This syllabus presents a task within a task, so-to-speak. It sets the agenda for TF4078, Technology and Education in Western Culture. It does so, however, through a scenario in which you, participants in this course, are set to work as designers of another closely related course. Thus, by participating in TF4078, you join a team developing an on-line introduction to the interactions between technology and education in contemporary culture. Here is the call for this design.
Technology and Education should be an on-line course, university-wide in scope, that students can take on campus or at a distance. It should provide a broad, practical introduction to the interactions between technology and education in contemporary culture. This introduction should concentrate on information technologies as they are developing through the late 20th century and into the 21st. Developers of it should conceive of education broadly - the process by which people acquire their culture.Through this charge, participants in TF4078 have a scenario that may or may not be fictitious. Either way, it defines the agenda of this course, the one you are taking, not designing. May 4th, as a group, you should submit a plan for Technology and Education, along with accompanying rationales and prototypes.Prospective participants in this on-line introduction, Technology and Education, will be diverse in interest, background, and professional commitment. Despite this diversity, they are all wired to a major university. Some are studying in the graduate school of arts and sciences, concerned for the effects of information technologies on their fields of scholarship. Many are in the graduate school of education, preparing for service as educators in schools that are rapidly changing as people use new technologies to alter old practices. A few are students of public affairs, the law, and business, seeking to grasp how these changes will affect public life.
Course designers should presume that all participants seek to develop clearer insight into how technological innovations are likely to affect potentiality and practice in education and to acquire a foundation of skills that may enable them to exert leadership in shaping the educational uses of technology.
In all probability, the introduction should be constructivist in pedagogical style, permitting each participant to engage the subject, to inquire into it, and to form his or her ideas about it. Internal standards for the introduction, however, should be high and demanding - students in it should feel challenged to extend their knowledge and abilities significantly. Most importantly, the introduction should have cultural depth. The study of change and innovation provides people with no excuse for ignoring the difficult realities of human experience. Complex structures of meaning are at issue. Social problems of great complexity and scope require solution.
The university administration recognizes that the educational implications of information technologies are portentous, affecting the institution's long-term prospects, and consequently they will allocate the resources needed to implement Technology and Education, provided they receive a convincing plan for it. They have asked you to submit a plan, with accompanying rationales and prototypes, on May 4, 1995. A decision on going ahead will follow quickly, with the cross-university on-line introduction, Technology and Education, ready for the Spring term, 1996.