Constraints-Cum-Challenges in ICT Education In The Philippine Setting
Felix Librero
4th National Congress of the Commission on Higher Education
May 17-18, 2001
Manila Midtown Hotel, Manila.
The over-all theme of this Congress is Higher Education in the Knowledge-Based Economy. It is as timely as it is important, for the order of the day has something to do with issues like knowledge management, knowledge-based economy, e-something, and open learning and distance education. The directions for education in the future are now here with us today. Future scenarios in education are no longer simply on the drawing board; the future has arrived ahead of schedule. We have to rethink where we are heading, and make the finer adjustments quickly.
The sub-theme for this concurrent session is Managing Challenges and Constraints in ICT Education. I shall, therefore, try to focus on the issues that I have grappled with from the point of view of the social sciences. Hence, I have titled my paper Constraints-cum-Challenges in ICT Education in The Philippine Setting.
- The New Learning Paradigm
Sometime in 1995, the International Council on Distance Education conducted what it called an "anecdotal, worldwide survey to determine the nature, reality and pace" of the shift in the learning paradigm (ICDE, 1996). The survey noted the following clear signs:
a. shift from objective to a constructed knowledge;
b. shift from an industrial to a knowledge-based society;
c. shift in educational missions from that of providing instruction to providing learning; and
d. shift from "current college and university models to as yet undetermined structures."
Over the last five years, the fifth observation of ICDE has become very clear. The "undetermined structure" that was referred to at the time of the ICDE survey has come to be know as the "virtual" learning structure. Similar observations were made by experts from the information and communication technology sector at about the same time period.
According to Garmer and Firestone (1996), due to the new information and communication technologies (ICT) "the paradigm for learning is shifting away from the traditional notion that 'knowledge' is transferred from teacher to student within the confines of the classroom."
Today, learners must now take control over their education. And the teachers must now let go of their authority over the classrooms and function as facilitators of learning. Quite naturally, for many, this is the difficult transition. Still we must do it.
- The Need to Retool Ourselves
We must upgrade our skills, particularly in the use of the new ICTs. The term that many use when referring to the need to upgrade our skills is re-tooling, but many also are not comfortable with this term as it sounds too mechanistic. It is as if the new technologies dehumanize people. We can use another term, re-skilling. This sounds too manipulistic, however.
The more important issue is, what do we do with those who refuse to be retooled, or those who cannot be retooled? Luckily, for all of us institution administrators and knowledge managers, there is an old technology that is perfect for this problem. It is called RETIRING.
In a more serious note, the cognitive and motor skills that we need today are quite different from those we needed just a few decades ago. Today we have to learn to understand and use new technologies that change quickly. In fact, by the time we just learned to use the computer, somebody changed the model and added new features that required six more months to learn. And by the time you are able to understand the new features and feel you're ready to use the machine, you are faced with the need to purchase a new machine that would certainly require more learning to manipulate. And this continues on and on that one wonders if there ever will be an end to it all. Obviously, there is no end to this learning and relearning, as long as new technologies are developed. It's a fact of our professional lives.
- Developing Skills for Independent Learning
The new learning paradigm highlights an important issue. There is a need for learners to upgrade their skills, particularly skills to learn on their own. This largely requires ability to seek, understand, and use information, which, in turn, requires the ability to use technology.
In today's world, one must be computer literate to gain access to information and new knowledge. The use of computers in education is by no means new. There is quite a number of success stories, but there are also failures. Perhaps one indicator of the magnitude of use of computers in the educational enterprise is the proliferation of computer-based programs such as computer-assisted instruction (CAI), computer-based learning (CBL), computer-based training (CBT), computer-assisted learning (CAL), computer-managed learning (CML), and so forth.
Darby (1955) has teasingly referred to this proliferation of three-lettered acronyms as an indication that "something has gone badly wrong" in the use of computers in teaching. Still, it must be pointed out that there is rich information in the scientific literature in support of the positive influence of computer technology in enhancing learning. Computer technology has, in fact, facilitated independent learning skills among the youth of today.
If you think this analysis is inaccurate, check with your six-year old son or daughter tonight. Chances are that he or she has already mastered all that needs to be known about the computer software you bought yesterday, while you still have the next few months to learn it.
- Nuances of Open Learning and Distance Education
These two concepts are clearly influencing the manner in which education is being delivered today not only in the Philippines but worldwide. Open learning is a philosophy of access to education, while distance education is a system of delivering learning materials. They are different, but they go together in many cases.
Through the Internet, transborder delivery of courseware has become commonplace worldwide. This has enabled even unknown educational institutions elsewhere to link up with any Philippine institution in order to offer degree programs to students in the country. This is called twinning. Content of these programs is something we do not know. What we are certain of is that educational institutions in other countries trying to offer their wares to learners in this country are more interested in the economic returns than in the education of Filipinos.
This phenomenon is an economic advantage to those institutions offering the programs because they can serve more students worldwide and the more students they have the better for them financially. However, it is a disadvantage to the learners because any courseware is culture-based and irrelevance of the instructional material to the specific circumstance of the learner can become a problem.
