Internet Education and The Potential for Teaching

Some comments at the launch of the book "Digital Hemlock: Internet Education and The Poisoning Of Teaching" by TARA BRABAZON

Tom Worthington FACS

Visiting Fellow, Department of Computer Science, Australian National University, Canberra and Director of Publications For the Australian Computer Society

At Gleebooks, Glebe Pt. Rd., Glebe, Sydney, 11 November 2002

Tertiary education is in crisis; increasingly its funding is reduced and its relevancy questioned. The use of the internet in university education and the delivery of online courses is seen as a cure-all for tertiary education, allowing tailored courses to be delivered to a wide student base with unprecendented immediacy and with a minimum of cost to the institution. Tara Brabazon questions these assumptions. She shows that the delivery of quality online education requires as much input and thought as conventioanl course delivery. It is the teachers who pay, in their own time and effort to maintain standards. She also shows that there is more to teaching and learning than can ever be delivered online. From: Gleeb Books Web Site, October 2002, URL: http://www.gleebooks.com.au/gleaner/2002/Oct/education.htm

A response:

  1. The last time I talked about online education at a launch in Sydney:http://www.acs.org.au/president/1997/pagelnch.htm
  2. Online education is useful.
  3. Some examples of my attempts: http://www.tomw.net.au/
  4. Open source model from software development
  5. An example from MIT's Open Course Ware initiative: http://ocw.mit.edu/6/6.170/f01/index.html
  6. Teachers need to take ownership of their material.

About The Speaker

Tom WorthingtonTom Worthington is an independent information technology consultant and author of the book Net Traveller. Tom is one of the architects of the Commonwealth Government's Internet and web strategy. The first Web Master for the Australian Department of Defence, in 1999 he was elected a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society for his contribution to the development of public Internet policy. Tom lectures on electronic commerce and web technology at the Australian National University and is a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Computer Science. He is a director and a past President of the Australian Computer Society, a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the Association for Computing Machinery.

Further Information

Comments and corrections to: webmaster@tomw.net.au

Copyright © Tom Worthington. 2002