PAAL-Presentation.ppt.ppt

The Asian Information
Society and the Aims
of Education
Dr. Soraj Hongladarom, Department of Philosophy,
Chulalongkorn University
Presentation given at the 9th Conference of the Pan-Pacific
Association of Applied Linguistics, Namseoul University, South
Korea, August 19-20, 2004

9th PAAL Conference, 19-20 August, 2004,
Namseoal University, Korea
Outline
 Introduction - the interplay among technology,
culture and education
 Main question - How should we think about the
aims of education in light of the Asian
information society?
 Tentative answer - the traditional aims appear to
have changed as a result of the introduction of
ICTs.
 As society changes, so is the purpose of educating
the younger generations

Main Thesis
 Since technology is culturally embedded, it
would tend to create conflicts with the
Asian cultural milieu if it is imported
wholesale from the West. Thus a way
needs to be found to engage in education
in such a way that technology both
determines and is determined by the
cultural settings.

Main Thesis
 More concretely, this means:
 Becoming more sensitive to the cultural
presuppositions of technology
 Adapting the technology to local settings
 The aims of education should include
orientations both toward the environment and
the roots.

ITUA 2002
 Some results from the Information
Technology and the Universities in Asia
2002 conference at Chulalongkorn
University
 Charles Ess, Michael Churton, etc.
 Discussion of the aims of education

Aims of Education
 It seems to me that aims of education
have not been much discussed; they are
often presupposed or left to tacit
understanding.
 I think that we should discuss more about
this, since we need continually to reflect
on what we are doing.

The Asian Information Society
 Does the spread of ICTs bring about a
different kind of information society from
that of the West?
 Tentative answer - yes and no
 The ‘yes’ answer is not quite interesting
 But the ‘no’ answer is very much so.

Implications for Language
Education
 In fact one thing that makes the Asian
information society distinctive is language.
 The aims of education and the aims of
language education.

Technology, Culture and
Education
 According to Ferré, technology is nothing
more than “practical application of
intelligence”
 ‘Culture’ is usually defined as the sum total
of human meaningful activities and
practices that are informed by belief
systems.

Education
 Thus, when technology is used in
education, culture is invariably involved.
 There is the traditional culture of the
society as well as the ‘technological
culture’ presupposed by the technology
that is introduced there.
 The two can conflict with each other.

Education
 In Thailand, this usually reveals itself in
the technology not being used to its full
potential.
 This is so because there is a strong inertial
force in support of the tradition.
 So the problem is how to fuse technology
into this kind of culture

Fusing Technology and
Culture in Education
 Thai culture is a strange case.
 On the one hand, it embraces technology easily
- Internet, mobile phones, all the new gadgets.
 But on the other, there is a strong resistance
when the technology is perceived to threaten the
core - such as in education.
 Internet use - 90% entertainment; 10% work and
learning

Fusing Technology and
Culture in Education
 So in order for technology to become more
effective, how the technology is perceived
needs to change.
 Technology needs to be part of the core
Thai culture.
 How this is done will emerge during the
course of this talk.

ITUA 2002
 In April 2002, the Faculty Senate of
Chulalongkorn University organized a
conference entitled “Information
Technology and Universities in Asia 2002”
(ITUA 2002)
 The purpose was to find ways to best
utilize ICTs in conducting the works of
universities in Asia.

ITUA 2002
 The conference was co-organized by the
ASIA CALL (Dr. Larry Chong)
 More than sixty participants came from
many countries.
 Most papers discussed various ways of
using ICTs in teaching and learning.

Charles Ess
 “Liberal Arts and Distance Education: Can
Socratic Virtue (Arete) and Confucius’
Exemplary Person (Junzi) Be Taught
Online?”
 Answer - Of course not, but a limited form
of distance education may contribute to
the sharing of ideas and cross-cultural
dialogs, which lead to liberal education
and Confucian exemplary person.

