by Robert W. Mendenhall, Chronicle of Higher Education
Quality is not just how many people graduate, but what those graduates know. Quality is also related to how long it takes, and how much it costs, to deliver that learning. One of the keys to that improvement will be more effective use of technology. Technology has fundamentally changed the productivity of every industry in America except education. In nearly all of higher education, it is an add-on cost. We know that learners come to higher education knowing different things and that students each learn at different rates. By using the technology to teach—to deliver the content of a course—we are able to free students to study what they need to learn, and to do so at their own pace. Learning becomes the constant and time becomes the variable, rather than holding time constant and letting the learning vary. In an online environment that truly takes advantage of technology, the faculty role may change from delivering content to mentoring students. By using technology to measure learning, we can actually determine what students know and can do, rather than how long they spend in class.
http://chronicle.com/article/How-Technology-Can-Improve/129616/
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