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Argument: Open universities are a good example of technology's positive use in education
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Argument's parent debate(s)
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Supporting evidence
- Sir John Daniel (expert). opening statement. The Economist Debate Series: Education. October 14, 2007 - "Successful ways of introducing technology and media to education tackle this challenge head on: cutting costs, increasing volume and assuring quality all at the same time.
- The best examples are the open universities. The UK Open University has created a multi-media learning system that enrols 200,000 students annually, operates at a lower cost than other UK universities, and ranks 5th, just above Oxford University, on aggregate ratings of teaching quality. In a quite different context India’s Indira Gandhi National Open University enrols 1.5 million students and places 17th in the latest web ranking of universities on the sub-continent.
- The secret of the open universities’ success is twofold. First, they tackle real problems, in this case scaling up educational provision and taking it to people who cannot access conventional teaching. Second they combine people and technology, using the principles of specialisation, division of labour, and economies of scale, to create new learning systems that are scaleable at low cost with consistent quality.
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Technology may have the greatest positive impact in the distance learning model
- 474549 (online debater). Economist Debate Series: Education. October 18, 2007 - "If technology is to help increase the quality and reduce the cost of education, the distance model Sir John favors is clearly better. The best teachers can deliver lectures to a limitless number of students. Technology, for example streaming video over the internet, can help enormously. The Open University depended on an older 'new' technology, broadcast television.There are, I think, at least two reason that the Open University model is not more widely adopted, both arising from the resistance among teachers (like myself) to this model. First, we would likely need, at least in the short term, far fewer teachers, so my job may therefore be at risk. Second, I enjoy the regular class room social contact. I am happy to tinker with new technologies, but in the context of the traditional classroom model they have marginal benefits. The distance model is where great gains may be made and technology is an essential component of such a model."
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