Class Discussion (Geography 350)

Introduction: The President of this University is taking some leadership in addressing issues which are close to some of us personally in this particular class, and which also concern us as part of our class themes.

[Richard McCormick, ST/PI April 28, 1996, E1] "New Technologies make it possible, and new demands make it imperative, for education at all levels to be less place-bound and time-bound than in the past. Adult students who are trying to keep up in their fields, while balancing family and job commitments, need the tools of 'distance learning' -- interactive video, e-mail communication with teachers and fellow students, access to Internet research capabilities, and so on. They don't have the luxury of long residential programs on central campuses. These same tools can bring UW scientific and historical research into eighth-grade classrooms in Kitsap County...."

Question: What would you, as a grassroots member of the educational community, as somebody in the "daily trenches" of work, single-parent family life, long-distance commuting and college courses, tell the President as to how well communications technologies are presently able to overcome time and space constraints in higher education?

Follow-Up Question: Given that your initial statements were largely in favor of the use of educational technology as long as at least some face-to-face communication and human contact are preserved, the question now might be: What are the proper criteria for deciding which educational transactions (and at which occasions?) should be conducted electronically and which personally? However, some other points were brought up in your statements: To what extent do you agree or object?

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