abstract

this paper discusses several cultural problems i see with internet education. while recognizing the great promise of the internet as a tool for education and learning, i will discuss some problems that i see in the clash of the cultures of technologists, educators and the various target student groups. in this paper, i will take the liberty to define culture very broadly in some cases, but will basically discuss how i use the internet to prepare my students for cultural experiences in the united states. i will also discuss how the internet might be used to teach cultural elements like theater, literature, music, and art. in addition, i will present ideas about how other aspects of culture, like communication styles and learning styles may effect on-line distance education. finally, i will suggest solutions to the various cultural problems i see in on-line education.

introduction

on-line education has become the watchword in education today. we are constantly bombarded by headlines like “schools promised more pc’s,” “computers are essential for education today,” “prime minister wants one pc for each student by 2010,” and others. however, there are some problems that must be solved if on-line education is to become an effective tool for education equal to that received in a traditional campus based program. i want to outline some of my concerns and my great hope for the future of this new tool of education.

technologist vs. traditional educators

i think we can look at on-line education as a kind of cultural clash between the technologist on the one hand and the traditional educators on the other. the technologist believes that technology will rejuvenate education by reducing time restraints, conquering distance and making it more creative. furthermore, they believe that all this technology, the pc with accompanying whistles and gizmos, will really empower the students and make education more student centered and interactive. the traditional teachers, on the other hand, are more skeptical of technology. of course, some of the traditional educators are less familiar with and/or less comfortable with computers than the technologist and may be prejudice against the new technology because of their lack of knowledge about it. however, many of the traditional educators remember the pronouncements of men like edison who predicted that “the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system…it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of textbooks.” similar claims were made about radio and filmstrips among a host of other technological advancements. this traditional educational culture, many members of which may actually be very computer literate, senses that computers cannot make students interact with each other like they might in the traditional face-to-face classroom situation. “how can there be interaction between students at terminals at distant locations?” they ask. the technologist may shoot back that the internet and computers allow the student to interact with a greater variety of people from a greater variety of countries than could ever be accommodated in a traditional classroom. they also point out that the great mix of students from various geographic areas and age ranges will be able to add a tremendous variety of viewpoints and experiences that could benefit the entire on-line class. the traditional educator may respond that electronic interaction is not the same as face-to-face interaction. the interaction is less human, less socially interactive than that which can be observed in the traditional classroom. they think that it does not give the student the interactive social skills that he or she may need in an internationalized business world, where one may have to work in close quarters with people of many cultures and age groups.

the arguments of both the traditional educator and the technologist are well founded. most of us here are in one of the two camps with the rest of us siting on the fence. most of us are somewhat computer literate and have become used to sending e-mail and doing research on the internet. many of us here have some experience in using the internet for education. so most of us know the technology and believe it can be useful for educational purposes. however, if we all believe in the value of distance education and the ability to transfer knowledge with a click of a button, “why are we here?” why aren’t we in our offices and conducting this conference on on-line education on-line? perhaps we too like the face-to-face exchange of ideas and like to socialize with each other over peking duck or other savory delicacy. the answer is simple, we enjoy the rapport that we build with colleagues both new and old whom we have only communicated with on the internet or meet only seldom at these gatherings. so here we are in this beautiful facility enjoying the great hospitality of our host, president yan ze-xian and the south china normal university because even on-line educators occasionally need to refresh our minds through the quick exchanges and challenging discussions that only real time face-to-face interaction can give us. it is not just we here either. there is any number of distance education conferences conducted in real time and face-to-face around the world.

but does this make us all liars? i think not. we come to conferences like this because we realize that not everyone is connected and we must meet in changzhou or madison or other venues to exchange information with people who wish to know how to begin and which pitfalls to avoid. we come to share our experiences, successes and failures so that we may all learn and go back to plan better programs for our students. however, if we all find the need to attend these real-time-in-person conferences, then we should also be big enough to listen to the critics of on-line education.

clifford stoll in his book, high tech heretic, is concerned that computers “dull questioning minds with graphical games where quick answers take the place of understanding, and the trivial is promoted as educational.” he laments that the emphasis on speedy answers and speedier action is replacing “reflection and critical thinking.” he is afraid that the idea of making education fun that is behind all the technological gismos that the computer brings to the education table is actually encouraging “intellectual passivity” and that the students will “develop a distaste for persistence, trial and error, attentiveness, or patience.” (p.13) although it is not clear about which age group of students he is directing his comments, these are still serious concerns about computer education and, by proxy, on-line education.