Charles Ess
 “…if mastery, expertise and practical
wisdom are to be acquired by students as
embodied beings - they will require
teachers who incarnate the skills and
wisdom that mark the highest levels of
human accomplishment.

Charles Ess
 “That is not to say that distance education
is of no value or relevance to liberal-arts
education and its highest goals. On the
contrary, as the recent shift to blended or
“hybrid” approaches suggests, what is
called for is the careful and appropriate
use of distance learning.”

Michael Churton
 “Quality Assurance in the Design,
Development, and Implementation of ICT
and Distance Learning Programs:
Professorial Considerations”
 The idea of this paper is to lay out what
are required in order for a study program
conducted online to be assured of its
quality.

Michael Churton
 Demand for Quality Assurance
 Accreditation and Benchmarks
 Course structure
 Teaching/Learning
 Faculty support
 Student support
 Administrative support

Recommendations
 Distance learning programs organize
learning activities around and assess
learner progress by reference to
outcomes.
 Distance-learning initiatives must be
backed by an organizational commitment
to quality and effectiveness in all aspects
of the learning environment.

Recommendations
 DL opportunities are effectively supported
for learners through fully accessible
modes of delivery and resources.
 DL activities are designed to fit the specific
context for learning the nature of the
subject matter, learning outcomes, needs
and goals of the learner, the learner’s
environment, and the instructional
technologies and methods.

Recommendations
 The provider has a plan and infrastructure
for using technology that supports its
learning goals and activities.

What Do All This Mean?
 For our purpose, what Ess and Churton
share in common is a commitment to a
better quality of education through
distance learning.
 For Ess, DE plays a secondary role, but
he shows that it is really possible to
engage in DE while maintaining the ideals
of liberal education.

What Do All This Mean?
 Churton, on the other hand, he does not
have the same qualms; he goes on and
presents his list of benchmarks.
 In any case, we see that the role of culture
is quite prominent in both. Churton
stresses that the benchmarking be done
with full agreement and cooperation of all
the stakeholders - which mean that culture
is at least involved indirectly.

Asian Information Society
 The advent of ICTs has prompted many to
proclaim the information society, which is
characterized mainly by the central role
played by information.
 The information age differs from the older
industrial one in that what is
‘manufactured’ and ‘marketed’ is
information rather than concrete objects.

Asian Information Society
 However, this characterization ignores the
many obvious cultural differences - such
as those between East and West.
 So it makes sense to talk about the Asian
information society.
 This is characterized by the central role
played by information, but with the
distinctively Asian embedding.

Finer-tuned Differences
 Of course one can fine tune the difference
further, and proclaim that the information
societies that exists, say, in Japan and
Korea are different.
 This may well be so, but we don’t need to
go to that level of detail here.

Chief Characteristics
 The characteristics of the Asian
information society are not yet much
explored.
 Nonetheless, one may tentatively say that
they include the following (apart from the
usual):

Chief Characteristics
 Communitarianism (as opposed to
individualism)
 Belief in social hierarchy
 Emphasis on conformity
 Low content/High context
 Strong continuity with the past (esp. in
Thailand’s case)

Asian Information Society:
Thailand as a Test Case
 The core and the periphery
 The core: belief in social hierarchy, Buddhism,
traditional version of history
 The periphery: appreciation of all modern
things - radios, telegraph, television,
computers, mobile phones, digital cameras,
etc.
 The trick is that the latter must not
threaten the former.

Asian Information Society:
Problems
 “…since the 1980s, the new
industrialization strategy in East Asia and,
for that matter the advanced developing
countries of Latin America, has offered
large opportunities for employment and
income gain for a portion of highly
educated and qualified professionals, but
the less educated and less skilled workers
have been left out in the cold” (Ryokichi
Hirono 2001: 41)

Many-dimensional Divides
 Digital divide
 Income divide
 Knowledge divide
 Opportunity divide
 Education divide
 Etc.

