Cinema Canada (Jun 1983)

a rc NICHOLS provide such literacy but they will dosowithina specific context. Most generally, this will be the developmentand growth of new information technologies in society at large. More specifically, it will involve the impact of these technologies on the primary and secondary education system. Their impact at this level can be expected to be both more rapid and more widespread as ministries of education orient considerable resources towards the goal of computers in every school and computer time for every child. Most university-level entrants will come to have increasingly greater expectations about the accessibility and application of new information technologies to their field of study, whatever it may be. The result may be similar te that of French immersion programs in Ontario in which students have studied various disciplines in French and expect to continue to do so at university — except that the impact will be even greater. In the years ahead, universities will have to address five major needs prompted by the impact of new information technologies. These are 1) the need to support teaching and research pertaining to new information technologies and related topics as anarea of specialization, a need which may eventually give rise to new departments and combinations of disciplines, 2) the need to insure visual and computer literacy among all students as a general, educational principle, which may be the spearhead of a drive for a new core curriculum, 3) the need to utilize new information technologies for teaching and research across a wide spectrum of disciplines through computer-aided instruction (CAI) or data base access, for example, 4) the need to apply new information technologies to the administration of the university as an institution through such things as computerized record-keeping and electronic mail, and 5) the need to consider possible changes in the structure and function of the university in the years ahead as the very context in which higher education takes place undergoes significant change. This need deserves some further attention as the most potentially explosive. Our educational institutions serve both an educational and a socializing function. In the lower years the socializing function plays an extremely central role as children learn how to cooperate, to respect authority, and to accept many of the basic assumptions operating In Our society. For this very reason It Is unlikely that computers will radically alter the basic organization of primary and secondary schools even though they have the potential to do so, (Much of the hard learning that takes place can be expected to become available on videodiscs and computer software programs.) The social investment in the school is sO great that there will be enormous inertia confronting any truly radical change in the school as we know it. This is less true of the university. Universities represent the most selective form of education. Their very lack of universality makes their form and function less vital as a socializing instrument: the social lessons taught here, indirectly, cannot be of universal importance to our society or they would remain unlearned by a large percentage of the population. Instead the socializing process is more closely associated with particular kinds of careers and professions that are normally dominated by university graduates. This is what will make the university particularly vulnerable to radical change based on new information technologies. Such technologies could broaden the social base from which degree candidates will come by means of their economy and widespread availability. Earning a degree at home may become commonplace. New forms of socializing experience may arise to replace on-campus residence and although many, including myself, may argue that something very central to the university experience will be lost if face-to-face learning is lost, questions of economy may nonetheless prevail. Already some major American publishers have marketed complete course packages to university instructors or departments. These packages include texts, videotapes or videodiscs, computer-aided instruction, and computerized record keeping and testing. The individual instructor need do little more than manage the system while benefiting from a high-quality package that may draw on the best resources and professionals available in order to 22 capture a large share of the market. Such course packages will be initially aimed at very large university courses (they are already available in psychology and political studies), but they will no doubt proliferate and include most university areas within the next decade. The vast majority of such packages, in English Canada, willbe Americanin origin, a point which may give us extra reason to consider the importance of some of the already existing buffer institutions, such as TV Ontario, that could also marshall resources on the scale necessary to compete on quantitative and qualitative grounds. Provincial co-ordination of post-secondary education may become more and more ofa cultural imperative, questions of economy and so-called “system rationalization” aside. Whether sufficient foresight exists, for once, to build up an adequate buffer against American intrusion into a vital cultural and economic activity, willbe a question of considerable importance in the years ahead. Existing educational institutions are a logical starting point for course packaging since they form a readymake market. But the most significant change will arise when such course packages are readily available in the home market. “Courses” in all basic subjects may become available at local book-stores or computer shops ; they may be available through the mail from corporations like Texas Instruments or McGraw-Hill or Exxon. They may arrive inside the home on two-way television systems like Telidon or via satellite links with universities-ofthe-air that may consist of little more than a central computer, a transmitter and a large store of educational courseware, Such courses may cost more than the average textbook but they will cost much, much less than a year at university. Universities may continue to administer or coordinate such home-marketed material, conferring degrees or certificates upon individuals who select courses of suitable standard, achieve a certain level of competence, and perhaps include a specified period of on-campus residence, At worst, universities may become the equivalent of a Consumer's Union, reporting on the quality of various educational products as a guide to the concerned shopper, while re “ae