To counter this disadvantage of transplant programs from abroad, the U.P. Open University is now offering the UPOU Graduate Education Enrichment Program (GEEP). This program provides graduate students from various higher education institutions in the country the opportunity to enroll in over 100 courses listed in 16 graduate programs so that they can enrich their current programs in their respective universities.
We are inviting you all to ask your graduate students to enroll in one or perhaps two courses offered in the distance mode by the U.P. Open University, and credit these courses in their programs in your institutions. Naturally, they remain your students and will be your graduates. They simply cross register in our courses under this program. All they do is present to the UPOU permission from your registrars to enroll in courses they have selected, perform the requirements of the courses, and pass the examinations required by these courses. Then they get credit for the courses they enrolled in.
- Convergence of Technologies
An important trend in information technology (Buttler, 1997) will continue to provide opportunities for improved mediated delivery of instruction. This trend is the convergence of technologies. According to Buttler (1997), "convergence, or 'coming together at a point,' describes the growing changes reshaping information technology (IT) today." She observes that cable companies and telecommunications companies (known as telcos) are competing for voice and data traffic, personal computers (PCs) are now competing with main frame and mid-range computers, and the rapid spread of IT is becoming a global competition.
On another note, the convergence of technologies is also changing the manner in which learning materials have to be designed. In general, more senses are becoming involved in the learning process and sensory-based activities are now more interrelated and interactive. This phenomenon has improved the quality of learning among the youth.
Two ICT technologies that have fantastic potentials in the innovative delivery of instruction are the Internet and teleconferencing.
The Internet has ushered in a new dawn in the design and delivery of instruction in ways never before experienced by both teachers and learners. Interactivity between teacher and learner, which is perhaps the most critical feature of classroom face-to-face instruction that many educators are unwilling to forego, has become a virtual reality through the Internet. Countless courses, even complete degree programs, are now offered online and these are all designed to be interactive. The more we use the Internet in the delivery of courses, the more we realize that we have not completely understood its power and potentials for both formal and nonformal education.
- Moving the Expertise, Not the Expert
Given developments in the electronic communications sector over the last couple of decades, we are simply just beginning to experience dramatic changes in the education sector. That's how much time it takes the education sector to respond to developments in other sectors.
The magic of teleteaching and teleconferencing has provided learners opportunities to interact with the experts without having to expend too much time and resources to get those experts to the classrooms. It has not always been possible to physically get experts into the classrooms. But due to the fixative and distributive properties of the communications media we have been able to bring known experts into the classroom and into the work stations of learners.
Electronic communications has made it possible to expose learners to known experts across distances. This has somehow created a kind of contagion between expert and learners. One influences the other without either one consciously knowing it. Such is the power of the new information and communication technologies. It is now the responsibility of instructional designers to take advantage of this contagion in introducing instructional strategies that facilitate learning of an increasing amount of information over a shorter period of time.
- Technological Dependence
Perhaps the most scary phrase in modern times is: the computer is down. This is a clear evidence that, indeed, we are prisoners of our technologies. When we become too dependent on technological hardware, we risk our very own natural creativity. But then again, creativity facilitated by technological advancement is creativity still, and this is what we need to make technology work for us.
There is another side to this. Dependence on hardware technology can and does mean dependence on countries that produce the new machines. We are unable to produce machines the way the endowed countries do. We can only wait to get our hands on these hardware that they have developed. We become users, not producers.
The other side of the technological debate deals more with software rather than hardware. It is in the hardware department that we cannot compete, for obvious reasons. But in the software department, Filipinos are in a very good position to make their presence felt worldwide. It is perhaps high time that we develop software technologies, other than viruses, that can be beneficial to the world. There are a number of computer programs developed by Filipinos that have in fact become very crucial programs in the computer world.
- Death of Distance
Given the developments in telecommunications and computerization, communicating to anywhere in the world is now done in real time. Distance is no longer an important variable in communications worldwide. With your cellular phone that has roaming capability, you can talk to anyone anywhere from anywhere. The world has truly become a global village.
This is the death of distance, facilitated by three transport revolutions. According to experts, we have had three transport revolutions. First the revolution of the transport of goods, then the revolution of the transport of people, then today, the revolution of the transport of ideas and information (Sjoberg, 1999). The third revolution has raised a number of questions, two of which have something to do with education and training. One, how do we deal with the global deluge of information? Two, how will our universities adjust their academic programs and courses to prepare their students for the new world?
That we have overcome the barrier of distance through the magic of modern telecommunications is a feat that has influenced the way we share information. This shall continue to have untold effects on the way we deliver education.
- Virtuality
Technically defined, virtuality means the state of being something specified in essence or effect but not in name (International Webster's Dictionary). We would actually understand it better if we return to the term virtual, which means "something not truly real but only potentially so" (Mantovani, 1996). "Virtually," means almost entirely. Virtual reality, according to Mantovani, is an "environment of experience and of communication."