 What these show is that the promise of the
information society has not reached all the
strata of the societies in Asia.
 Obviously education plays a key role, but
how? And what kind?

What This Means for
Education
 So the problems are multi-faceted; there
are the divide problems, and there are the
added dimensions of culture.
 Education is much perceived as belonging
to the core of the culture.
 Thus you can see where the problem lies.
 This is why I would like to talk about the
aims of education today.

Aims of Education
 Whitehead (1929)
“…the apprehension of general ideas,
intellectual habits of mind, and pleasurable
interest in mental achievement can be
evoked by no form of words, however
accurately adjusted.”

Aims of Education
• “The solution which I am urging, is to
eradicate the fatal disconnection of
subjects which kills the vitality of our
modern curriculum. There is only one
subject-matter for education, and that is
Life in all its manifestations”

Traditional Aims of Education
 In Thailand, it is generally understood that
education’s main purpose is to train
students to function in the workplace.
 Another deeper purpose is that education
aims at maintaining the status quo.
 People send their children to school in
order to “go up the social ladder.”
 Education thus is not for change, but the
opposite.

Educational Aims and
Technology
 With the advent of modern technology,
there is a tacit reconception of educational
aims.
 The emphasis has shifted from ‘preserving
the status quo’ to ‘responding to
contemporary challenges’ - neither
Whitehead nor traditional Thai.
 Technology may not be the direct cause of
the shift, but certainly it accompanies it.

Slow Adoption of Technology
 Much teaching and learning in Thailand
still proceeds in the traditional manner,
even though there is eager adoption of
technology elsewhere.
 But we need to find a balance between
unbridled enthusiasm and total pessimism.

The Middle Path
 The middle path, however, is rather
difficult to find.
 Behind the self-proclaimed fear of
technology, there is a deeper fear that
technology would threaten the core of the
culture.
 So if we can find a way for technology to
be an integral part of the culture, then it
seems we can have a beginning.

Making Technology and
Culture Go Together
 Since technology comes with the baggage
in which it is embedded, one would
presumably need to start from unwrapping
it and putting it in the other context.
 But that is not possible, because
technology is part and parcel of a culture.
 Hence culture also has to change.

Rethinking the Aims of
Education
 Making technology an integral part of
culture makes it important that the aims of
education should be rethought.
 A shift from ‘responding to globalizing
challenges’ to ‘taking one’s initiatives in
fact of globalization’

Taking Initiatives
 What this means is that, instead of
following the globalizing trend and trying to
catch up with it, one should look at the
trend with more critical eyes and evaluates
how the trend is going to affect one’s own
priorities and values, as well as become a
player in the globalizing game.

 I would like to say that the divide problems
mentioned earlier can only be solved if
these initiatives are taken into
consideration.
 More emphasis on the local and
development of “home grown” knowledge
systems.

How Is This Relevant to
Language Education?
 Rethinking the aims of education
 Taking the initiatives in one’s own hands
means that, in using ICTs in language
education, one does not teach or study
(foreign) languages solely for the purpose
of responding to globalization, but to
master it, so to speak.

How This is Relevant
 I cannot presume to talk to all the
linguistics and language teachers here
about how to teach a language.
 However, I believe what I am saying here
is relevant because all uses of technology
in education involve certain degrees of
cultural embeddedness.

Combating the Divides
through Language Education
 The promises of the Asian information
society, with its peculiar characteristics,
will not be realized if one does not solve
the divide problems.
 For this language education plays a key
role in providing the learners with a
window by which they can look at the
world appreciatively and with
understanding.

Realizing the Full Potential of
the Asian Information Society
 To do this technology is essential, but it
should be a kind of integrated technology.
 We can see the computers also as an
extension of the older Asian technologies
such as the abacus and the ink and brush
- no disruption should be allowed.
 If we can do this, then the prospects
should be a bright one.

Thank you very much!

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