virtual education in universities. an emerging organization in the knowledge society
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Virtual education in universities. An emerging organization in the Knowledge Society. Jordy Micheli Sara Armendáriz. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Virtual education in universities. An emerging organization in the
Knowledge Society
Jordy MicheliJordy Micheli
Sara ArmendárizSara Armendáriz
Paper for the Policy Workshop: “Informing the Knowledge Society - Feeding SSH Research into Policy Design in Latin America and Europe”, organized by EULAKS, London, September 23-24, 2010
• This study is about emerging organizations within the
universities, oriented to implement an innovative process
increasingly pervasive into the knowledge society: the virtual
education.
• The document has preliminary results based on a
questionnaire applied to virtual education officials from 34
universities in some countries of Latin America
• Virtual education is the teaching-learning process that takes
place, partly or totally, through the Internet.
• There are two possibilities in this process: learning conducted
completely online as a substitute for learning with the
physical presence of the teacher, or learning entailing a
combination of physical presence and the Internet (blended
learning).
• VE is a set of practices based on different technologies within the ICTs; some place more emphasis on mass products and others focus on personal experience.
• The former are oriented towards the external markets of the university institution, either continuing education or graduate school. The latter rather look for internal spaces allowing a relation of greater experimentation and face-to-face contact with students.
• In both cases the challenge is to create virtual products: information contents and didactic sequences for learning and transformation into knowledge.
• The degree of virtualization of the contents and sequences may define the complexity of virtual education.
• In universities, there is an increasing presence of formal
structures, such as departments, sections, offices, whose
function is to develop virtual education systems
• VE System: information technology-based environments, in which the
learner s interaction with learning materials , instructors, and /or peers are
mediated through technology
• Virtual Education Structures: structures within the
organization of the university that are responsible for
managing and expanding the VE System.
• The structures created for the practice of virtual education are
(the ?) innovative nuclei of universities. They are responsible
for technological learning and its translation into
organizational learning, and using the skills acquired, they
must disseminate virtual education and insert it in the
practices and strategies of universities.
• These nuclei are in direct contact with dynamic practices of
the knowledge society:
• matching to the aspirations and ways of communication of
Internet native pupils
• mediators between the digital technology development
groups, which exert a great pressure on universities, and the
real needs of traditional teachers.
• Generating the reflective knowledge about virtual education.
A digital native performs: • Digital Natives aged 13 to 17 average 1,742 text messages a month
• 42 percent of teens say they can text while blindfolded
• 39 to 49 percent of 18- to 30-year-olds have sent text messages while
driving, and they slow their reaction time by 35 percent when doing
so
• 61 percent of teens who text prefer texting messages to friends
rather than talking
• 60 percent of 12- to 17-year-old Digital Natives don't think of texting
as "writing"
• VE Structures nowadays are generating a multitask service,
which requires a combination of professional expertise and a
constant learning process for the generation of knowledge.
The service generated has a wide scope(time, space and
people). Due to the nature of the processes of communication
and information handled by VE Structures they can acquire a
power much greater than their relative size and lack of
seniority in the institution might suggest.
• VE is a is probably the most active data producer from the university
itself: it generates student data, whether internal or external users, it
generates data on teachers involved in VE, and also generates data
on the process of VE itself. In many cases, the value of such data can
even be economic, because online learning is already an important
market, and there may be tensions between “pure” university
orientation and commercial orientation. If these tensions are
resolved in a pragmatic way, VE makes the university an economic
actor in the markets of the current knowledge society.
MODE 1:
Universities where existing distance education or
continuing education determine an evolution towards forms
of VE.
MODE 2:
Universities where the VE
pioneering forms are developed
by teachers interested in
innovation, and for some specific
circumstance, this initial practice
is adopted and integrated into the
overall structure of the university.
MODE 3:
Universities where a specific condition triggers an opportunistic
process of VE development. This condition can be an existing
advantage (pioneers in the production of CDs), the needs of a
language center, or a student demand which cannot be solved by
traditional means.
MODE 4:
Universities where VE is
triggered by a decision at the
highest level of direction,
either because VE is seen
as a necessary evolution in
the mission and
characteristics of the
university, or because VE
should be developed as a
necessity to face the
challenges of the university.
In these universities, VE
usually starts from scratch.
Some questions
• how can universities face the challenge of assimilating the
reflective and economic power of VE Structures and VE
practices, to generate a new strategy for organization and
incursion or social presence?
• How are universities transformed or, more specifically, which
areas of the university are being transformed by the presence
of these new actors and practices of the knowledge society?