A Point of View © 1996
By Paul V. Montesino, PhD, MBA, ICCP
A couple or three articles ago, I started with this sentence: “Victor Hugo said: ‘Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.’” This time I want to revisit the issue from another angle… or Point of View.
In the late nineteen nineties I completed the dissertation required to receive a doctoral degree in Computer Education. At the time I was already teaching technology university courses. We used a teaching platform named Blackboard. This software product gave us the ability to create or borrow PowerPoint presentations for our classroom work. It also provided class assignments and class depositories where students could deliver their own work. I believe the platform is still in use. My grandson, a college graduate since 2019, is familiar with it. Perhaps you are as well.
My dissertation title was “Effect of Electronic Portfolio Assessments On The Motivation And Computer Interest of Fourth And Fifth Grade Students In A Massachusetts Suburban School.” It involved teachers and elementary students who were using student’s assessment software in their school for the first time and were willing to participate, with their parents’ and School Committee permission, in my research.
Two so-called “constructs”, or subjects in research parlance, were motivation of boys and girls and, in the case of girls, interest in computers. The latter had been suggested by the school teachers. At the time there was some preoccupation about the lack of women computer professionals and whether accessibility to computer technology was the most important reason. The teachers wanted to know if more exposure would generate more interest. Pre and post exposure to my computer research project showed that indeed their experience had increased interest on the part of the girls. Of all the books I’ve published, that dissertation at my Alma Mater’s database, has been the most successful, and has been used by many researchers in business and academia all over the world.
Most of the work I did with my university during that dissertation project time was done online, what is technically called “distance learning”. Based in Fort Lauderdale, FL, I was required to be physically present only several weeks a year, when I would meet with Faculty and my fellow “distance learning” students who lived all over the United States. We called ourselves “pioneers,” because we knew we were entering a new educational domain with teaching and learning online requirements never practiced.
“Never,” like in “until a virus hit and would force all of us to live remotely online.” I don’t have to tell you that moment just arrived. Today we practice online working at the office; we visit our doctors online and worship online as well. Our employers use our water and electricity at home, and the water cooler remains as empty as the conversations that we no longer carry on there. And last, but not least, our vision of students’ distance learning has become a reality and challenged our stability. If you listen closely you can hear the arguments in favor or against.
We cannot, for instance, practice distant gardening. You have to plant a seed that will grow, and the soil must be cared for to avoid poison ivy, poison oak, poison sumac, weed grass and other environmental threats to the plants. But there is another element that is needed and must be considered: the willingness to learn, the receptivity and participation of the learner.
Typically, when we must choose between two or more options we end only with one, but distance learning is a new idea that must adapt to both, not to either or. We are all too familiar with the anecdotal comments about teachers who must supply their own pencils and books to help their students, and how their own eyes and feelings can sense if a student “is getting it.” That is more difficult with distance learning/teaching, not only because is hard to notice, but also difficult to respond. And never mind the lack of technology by the isolated physically or economically, even culturally, students and those whose parents are unable to provide the support needed by their children.
Going back to my first sentence about the timeliness of an idea makes me wonder if we are ready to care for the distant, whether children or adult. Society has to make a huge investment in the infrastructure needed by an online world dimension. And it must be prepared to offer us an opportunity to remain close to each other as we move away from each other. We cannot lose our human warmth because we become wire cold. Humanity is about to go through another evolution, one we never dreamed. The result is anyone’s guess.
And that’s my point of view today.
