At the end of November last year, the
fifth Educa-Berlin conference took place in the city whose name it bears. This is an
interesting time to be around Berlin as it rises to the challenge of regaining its
position as the capital of Germany. The vast amount of building work is testament to the
belief of large corporations, particularly those in the hi-tech and entertainment worlds
that Berlin is the place to be for the next decade.
This was therefore the setting for what is likely to be an issue that will dominate the
lives of your children, your staff and even yourself over the next few years. Educa-Berlin
is the European Distance Learning conference and this year, for the first time,
experiences rather than theory and plans for trials dominated the conference. There was
also a substantial amount of input from commercial companies who were prepared to share
their real world experience of creating distance learning environments.
Perhaps the biggest issue for many, as far as technology is concerned, was over the use of
synchronous or asynchronous delivery mechanisms. This is not just about the ability of
technology to provide a reliable link with sufficient bandwidth but how do you make the
best use of the technology. Ironically, this is an area where Microsoft is about to take a
significant step forward with Windows 2000 and the next version of NetMeeting. Among the
improvements in the networking stack of Windows 2000 is the ability to manage the
bandwidth for individual users as well as maintaining the quality of service in terms of
performance.
Video-conferencing
It was interesting to see how traditional education and business differed in their
understanding and willingness to adopt different technologies. Most people in both arenas
have experienced asynchronous education through the television. In the UK in particular,
since the launch of the Open University 30 years ago, the BBC has devoted a reasonable
part of its scheduling to educational programs for both adults and children. Yet when many
educational establishments have tried to use a videoconferencing approach, they have been
disappointed with the results. Part of this problem is their expectation that they can
simply acquire the technology within the available budgets to simulate the existing
success of television broadcasts. Unfortunately, the costs and skills required are
extremely expensive and they have often failed.
Business, on the other hand, along with a number of higher educational institutions that
offer business courses has learnt how to produce high quality synchronous broadcasts. One
of the UK leaders in this field is De Montfort University which has used videoconferencing
in its MBA courses for some time now. It spends a considerable amount of money both on the
technology and on training its staff how to use the technology. The Open University
Business School, which many of us might think would also embrace this technology, has
learnt a different lesson from its experiences with the BBC. Whilst some overseas OU
establishments have used desktop video conferencing, Dr Gilly Salmon, who earlier this
year ran an experiment called the Business Café on BBC2, is aware of the problems of
using this medium. The fine line between the requirements of educationalists and
television people is very hard to manage both for content and the correct people to
present.
Transferable skills
As we move towards a future described by a common phrase at Educa of "Life Long
Learning", we need to persuade businesses to take their skills out to education. The
universities in general already have access to business financing through research
projects and MBA programs but junior and secondary education suffers badly from a lack of
funds as does higher education, particularly evening and part-time courses. Many companies
carp on about the problems of finding school leavers who they can begin to employ because
they lack useful skills. The result is that many people are persuaded to take evening and
part-time courses to make them more valuable to their employers.
Irrespective of the politics of the situation, perhaps now is a good time for business and
education to see how they can best transfer skills between them. Large organisations could
look to send their experienced training and technology staff into local schools to help
develop distance training skills. Ultimately the pay back will be better relationships
between businesses and the communities in which they are situated and good publicity at
this level just cannot be bought. In fact, done properly the PR benefits are probably
cheaper and more far-reaching than all those business lunches for commentators, analysts
and journalists. For those who may now miss out, think what this is doing to help improve
your waistline!
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