Communications of the ACM
How Government Policy Drives E-Learning
Credit: U.S. Senate
While governments have always played an important role in designing a nation's educational system, the rapid pace of technological development means that legislators and agencies that create public policy are having a difficult time keeping up. This creates a challenge for policymakers, who must try to write policy that won't become outdated. It's also a challenge for educators, who must coordinate their tactics with a strategy that recognizes the effects of emerging new technology. It is therefore important for educators, policymakers, and everyone involved in educational technology to examine current policies, to understand why these policies function as they do, and to try to predict how policy now being written will affect technology and learning over the next ten years.
In terms of education-related legislation, the current approach of U.S. lawmakers has been to ensure that more students graduate with a high quality degree. Creating a growing pipeline of high school graduates who are fully capable of going on to college, however, complicates an already existing problem: brick-and-mortar institutions struggling to make room for the students they have. Classrooms, labs, and lecture halls have finite limits, and when those are reached, students will have to be turned away. The need to stretch seating capacity beyond the physical limitations of existing buildings has led to a new focus on e-learning, which is a powerful tool for tailoring curriculum to ensure that students have easier access to more kinds of courses. The document that specifies how the U.S. will go about implementing technology to address these educational needs will be the National Educational Technology Plan. If the U.S. is to become the top nation in the world in college graduates by 2020, it must leverage technology and create the most engaging learning environment possible.
The current economic downturn has increased the focus on the value of post secondary education for the individual and for the nation as a whole. Yet a number of states face financial crises, and their need to cut back on faculty positions, postpone new construction, and cut programs at state colleges and universities has compromised the ability of those institutions to meet their commitments to the students that depend on them for an education. Due to these financial challenges, many people believe that e-learning provides a viable alternative to physical institutions. Bandwidth, while not free, does cost much less than new buildings and the chairs, desks, and whiteboards needed to fill them. Furthermore, e-learning can ease some of the economic strain on students, as it reduces commuting expenses and allows for a flexible timetable that accommodates more job options. It also creates the opportunity for new educational models, such as a competency-based model that would allow students with greater competency to go faster or further through a course of study.
From eLearn Magazine
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