President Vest appointed an ad hoc faculty committee on Education Via Advanced Technologies (EVAT), chaired by Paul Penfield. The committee's multimedia "final report" is available on the World Wide Web at URL http://www-evat.mit.edu/report/. It suggests that advanced computer and telecommunication technologies may change the operations and business of higher education in fundamental ways. For instance, many believe that lifelong education is just as important as lifelong health care, and that MIT must play a leading role. The new technology offers exciting opportunities for us to do so.
The EVAT report led to the new MIT Center for Advanced Educational Services (CAES), a merger of the Center for Advanced Engineering Study (the old meaning of CAES) and the Center for Educational Computing Initiatives (CECI) headed by Steve Lerman. The merged entity has experience in research and production, using analog and digital media, by professional staff and students working with faculty. It is working with others at MIT interested in providing multimedia education to a variety of learners, off and on campus, within and outside the traditional university age span.
Given a multimedia environment, the traditional "chalk talk" is usually not the best way to present educational materials. CAES seeks to learn about the uses of the media, and to support MIT faculty and staff in the creation and delivery of multimedia educational courses and services. CAES is now formulating a campus-wide research proposal in distance learning that seeks to begin to answer the question: "What mix of available technologies and paradigms for their use in education does best at teaching a given set of learners mastery of a particular subject?"
This talk will focus on current activities, seek faculty inputs to the research agenda and discuss future dreams.
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Modified: Jun 25, 1997|
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