Subject: Re: IFETS-DISCUSS Digest - 7 May 2000 to 8 May 2000
From: MG Owen (mgowen@g-net.net)
Date: Wed 10 May 2000 - 00:10:48 MEST
From: "MG Owen" <mgowen@g-net.net> Subject: Re: IFETS-DISCUSS Digest - 7 May 2000 to 8 May 2000 Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 10:10:48 +1200
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Details of current discussion: http://ifets.ieee.org/discussions/discuss.html
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In reference to the issue of accreditation and e-learning:
I find the squabbling between the traditional classroom academicians and the
early-adopting-e-learning enthusiasts to be short in both vision and practicality,
and ultimately counter productive to the positive evolution of learning and
advancement of the collective knowledge base. My experience has shown me that
professional educators within both camps consider the integration of technology and
credible and effective learning to be mutually exclusive. I teach within a highly
scrutinized medical technology discipline that requires demonstration of much hands
on competency training that produces graduates who will sit for accrediting
examinations to perform medical procedures on human beings. Certainly, within any
clinical setting, most of us would like to be assured that SOMEONE was overseeing
the training of the professional who works on our mothers and sisters.
However, drops in the applicant pools of allied health programs have caused an
enormous shortage in the job force in many of these related medical areas. Unless
the accrediting bodies are willing to find compromise with the idea of a blended
method of delivery of training through both web based instruction and distant
mentoring as well as modified classroom delivery, our programs will fold, and
technocrats who naively believe that anything can be taught via the web based
environment alone will degrade the quality of the technical graduate at the
encouragement of eager hospital administrators who have turned their focus from
quality of patient care to the bottom line.
Not all of us who teach within a traditional academic setting are not evil, and
not all e-learning proponents are blind to the nuances of specialized curricular
content. But equally true, not all learning lends itself as well to multi-media as
technology specific content, and no multi-media presentation will replace the
experiential perspective of the content expert. I see no reason why an amicable
marriage between academia and techno-learning cannot take place. Certainly we are
of the same species, and our offspring could be a remarkable and positively evolved
progeny.
Thanks for letting me pontificate.
Mary Anne Owen, M.H.E., RT(N)
Nuclear Medicine Technology Program
Department of Radiologic Sciences
Medical College of Georgia
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