Op-Ed: Oregon Education
Nears Tipping Point
For Learning Technologies

Education is easy, any time, anywhere --“simply “tell ‘em like it really is....and they learn -- right ?”

Sophists rationalized and made a routine out of the learning process from first-plan to message evaluation Photo courtesy: unizh.ch

(SALEM) - That may have worked in Ancient Greece for the Sophists and brethren philosophers --briefly; but then the Sophists became the original “instructional technologists”. Necessities for effective communication forced the issue...as it does in every area of modern life, now even more strongly. What the Sophists invented still guides us as the 21st Century begins: They rationalized and made a routine out of the learning process from first-plan to message evaluation, showing behavior change.
(“Instructional Technology”, p. 245; see end-note.) Their canny working ways guiding dialog, discussion and debate led through philosophy to further examination of nature; thus to rationally-organized observations, leading eventually to the scientific method; and “the rest is history”, for sure. It took the Renaissance and more centuries of determined development --mostly by master teachers for better ways-to-teach-- to move us forward by multitudinous learner-demands until today: when we have a remarkable array of learning-media and instructional technologies, each exploiting distinctive functions, to fulfill many individual learner-needs, styles and changing necessities.
(“Instructional Media”, throughout; see end note.) But now, in Oregon, practical application of modern learning technologies --and its specifically-designed learning media for a wide range of needs -- is near the crucial tipping-point: EITHER furious further development OR further descent into ruinous decline by denial of demanded dollars for effective and cost-efficient instruction.
(“See also” CHALKBOARD proposals: www.chalkboardproject.org) We are reliably informed that some school districts are so financially pressed that even basic textbooks are in short supply. It is surely rational and reasonable to expect more dollar and direction/demanding technological support, though it will be hampered and denied. Over the same thirty years which saw other leading areas of Oregon education decimated, the leading-edge usage for then-latest teaching tools and learning media has matured; then withered away with all else in Oregon education. The Sophists produced the first-known practical learning protocol based on information and rational planning for its use: from supply-to-the learner, then management-and-manipulation for application, with evaluation of behavioral change. all-along-the-way, and as ending-target for next-steps. Theirs was the first level for what burgeoned into the scientific method; making the modern world what it has become today and what it will be tomorrow, too. NO WAY they can ever know now --surely a shame! -- but that’s the basic pattern for practical learning media supporting any and all effective learning-process and professional practice, at all levels of instruction from K through graduate school. Every step-and-stage of all curricular usage depends on how that pattern is practically applied, no matter what presentation method or methods is put into the pattern. If they could return today these pioneers of practical learning protocol would find their plan:
-- Preparation, Integration, Evaluation--
at the very heart of learning media and instructional technologies
---put to work across the world---
by business, government, transport, medicine and health care, the banks and financial services. organized (and the DISorganized !) religions --even, very broadly --the Post Office ! Few corporations today attempt to operate without a Human Resources section, often including specialists planning and producing precisely the learning-media products demanded for their ongoing instruction; for everything from front-office reception to the CEO’s staff operation.
(“Instructional Technologies, throughout; see end-note) For others shorter on worker-support, consultants and media producers serving the very large and active corporate market are brought in for special-project origination and effective development. Ironically these specialists invariably are trained in and come from the educational establishment at some level. (Disclosure: Learning Media Associates participated in the Chicago marketplace for media services for a full decade.) The American corporate community has long ago determined that the most-modern digital-driven learning media, specially produced to meet the specific --and often very demanding-- needs of their widely-appreciated “brain workers”, are the most dollar-efficient and learning-effective system for synthesizing the ongoing demands for their operations --regardless of level, kind, components or desired consequences. In fact that characteristic is now world-recognized as being among the major modern management tools; totally equipping U.S. corporations and industries in the competitive struggles now faced around the world, forced by overwhelming and rapid change in every level and kind of activity.
(“See also” many reports in FORTUNE, other national press.) Now going far-beyond what for two decades was called: “The Communications Revolution”; that wholesale revamping of every form of information and its transfer is now recognized as an absolutely essential learning-pattern provider; and by proven effective-and-efficient results, the essential element for every forward-moving project. One very rapidly-growing segment of American education --home-schooling-- is already demonstrating digital-impact consequences, albeit mostly via solid-foundation usage of WorldWideWeb --the Internet-- literally to open the door to the whole world even for kids at home. One homework-assignment commercial-channel provider, serving more than a half-million clients worldwide, makes home-usage an essential part of their business plan and operations --and there are numerous others already up-and-running, with more sure to come as the home-learning market proliferates profoundly --as most pundits proclaim is now a certainty. Those engaging in home-schooling do so primarily to provide stronger and more self-manageable learning-opportunities for their own children and youth; with an also-rapidly growing demand for partial refund of what they are paying in tax support for UN-shared “common school” facilities, demanded by State Constitutions and national needs. The great danger to “the common school” nowadays is that it will be superseded by home-grown and managed learning for a very large segment of a responsible public, who can afford to do so and are strongly motivated towards that action. IF the “common school” fails in its Constitutionally-demanded responsibilities, democratic citizens sensitive to the 21st Century will find some other way to bring the world into their homes, for their own learners at all family levels. So that “tipping point” we must soon face in Oregon has more impact and sustained consequences than may at first appear, without due regard for an absolute-trend tied inevitably to modern progress and practices for business, industry, and every other segment of our society. In Oregon, we need to get on-line (and “on the ball” !) in every school and every home --rapidly. To fail in this forward-step will be extremely unfortunate and costly -- every modern entrepreneurial job-building activity n depends on using modern methods and technologies for operations and communications. The schools and colleges in Oregon now must return to the 21st Century-demand to build both fully-qualified understandings and a fully-qualified workforce, too. (End-note:
“Instructional Technology For Teaching and Learning”; Timothy J. Newby et al; Prentice-Hall, 2000: ISBN o-13-914052-2.; “Instructional Media and New Technologies of Instruction”; Robert Heinich et al; MacMillan, 1993; ISBN 0=02-353060-X.
This is 3rd Edition, used at Chemeketa; 4th Ed. available, with even more extensive references-as-cited. - hcr)