1st Edition

Harmonizing Global Education From Genghis Khan to Facebook

By Jon Baggaley Copyright 2012
    216 Pages
    by Routledge

    214 Pages
    by Routledge

    Distance education (DE) offers ways to reach the many people around the world who lack access to education and training by other means. International DE methods, however, are fragmented, and distance educators have often abandoned new technologies before giving them a chance to develop. As a result, many current DE tools and techniques are incompatible with the needs and cultures of different global regions. With the goal of designing efficient, relevant DE for worldwide audiences, Harmonizing Global Education invites scholars and practitioners to consider the historic development of technology-based education and communication studies, going back further in the literature than is often assumed necessary.

    The book examines a wide range of historical ideas capable of shaping modern DE, including the Luddite Revolt among British textiles workers in 1811-12, the evolution of cubist art and musical aesthetics, and the visionary advances of early twentieth-century Soviet multimedia specialists. The author urges an awareness of previous generations of communications studies, and shows how audience research relating to traditional media can be relevant in the design of current internet-based and social media approaches. Today's open universities have grown from these earlier historical efforts, and the future success of open and distance education depends on learning from the successes and the failures of the past.

    Tables and Figures

    Introduction and Acknowledgements

    CHAPTER 1: The New Silk Road

    1.1) The Gold of Timbuktu

    1.2) Open and mega-universities

    1.3) Traditional and new media

    1.4) The mobile learning tradition

    Summary

    CHAPTER 2: Wax and Wane

    2.1) Fin de siècle

    2.2) Knowledge is power

    2.3) The Luddite Revolt

    2.4) Media adoption

    Summary

    CHAPTER 3: Why is the Sky Blue?

    3.1) Cubist analysis

    3.2) Cubist synthesis

    3.3) Cubism online

    3.4) Online constructivism

    Summary

    CHAPTER 4: Building Global Practices

    4.1) Lost foundations

    4.2) The asynchronous years

    4.3) A Web-based bubble

    4.4) Practical evaluation guidelines

    Summary

    CHAPTER 5: The Power of Many

    5.1) Double-edged swords

    5.2) Pedigree of a plagiarized piece

    5.3) The uncritical mass

    5.4) A giant structure

    Summary

    CHAPTER 6: Harmony and Counterpoint

    6.1) The man who mystified Moscow

    6.2) Imperfect harmony

    6.3) Global counterpoint

    6.4) A fugue state

    Summary

    CHAPTER 7: The Prism of History

    7.1) Down on the farm

    7.2) "There it is!"

    Notes

    References

    Index

     

    Biography

    Jon Baggaley is Professor of Educational Technology at the Centre for Distance Education, Athabasca University, Canada.

    "Harmonizing Global Education provides a unique and significant contribution to distance education and educational technology. Unlike so many contemporary texts which either ignore past achievements or brush off history in a few paragraphs, the strength of the book is the author’s distinctive focus on not just contemporary issues, but contemporary issues grounded in history, culture, and the arts." —Educational Technology