Internet Learning Volume 5, Number 1, Fall 2016/Winter 2017 | Page 38

We are the Campus
been seen as the criterion against which
all other kinds of education should be
measured. The Manifesto proclaims
that online education must unburden
itself from the yoke of otherness, and
instead take its place as a wholly legitimate
form of delivery.
Text has been troubled: many modes
matter in representing academic
knowledge. Education has traditionally
been focused on words. Those words
may be transmitted through text-based
artifacts, or uttered by “a sage on the
stage” (King, 1993). Universities gained
their role as the legitimate keepers of
wisdom when there were few other avenues
for the transmission of formal
knowledge. The internet has reshaped
this thinking, as information of all
kinds has become dramatically more
accessible. As Swanson notes:
Yes, the world is becoming increasingly
media-infused. We watch video
clips instead of feature films. We
read hyperlinked blog posts instead
of novels. Giving students opportunities
to author in these new mediums
is critical. (2012)
The Manifesto urges educators to explore
possibilities of knowledge transfer
beyond the written or spoken word. It is
now possible to use animations, shared
electronic space, emojis, and simulations
to engage learners.
Digital education reshapes its subjects.
The possibility of the “online
version” is overstated. Digital education
transforms the learner, the teacher,
and the material itself. One of the greatest
disservices to online education is the
tendency to make digital imitations of
nondigital experiences. Online education
must renounce efforts to replicate
classrooms, and focus instead on using
the power of the internet to transform
how knowledge is transferred and how
new work is shared.
Implicit in this transformation is
the democratization of learning, with a
shift from hierarchical models to processes
of collaborative learning. The
role of instructor must be transformed
as well, since factual information is
now universally available. Information,
however, is only one piece of the puzzle,
as new roles must evolve for “guides
on the side” (King, 1993) who structure
collaboration, channel discussions, and
provide mentorship for learners.
There are many ways to get it right
online. “Best practice” neglects context.
The education marketplace should
be wary of those practitioners claiming
to promulgate best practices. As in traditional
education, online education is
not a single entity, but rather an amalgam
of varying people, circumstances,
goals, and hurdles. The prescriptive nature
of best practices tends to chill creativity
and impose homogeneity.
Distance is temporal, affective, political:
not simply spatial. The Manifesto
urges us to consider the many kinds of
distance which affect learners. Distance
education almost always refers to spatial
distance, and is thus compared with
education in which teachers and learners
are more closely confined in space.
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