if stoll is right about computers reducing patience and persistence, distant educators will have problems. i know from my own experience with snail mail (regular postal service) distance education, that one must be very focused and very persistent, or one will loose interest in the course work and drop out of the distance education program altogether. however, i think that stoll misses the point of internet education. i think it will, in fact, reduce the frustration of the learner by quickening the response time of questions between teacher or mentor and student. i know it was very difficult for me to just write papers and send them to my professor, and then wait for weeks for him or her to return them to me with comments and advice. fortunately, i was a member of a group of people who were enrolled in the california state program and we discussed topics and help each other with projects. also, i was able to find a mentor in a friend who had already completed an ma and had been a tutor at a university in new zealand. without this kind of support, i doubt if i could have been able to continue to focus on my studies and may not have completed my degree. now we have the internet and the budding internet ii. i think that the use of these will be a real boon to distance education. although my teachers were always available for telephone conversations and made every effort to see me when i visited the united states, i am sure that if i had had the use of the internet my studies would have progressed more quickly and i would have enjoyed them more. i know that if i had been able to have quicker access to my professors via the net, i probably would have been more excited by my studies and benefited more from their closer supervision. also, i could have interacted with other members of the california state program in various countries and benefited from their various insights.

classroom socialization is another area where i think stoll and other critics of internet education or distance education in general are over glamorizing the development of social skills. the interaction that occurs in a traditional classroom can also interfere withthe students’ attention. i think all teachers have had problems trying to get and keep the attention of students who are trying to talk about the olympics, soccer or trying to arrange a date for friday night. on-line education may reduce this kind of learning interference, although recent reports of relationships begun on the net and the break up of marriages as a result of these relationships belie this.

i find that getting the attention of students and making them work is a serious classroom problem today. whether this is a result of early exposure to pc’s and computer games or not, i do not know. what i do know is that japanese students never exhibit the desire to read or do homework. when i ask them to read a japanese newspaper and translate the headlines into english so the class is able to discuss the issues, i get painful expressions on the students’ faces. they just don’t want to do work outside the class. a colleague of mine has opinioned that the students have become totally audio/visual. that is that they will only watch or listen passively and not take the trouble to pick up the paper. this fact may give credence to stoll’s idea that computers do affect attention spans and perhaps promotes passivity in students. if in fact students have become so passive that they refuse to pick up a newspaper, then how are distance educators going to get these same students to read pages of difficult text on a computer screen or read the down loaded version of the same on paper? the question is can or should study always be fun. i must agree with stoll and others, that study is a lot of work and takes patience and time to think and to reflect. i am sure most of you have the same trouble as i in making time in your busy day to prepare your papers for this conference and/or other papers for publication. granted, i have found the computer to be very useful for study and research. it certainly beats the typewriter i used in college. still research and writing takes time away from family and friends and, in this way causes pain. this kind of pain is something many young people seem less willing to accept. they are looking for the quick fix, a short cut to education. yet this is not unique to computer education. my former russian history professor informs me that if he put 10 or 13 books on his reading list for a full semester class today, no one would register for it. when i was a student, we had to read that many books in a quarter. today’s students just don’t seem willing to suffer, at least in the united states and japan, from what i can see. what modern students do have is a familiarity with computers, which makes it much easier to use pc’s to teach them with than the traditional educational tools. it is a fact that today’s students are a part of the computer culture and faculty members must recognize this and they must learn how to use pc’s to benefit their students.

language and cultural use of computers
at bunkyo university, where i teach english, we are committed to computer use. both the information science department and the international studies department, of which i am a member, are using computers to prepare our student for what we believe will be the internet age powered by internet ii. we are now finishing what we call the media building. it will be used by both departments for our computer classes and for our computer aided teaching classes. in addition to this, the international studies department has been using computers in its foreign language program for several years. our call (computer aided language learning) room allows the students to access the internet as well as use a host of multimedia language teaching materials like interactive cd’s, dvd’s, and others. also, we have used computers to support a language exchange program with michigan state university. their students wrote in japanese and sent letters to our students and our students sent back letters in english. this internet exchange has been useful for both groups to help build understanding of each other’s culture as well as develop skills in english and japanese. in addition, i have experimented with the computers to introduce navajo culture to my students by accessing the navajo nations home page. now this is a fairly good page that includes pictures of monument valley and canyon de chelly two famous scenic areas of the navajo nation. it also has sections on navajo storytellers and other elements of navajo culture. i have found this page to be very helpful in teaching about the navajos and making the students understand the pain caused by the westward expansion of the united states. using the call room, they were able to go very cheaply where they had never been before and learned facts that they used in discussions and writing. i have found the response to be better than writing assignments based on library research by the students as far as english education goes.