Today we hear the terms virtual classroom, virtual university, virtual something. This condition of virtuality is a result of the use of information and communication technologies to facilitate access to information and knowledge that are scattered in various sources.
Virtuality is a condition that has made possible access to educational services from various education providers. This works well when the educational institutions themselves enter into consortium arrangements and agree on certain procedures to make their resources such as library holdings and courses accessible to their respective students.
- Dance of Change
In his book titled The Dance of Change, Peter Senge highlighted three challenges in sustaining momentum in learning organizations. The challenges of initiating, of sustaining transformation, and of redesigning and rethinking.
In brief, Senge says that we introduce innovations of transformations into a learning organization, sustain those innovations or transformations, and rethink the governance that will suit the innovations or transformations that have been put in place. The net result is continuing change.
Traditionally, educational institutions have not always been quick to adopt innovations. This characteristic, though, may not really be disadvantageous at all. Having been slow, the education sector has benefited much from the technological developments, for instance, in the military establishment. For example, the overhead projector was an inheritance of educators from the military during the second world war. More recently, the education sector has benefited greatly from the Internet, which is an original master piece of the military.
What has happened, however, is that the education sector has simply been recipient rather than generator of technological advances.
That is to say, the engineers have always said: "Educators, here is a piece of gadget, why don't you use it in your teaching?" Now, I propose to turn the table around and tell the engineer: "Mr. Engineer, here is an educational concept that we want the people to learn quickly. Design for us an appropriate piece of equipment that will facilitate how the concept will be learned."
Conclusion
To conclude, I wish to mention again that the manner in which we deliver our educational services and the way our students learn are influenced by the following crucial issues:
- The new learning paradigm now forces students to take control of how they learn, and the teachers to let go of their control of the learning process in the classrooms and begin to function as facilitators of learning.
- Our students, even immediately after graduation, find the need to retool themselves to be more productive in the current work environment. Equally important, of course, is that we ourselves must retool if we want to be effective facilitators of learning.
- We must help our students develop independent learning skills as it is not possible for us to constantly supervise how they learn within the confines of our classrooms.
- We must understand the strengths and weaknesses of open learning and distance education, and develop our capabilities to undertake distance learning activities for this is the direction toward which educational institutions worldwide are moving.
- The concept of technological convergence must enable us to take advantage of the strengths of the new information and communication technologies in order that we may be able to develop and deliver educational materials more creatively, effectively, and efficiently.
- In the past we have been preoccupied with transporting experts so they can share their expertise. This has been very expensive. Now, we have the technologies and skills to move the expertise without transporting the experts. This improves our effectiveness and efficiency.
- For quite sometime yet, and until such time that we shall be able to develop our own educational delivery technologies, we shall continue to be dependent on others for the technologies that we use. This is not necessarily bad, but we must learn to determine and introduce refinements that might be needed so that such technologies become more workable in our context.
- Given the new information and communication technologies, theoretically we are no longer concerned with distance. In other words, distance is dead. Still, in the Philippines where we have to contend with the archipelagic nature of the country, it will take some time yet before we actually are able to absolutely drop physical distance as a variable in our delivery of educational services.
- We should look forward to the day when all of our institutions are effectively interconnected electronically and working together thereby establishing a virtual university system out of all the institutions of higher education in the country. This can be easily done now, except that it will take an enormous amount of resources to do so. However, it does not mean that those interested cannot begin to experiment on possible means of putting in place a virtual university system. As far as I know, Ateneo, De La Salle, Mapua, UST, and UP have started efforts toward this direction.
- Finally, our universities shall continue to innovate, to sustain these innovations, and to redefine the governance that shall be appropriate in the implementation of these innovations. In other words, we must be prepared to change continually.
I am happy to leave these ideas with you.
Maraming Salamat po.
REFERENCES:
Butler, Janet. 1997. Information Technology: Converging Strategies and Trends for the 21st Century. Charleston, South Carolina: Computer Technology Research Corp.
Darby, Jonathan. 1995. Education in the year 2000: will we recognize it? In Percival, Land and Edgar Nevill (eds.), Computer Assisted and Open Access Education. London: Kogan Page. pp. 2-6.
Garmer, Amy K. and Charles M. Firestone. 1996. Creating a Learning Society: Initiative from Education and Technology. Washington, D.C.: The Aspen Institute.
International Council on Distance Education. 1996. The Educational Paradigm Shift. Report of the Task Force of the ICDE Standing Committee of Presidents. Lillehammer, Norway, June 10, 1996.
Mantovani, Giuseppe. 1996. New Communication Environments From Everyday to Virtual. London: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
Senge, Peter. 1999. The Dance of Change. New York: Doubleday.
Sjoberg, Goran. 1999. Less mass communication, more Intranet, more person-to-person, in a three-shift world - What will be the communication profession be like tomorrow? Information Societies: Crises in the Making? Orbicom International Secretariat, April 1999. pp. 341-346.
