Can't quite pinpoint when a major turnaround came about as far as the talk about a new learning paradigm in the education system is concerned.. anyone?? There has been a steady infusion of technology such as the radio, television, the VCR and the use of video cassettes in schools. I am not sure whether computer aided instructions was widespread in schools but there was a strong attempt to create an impact in universities.
Did it work?? .. dunno, at least not in my university .. Of course, we had the usual committees at University level, department level, departmental representatives and the people from the educational technology unit ... BUT, there is always this BUT issue ... but there was no emphasis on teaching and the use of CAI in lectures .... and further, WHO is going to monitor any progress, effectiveness in teaching or any innovation in teaching in using the CAI. There was no concrete structure to the whole endeavour ... this is very typical in a University, mostly on knee-jerk reaction to something new and afetr a while, we are back to the usual grind ..
Everybody was busy and the whole concept of the CAI was interjected with meetings and meetings and it still got nowhere and it just died a natural death ... and we were back to the traditional teaching style ... sounds familiar??
The only thins that I can remember that kind of created a major impact was when the Internet came to town .. that was it .. the Internet .. the all hell broke loose ... you know what I mean .. think it was in the early 90s, or was it very, very late 80s (in Malaysia, that is ..) ...
From then on, and in no particular order, major changes were talked about such as from;
- fixed curricula to personal curricula
- institutional based to home base learning
- knowledge transmission to learning facilitation
- front-end education to lifelong learning
- classroom study to electronic-based/package
Have we seen any major changes in the learning environment ..?? yeehaaaa ...
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