Distance Education in Transition - Master of Distance Education ...

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Visions of Autonomous Learning 3.2. A Multitude of Scholarly Publications Researchers on this subject become aware that interest in autonomous learning has now reached a peak. It is referred to and debated in our digitised world more than ever before. Google reports that there are more than 17,000 references to the term “autonomous learner” on the net. Our own university library keeps 65 books on autonomous learning, most of them published recently. The Third EDEN Research Workshop 2004 on “Supporting the Learner in Distance Education and E-Learning” was a convincing demonstration of the increased interest in autonomous learning as quite a number of papers dealt with it or with aspects of it. 4. Early and Contemporary Visionaries Visionaries have strong, original ideas about how things might be different in the future, especially how things might be improved. This definition describes the intention of a number of futurists accurately. 4.1. Two Philosophers: In 1783 Immanuel Kant wanted to liberate people from “mental immaturity brought on by their own fault” by causing them to "make use of their understanding without outside help.” (Kant, 1783, p. 1). The influence of this definition cannot be overrated. According to Immanuel Kant's ethics, man is autonomous if his will and the criteria for judging his actions are determined by his individual reason. In 1873 Herbert Spencer wrote: In “education the process of self-development should be encouraged to the fullest extent. Children should be led to make their own investigations, and draw their own inferences. They should be told as little as possible and induced to discover as much as possible. Humanity has progressed solely by self-instruction…” (quoted in Dale, 1967, p. 41). 4.2. Three Futurologists: In 1967, Herbert Kahn and Anthony J. Wiener caused a sensation with their book “The year two thousand: a framework for speculation on the next 33 years”. They described how learning material could be accessed in the home, at work and in school with the help of computer networks. They foresaw individualised and distributed learning. We can see that great hopes for innovations in teaching and learning were linked from the start to the use of computers and computer networks. In 1970, Alvin Toffler published his book “The Future Shock”, He diagnosed the bankruptcy of the contemporary educational system (1970, p. 319) and criticised above all the widespread lecture system, in which he recognised the hierarchical structure of industry. He wanted to replace this by seminars and simulations games in “artificially created situations on a computer basis” (1970, p. 322). Toffler clearly foresaw the restructuring of learning which was required by computers and networks: “The new education system must teach people to classify and reclassify information, to determine its veracity, if necessary to change categories, to move from the concrete to the abstract, and vice versa – and to teach themselves something.” (1970, p. 327). Here Toffler was already referring to techniques of self-teaching which have become necessary in digital learning environments today and which are propagated for autonomous learning. 219
Visions of Autonomous Learning 4.3. Contemporary Expert Opinions The present urge to know something about the future of online learning is understandable. As the speed of change is increasing dramatically we need ideas about where all these innovations in information and communication might lead. This is the reason why ministries and research institutes organised polls in order to learn more about the ideas of great numbers of experts. In 1998 the German Federal Ministry for Education and Science published the Delphi-II Study (BMBF, 1998). The researchers predicted that the following changes would take place in the period to about 2020: � From 2005 the distance education system will be used generally for further training of the population. � From 2007 education will increasingly lead to bundles of individual qualifications and not to final degrees or diplomas. � From 2010 virtual world universities will be widespread. These three prophecies can be interpreted in conjunction. It is obvious that the experts who were polled regard the future of online learning in connection with the increasing importance of distance education. Both forms, whether integrated or not, will become all the more important as the “individual bundles of qualifications” cannot be mediated by means of traditional teaching, but have to be acquired above all through self study. For this purpose a general culture of autonomous, self-directed learning will be developed which will change learning in schools, universities and in the workplace. The broad consensus in this question is amazing. Only a small percentage of the experts believe that these developments will “never take place”. With regard to the general use of distance teaching systems the contrary opinion was held by just 1.2 percent. The study presents also more detailed prophecies which will become relevant for the autonomous learner. Let us begin with those dealing with what might be technically possible in the future � An astonishing 99.4 percent of the experts who were polled agreed that between the years 2008 and 2015 electronically stored information would be retrievable in all the common languages of the world. � Only over 1.6 percent did not believe that between 2011 and 2022 computers would be able to put texts together automatically and make automatic extracts from books and documents. � Only 17.8 percent did not think that between 2010 and 2019 databases would have learned to arrange their “knowledge” without any misunderstandings. Perhaps it is now also time to consider how far the learning of the autonomous learner will be facilitated and changed when computers without a monitor and a keyboard are on the market, which has been predicted for 2010 or so (cf. Maurer, 2004). In 2000, Klaus Beck, Peter Glotz and Gregor Vogelsang polled 109 international experts in order to learn about their opinions about the development of online learning. According to this Delphi study, the following might happen: 220
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Studien und Berichte der Arbeitsste
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Acknowledgements Chapter 1: “Grow
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Series Editors' Foreword In 1994, D
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Introduction Owing to the exponenti
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Page 236 and 237: References Aebli, H. (1983). Die Wi
Page 238 and 239: References Bell, D. (1975). Die nac
Page 240 and 241: References Dale, E. (1967). Histori
Page 242 and 243: References Faulstich, W. (1997). "J
Page 244 and 245: References Hauck, M. (2004). Explor
Page 246 and 247: References Jakupec, V. (1993). Das
Page 248 and 249: References Kuhlen, R. (1991). Hyper
Page 250 and 251: References Nolda, S. (2001). Vom Ve
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Page 254 and 255: References Schulmeister, R. (n. y.)
Page 256: References Weinberger, A., & Mandl,
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Page 261 and 262: Spada, Hans: 135, 136, 138 Spencer,
Page 263 and 264: computer-mediated: 32, 98; digital:
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patchwork identity: 104 pattern rec
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self-regulated: 9, 29, 115, 126; se
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