Re: Distance Learning

["Daniel L. MacIsaac" <Dan.MacIsaac@Nau.Edu>]

> I remember when 16 mm silent movies and then movies with sound
> promised similar hopes for education.   One teacher with state-of-
> the-art apparatus and lots of time to prepare in a well equipped studio 
> was expected to produce a flawless lesson that could replace 
> thousands of the average teachers  throughout the country.   
>  	It didn't happen.

....etc. ad nauseum

....well, let me disabuse your expectations now: THERE WILL NEVER BE A
"MAGIC PILL" SOLUTION TO EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS.  This is a flawed line of
inquiry, because it makes gross and naive oversimplifications of the 
complexities inherent in educational participants and environment.

This also means "horse race" scenarios comparing educational innovations
are similarly flawed in this naive conception. Yes, it is possible to improve
educational practice and experience, we are doing that all of the time.  No,
we cannot use magic pills as selected by horse races.  The rules are different
from physical science when determining efficacity.

This is also the reason we see cycles in educational research, with "old"
ideas resurrected and iterated all of the time, in improved fashions.  In
physical science consistentency of ideas and the use of the same principles
in an organized whole body of theory is lauded.  We need to do the same with
educational theory when we see older ideas improved upon, rather than 
dismissing or trivializing these as "failed magic bullets" -- they are not.

Dan MacIsaac, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Northern AZ Univ
danmac@nau.edu  http://www.phy.nau.edu/~danmac