June 1997 — Features

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The Future of Computers and Learning

More Students

The worldwide need to educate far more students than we do at present, discussed early in this paper, along with the population problem, and the need for universal education, is an important theme of this presentation. Our current methods for assisting learning will not allow us to work with far more students, within the bounds of fiscal realism. But those students are there, and their numbers are increasing.

I believe that highly interactive technology is the only possibility that will allow us to reach the individual needs of large numbers of additional students.

HOW DO WE GET THERE?

Replacing our current educational systems with ones that depend on highly interactive technology is not a simple and inexpensive process. It cannot be done at a single school or single university. A coordinated effort, perhaps involving many countries, will be necessary.

Experiment

The lack of an empirical basis for learning has been stressed several times. This applies particularly to highly interactive courses, since very few have been developed.[7] So we need to begin by developing and evaluating many highly interactive courses, comparing them with existing modes of learning. It should be done at different levels of education. It can be conducted at different speeds. As noted in the next section, this experiment will involve major expenses.

Further, since this approach has possibilities at many levels, from young childhood to adult learning, we need to cover this range. We need careful summative evaluations, comparing these courses with traditional courses for a wide range of students.

This testing should include not only students in developed countries, but also those in under-developed countries. Most of the people needing such learning live in the poorer parts of the world. This experimentation should compare learning with several approaches. And it should examine closely the financial aspects, both for development and delivery of the learning materials.

Costs

We can obtain a first approximation to the cost of developing the high-quality courses we need by examining the Open Universityís costs for course development. At present this is several million dollars. These courses are mostly not highly interactive courses, but costs for such expensive areas as pedagogical design and evaluation are not that different.

Our experiences in developing highly interactive material, using the Irvine-Geneva system previously outlined, are similar. Our experience suggests a cost of about $ 25,000 per hour of learning material.