Commentary: Curtis bonk and teaching and administering in stormy times

Curtis Bonk of Indiana University would have us believe that the 2000 movie The Perfect Storm is a metaphor for what is happening in current education [1]. The essential argument is that separate educational “storms” (see later) have now merged to become a cataclysmic storm of unprecedented strength. Personal observations would at least justify a lesser assertion of turbulent times. The secretarial staff of my department has just been subjected to an unprecedented deluge of inquiries from alarmed second year students who phoned, E-mailed, or walked in. The students could not find the timetable for Biochemistry on the University Information System. The course information was online, but the students had not located the correct entry point. This problem had never been encountered before, so it took a while to establish that students had logged into a service (called alloc8) that told them everything they needed to know in their first year at our university but is not the portal to second year studies in biochemistry. The take home message from this is that our students are increasingly expecting to have their courses managed online. Another personal observation, as evidence for a trend to online information gathering, is the manner in which students present for their enrollment into courses. In past years perhaps half of the students turned up for course advice carrying the University Handbook that lists the hundreds of courses offered. The printed handbook is heavy, is dated after only a year because courses are modified, and costs the equivalent of US$10. It is a great resource for getting the big picture of courses on offer and for scribbling on. This year I did not see a single University Handbook in the hands of enrolling students. To be fair I will be a little pleased when the handbook becomes exclusively online, if only because it should remove an irksome deadline to update entries for printing. Management online seems a fait accompli, and teaching online is getting there by stealth, judging by the demand for all lectures to be online. In such an evolving context of information-providing models we cannot expect absolute answers to what is the right amount of online versus contact teaching. One person grappling with this balance is Curtis Bonk. Curtis Bonk has the title of professor in Educational Psychology and asserts that Indiana, as a federal demonstration site for the use of technology in education, has one of the best equipped Schools of Education in the world [1]. His biography states “As part of my job, I get to play with some of this new technology. Isn't life grand? In order for you to understand my current contentment, I must point out that before this stage of my life, I was a bean counter. I had various jobs in factories, in public accounting as an auditor and tax accountant.” Curtis Bonk is the sort of person who appears to have an optimum background to view the new pedagogy with insight. A simple summary of Bonk's views is that what we have in teaching is a result of what is wanted and what is affordable, and both are changing. An abstraction of his observations about the convergence of the traditional and the online follows (from Ref. 2). Technology, the art of teaching, and the needs of learners are converging. Budgetary cutbacks are restricting how colleges and universities can respond to these emerging technologies, enormous learner demands, and enhancements in pedagogy. Lean fiscal times are forcing institutions of higher learning to explore innovative projects and partnerships. There is a storm brewing. Some have heard the thunder of numerous collaborative and learner-centered online technologies being developed over the past few years. Others have felt the brisk winds coming from innovative instructors experimenting with online pedagogy that better motivates online learners. Adding to this turbulence, millions of learners are signing up for online courses. Unfortunately, many of them quickly become bored online learners who plead for more rich and engaging online experiences. As these three storms collide, they create the perfect storm linking pedagogy, technology, and learner needs. Now add to that a fourth storm, erased budgets, that stands directly in the way of expensive technology purchases, expanding online programs, and risky instructional initiatives associated with the other three storms. Bonk considerately read the above and added the following. From an E-mail to me: “Students no longer want paper. They want quick access. They chat on mobile phones, they blog, they IM (Internet message), and they find their questions answered in a simple Google search. We have to think about the students we work with online. So one part of this perfect e-storm will intensify, and that is learner demand. Learners may have been content with inferior course management systems and technology in the past decade, but they will increasingly demand more interactive learning experiences and technologies. They will push their instructors for engaging content and activities. In response, course sharing portals such as MERLOT (U. S./international) and Careo (Canada) will become more widely known as ways for instructors to form communities of online educators who respond to these increasing learner demands. Sharing one's ideas and curricula will become increasingly common and accepted.” Additional material from Bonk about Blended Learning will be a subject for comment at a later time.

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