[misc.handicap] Educational Applications of NREN

patth@sci.ccny.cuny.edu (Patt Haring) (10/02/90)

Index Number: 10685

"Educational Applications of the NREN," by Susan M. Rogers, director of the
Office of Distance Learning, Rochester Institute of Technology. Reprinted
from EDUCOM Review, Volume 25, Number 2, Summer 1990. Contact:
EDITOR@EDUCOM.BITNET

The National Research and Education Network (NREN) promises to "link
supercomputers, libraries, national databases, and academic and industrial
researchers into a unified information infrastructure."1 Indeed, the
benefits of interconnecting the nation's researchers sound exciting and
important. However, the "E" in NREN has not received much discussion
beyond vague references to "improving education" and "serving
educational needs," and the potential for educational applications at all
levels is in danger of being overlooked. Thus far, the existing Internet has
not been widely available to educators outside of large research
universities.  Rochester Institute of Technology has been connected to
BITNET for a number of years, but only recently to the Internet. Access is
expensive, and, as a comprehensive institution rather than a research
institution, RIT has not considered it a high priority.
	
However, equal access to educational opportunities and resources is a
mounting concern at the Institute, as it is to educators everywhere. While
the use of computer communication is somewhat new to education, for
those of us working to extend access through distance learning data
networks, it represents a powerful tool to expand and improve
instructional efforts.
	
It may be helpful to describe why access through distance learning is of
interest to educators today. I would like to talk about why I believe data
networks represent such a significant resource for instructional practice,
then provide some examples of RIT's early use of computer
communications. Finally I will briefly suggest the issues that must be
confronted if the national network is to fulfill its promise to education.

DISTANCE EDUCATION
Distance education is no longer a marginal issue for higher education; it is
becoming an important means of providing access to educational
opportunities and resources. At the same time, distance learning efforts
are fostering change in the structures and practices of educational
institutions. The demand for educational access solutions is being driven
by changes in three interrelated areas. The first is the student. This year,
for the first time, the nontraditional student has become part of the
majority; more than one half of the college students in this country are
over 25 years of age. They are busy, working adults with a great many
demands on their lives. Just as significantly, the profile of the younger
student has also changed. As early as 1988, nearly 70 percent of the
undergraduate students in this country were employed at least part-time.2
Students today are often minority students who, as Joshua Meyerowitz
points out, have been around the world via television before they were old
enough to cross the street.3 They are looking for an education organized
less around the limitations that confronted medieval Europe and more
around their own information and social needs.

Second is our evolving view of knowledge. The dramatic rate of change in
information is forcing us to realize that we don't need an educated
population, but rather we need to become a nation of learners who
combine work and education. In the midst of our knowledge explosion, it is
clear that knowledge is not finite or stable, and therefore schooling is
never over. Learning must become an active and ongoing process rather
than a test of memorization skills based on some accepted list of "core
knowledge."4

And, third, the availability of new communications technologies, which in
many ways are responsible for the changes mentioned above, now offers
exciting new opportunities and tools for teaching and learning. Traditional
modes of education are based on the need to gather around the scarce
resources of a learned person and printed thought. Today the world of
recorded knowledge is richer, more spontaneous, and more transportable
than it has been in the past. But we've yet to realize the impact that our
ability to store sound and moving images is having on scholarship and
education.

While I will argue long and hard for better educational use of recorded
sound and moving images, satellite television, and computers, I believe
that no technology offers more promise to educators than their
interconnection through telecommunications networks. To recall John
Dewey, education is communication. An article on good teaching in the
latest issue of Change magazine describes learning as the "result of both
internal and external conversation."5 Data networks have the potential to
interconnect students, teachers, and information resources in a
conversation of learning that is free from many of the constraints of time,
place, and physical handicap. The increasing digitalization of various
communication modes will make the network all the more significant for
education and cultural exchange.

COMPUTER COMMUNICATIONS AT RIT
In response to the challenges of a changing society, Rochester Institute of
Technology has attempted to capitalize on the opportunities presented by
communications technologies to meet the needs of new learning markets
and to serve its traditional students more effectively.  The Institute has
tried to remain flexible and creative in this endeavor. As a teaching
institution, many of the opportunities for funding innovative applications
of technology have not been as open to us as they are at research-
intensive universities. However, we are aware of the importance of new
technologies for the instructional process, both for improvement and
relevance of on-campus teaching and for extension of instruction to
students handicapped by disability or circumstance.

Because of its unmatched potential for engaging students in interaction
with the Institute, computer communication has become a significant part
of our distance learning programs.  There are several areas in which
computer communication has played an important role in the delivery of
distance education. For the most part, these instructional applications have
not been able to take advantage of the national networks, though many
faculty members and students use them on a daily basis for other
academic purposes. So while the potential is very exciting, there are many
limitations we face in fulfilling the network's promise to increase access to
learners and resources in isolated areas.

