators do not embrace Dewey's notion that learning is very social and relational in nature. Michael suggests that local community and small college systems might best be supplemented with workplace learning centers, and that "…the physical proximity of students and faculty would help to embody learning and knowledge as a social process."
"The Visual Arts, the Liberal Arts and Information Technology" - by Claudia J. Esslinger, Professor of Studio Art
Claudia Esslinger tells us how information technologies can enhance interdisciplinary approaches, especially for students of the arts who are skillful visual learners. Claudia echoes Dewey in claiming that visual art projects are social and political in nature, often involving a certain playfulness in problem-solving as a mode of inquiry. "Teachers are forever students and together we are partners in inquiry." She predicts that distance learning may preclude the much needed development of a culture of learning.
"TIRED: distance learning -
WIRED: proximity learning" - by David Marcey, Associate Professor of Biology
David Marcey gives us examples of proximity learning in modern biology courses where undergraduate research, collaboration and co-publication are staples of coursework. He also claims that he finds "adsurd the notion that IT-mediated distance learning will largely replace the interactions that occur between me and my students as they come to understand the macrcomolecular machinery that runs the chemistry of life."
"Proximity Learning, Electronic Orality, and an Ergonomics of the Mind" - by Timothy B. Shutt, Associate Professor of English
Tim Shutt notes the importance of non-linear presentation of texts and suggests that alternate forms - even digitally recorded speech - are deserving of much deeper consideration in our literature. Tim suggests that technology and indeed even literacy are tools, not ends. "We are all hard wired to speak and to listen...proficient reading and writing are rare."
"Women, Lost in Cyberspace?" - by Laurie A. Finke, Professor of Women's and Gender Studies
Laurie Finke admonishes us not to abstract our new technologies from the social networks that create and use them. New technologies may give us the chance to break free of the constraints set by hierarchies and inequities, in particular along lines of gender.
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