RIT has delivered courses at a distance for over ten years through a mix of
communications technologies, primarily print and video with supporting
communication via mail and telephone.  However, communications
difficulties between these learners and their instructors, advisers, and
other students continue to present a barrier to the students' success. While
on-campus students obtain answers to simple questions by going to an
instructor's office, walking to the bookstore, or asking a classmate, off-
campus, part-time learners who work, care for children, or have limited
mobility find it difficult to obtain answers to even easy questions. These
learners telephone their instructors, write their advisers, and drive to
campus after work, only to fail to get timely answers to their questions,
sign up for the wrong course, or arrive at the bookstore an hour after it
closes.  And, as significantly, the benefits to be derived from classroom
discussions are generally lacking or minimal in distance education.

Unhappy with the limited communication capabilities available to distant-
delivered students, we decided to augment existing telephone and mail
channels with computer-based communications. This system allows for
greater time and place independence and at the same time enhances
interactivity among groups and individuals. Using personal computers and
modems, learners are able to create and submit homework, receive
feedback, take a self-test, interact with their instructor and others, and
access software, library resources, and advisory information. Currently
twenty different distant-delivered courses use computer conferencing as a
part of their instructional delivery. RIT lends modems and software and
provides relatively simple documentation that allows students to focus on
the content of their course rather than the complications of computer
connectivity. Our results using asynchronous computer conferencing for
course discussions have been especially rewarding. No one is excluded
from participation due to time limitations of the class or communication
barriers. Students for whom English is not the first language have found
the conferences especially useful.

Courses making use of computer communication span the curriculum and
include on-campus courses. At RIT, there are also nearly a hundred open
conferences on issues such as College Life and The Women's Center, but by
far the most popular conference is Philosophy. You might not expect to find
this type of interest at a technical institute like RIT, but students and
faculty have been enabled to engage in serious, and not so serious,
discussions.

As the home of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, RIT is
particularly sensitive to students with special communication needs. In our
attempt to create a barrier-free learning environment for students, we
have explored the unique benefits of technology-based delivery systems
with disabled students and faculty. For example, a blind instructor uses
captioned video materials and computer-based communications (with a
speech board) to teach a course to classes of deaf and hearing students.
Hearing-impaired faculty have used computer conferencing as the main
course delivery system for their students. The extension of distance
learning to persons with physical impairments can give them access to
course content and at the same time increase their independence and self-
reliance.6 Rural school districts also face many difficulties in providing a
rich range of programs to their talented college-bound students. Small
enrollment and specialized-subject classes can be costly for small, rural
schools to support without sharing resources. RIT's KEY Program
interconnects students in three rural school districts 50 miles south of
Rochester to provide enhanced opportunities and resources. College credit
courses are offered through a mix of delivery techniques such as PC-based
electronic blackboards, computer and audio conferencing, facsimile
machines, and videotapes. Faculty work in collaboration with high school
teachers to provide a college-level learning experience.  Students are able
to take advantage of access to the college library and participate in out-of-
class conferences through dial-up modems. Through the use of
telecommunications, the KEY Program offers these rural   students many of
the same advantages available to students in larger, more urban school
districts.

POTENTIAL OF NETWORKS
Though the use of computer communications has increased our ability to
reach nontraditional learners, the long-distance costs, the complications of
connectivity, and the lack of standards and availability of end-user devices
have hampered our ability to offer courses to students at greater distances
from campus. Many of our specialized programs are of interest to learners
from small and mid-sized companies in rural areas of the state. We
currently use community colleges as sites for access to resources such as
labs and electronic blackboards. Connecting these community colleges to
the network would allow students to communicate with the faculty and
information resources at the Institute more equitably.

The two national institutions of higher education for the deaf--RIT and
Gallaudet University-have plans to use the Internet to offer some courses
cooperatively between campuses. Since both institutions are connected to
the Internet, the technical issues are minor, and faculty involved with the
project can appropriately concentrate on instructional concerns. Extension
of the expertise of these institutions through a national network could
facilitate access by deaf learners, as well as their parents, teachers, and
employers, who are widely dispersed throughout the country.

Distance learning continues to be a key for improving our nation's schools.
The Office of Technology Assessment Report, Linking for Learning, outlines
many of these efforts. While wonderful things are happening around the
country through the use of simple bulletin boards like KIDSNET, access to
end-user devices and connect-time charges are a significant problem for
isolated schools, to say nothing of the opportunity to engage in a full
conferencing system or access software and applications through a high-
speed connection. Yet these are the schools most in need of the library
resources and learning opportunities that distance learning can provide. In
RIT's KEY Program, for example, only a few users can take advantage of
computer connectivity since there is only one computer connected to a
modem. Still, some of the schools have reported over $500 phone bills each
month! This obviously limits the possibilities for more extensive programs
for teacher enhancement or programs for younger students. In working
with NYSERNET to connect these schools to the network, we estimate costs
of about $15,000 per year for 9.6 kb access for each school, including local
loop charges. Yet each school's entire library budget is only about $10,000
per year for books and periodicals. This obviously precludes access to the
rich resources available over the higher-speed data networks for most of
the nation's school districts.

SUCCESS FACTORS
As we look to new communications technologies to provide solutions to
instructional access problems, it is important to remember that the
technology is only a tool for excellent teaching.  Blackboards don't teach,
and neither do more advanced distance learning technologies.  However, it
is clear that technology does offer invaluable potential to educators today.
The networked computer offers the power to help good teachers engage
learners in meaningful, critical discourse on current knowledge. However,
we have a very long way to go before a national network can fulfill its
potential as an important educational tool. For the network to be a success
as an educational tool, it must be reliable, accessible, versatile, and
reasonable.

By reliable, I mean that the network cannot simply be "down." It must be
nearly as reliable as the telephone if educators are to use it. Even those of
us who advocate the use of computers and networks quake at the thought
of doing a live demonstration before a large group of people; there are
simply too many potential problems. Therefore, it is no wonder that
faculty are often less than enthusiastic about using a computer network to
deliver instruction.

It must be accessible to learners and institutions everywhere in this
country, not simply at a few large universities in a few large cities.
Restrictions on student access and use of computer systems need to be
seriously questioned. While all students at RIT receive user accounts with
no usage-time limitations, this is not true at many colleges and
universities. To be used well for education, the network must be accessible
and controllable by faculty and students. But the cost of connecting is not
trivial, and, as long as it remains high, most educational institutions that do
not receive research funds, including community colleges, primary and
secondary schools, and the more isolated schools and libraries, will not
have access. In other words, from an educational as opposed to a research
standpoint, those who need it most will not have access.

Versatility will also be a key issue. One of the greatest barriers we face
now in the use of computers to deliver education is the problem of using
mathematical notation and illustrations.  The language of much of what we
teach cannot be easily communicated as a text file. Remote access to
library resources, for example, is drastically limited by the inability to
move images.  While we overcome some of these problems now by
supplementing the delivery with videotapes and picturephones, the
integration of images and symbolic manipulation into the dialogue is vital
in some content areas. Various media are converging via digitization, but
their transmission still requires higher bandwidth than most educators can
afford.

Finally, the network must be reasonable, both in terms of cost and in ease
of use. Now, I'm not saying it has to be cheap and intuitive, though that
would of course be best, but it can't be more costly or complicated than
most other solutions. The systems must be reasonably simple to learn; a 3-
inch-thick manual filled with information about TCP-IP protocols will not
do! We are past the days when teachers were required to chop their own
firewood to heat the classroom.  Therefore institutions will need to provide
adequate support services for students and faculty as they learn to exploit
the power of the network. The tool for instruction cannot interfere with
the instruction itself.

There must also be a comprehensive way of finding out what's "out there."
This is a massive effort that will require ongoing support and incredible
patience. It is certainly a task that rivals the technical problems of building
a national network, yet it is no less critical to its success, particularly in
educational applications. It is also, however, an area where educators and
librarians might offer some assistance.

The network offers many promising opportunities for education. It
represents a step toward access to useful, current information and dialogue
at the time and place they are needed.  Properly utilized communications
networks can assist educators in the development of a population that has
the knowledge and understanding it needs to function effectively in a
global community. But opportunities for utilization of the network may be
wasted without the full collaboration of educators and nonresearch
librarians to help make it useful and accessible to all learners.

REFERENCES
1. Publication of the Coalition for the National Research  and Education
Network, (1989) p. 3.
2. McCarten, A., "Students Who Work," Change, Vol. 20, No. 5, September
1988, pp. 10-16.
3. Meyerowitz, J., No Sense of Place. New York: Oxford University Press,
1985.
4. Lave, J., "The Culture of Acquisition and the Practice of Understanding,"
Institute for Research on Learning Report No. IRL88-0007, May 1988.
5. Palmer, P., "Good Teaching," Change, Vol. 22, No. 1, January/February
1990, pp. 10-16.
6. For more about these efforts, see Coombs, N., "Using CMC to Overcome
Physical Disabilities."  In Mindweave, eds. Mason and Kaye. Oxford:
Pergamon Press, 1989.

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