Make All America a School. Glenn R. Jones. Engelwood, Colorado: Jones 21st Century Inc., 1990. |
VOL. 6, No. 1, 100-101
This even slimmer book (almost a booklet) describes an interesting, and presumably commercial, initiative to provide college and university-level distance education via telecourses, that is, televised instruction, in the USA.
The book starts promisingly, with a clear first chapter outlining the implications for education of the changing environment being brought about by the post-industrial society and a useful brief history of the development of telecourses. There is also a chapter on the need to widen access through distance education, which will hold no surprises for most Canadian distance teachers.
The heart of the book though is a description of Mind Extension University, which offers courses for credit from a variety of colleges and universities through televised instruction, as well as non-credit general education televised instruction, via cable television stations. Students obtain credit from the institution offering the course. Mind Extension University provides student support services via voice mail and remote instructors. The cost, in terms of tuition fees, seems comparable to that of a conventional college education. There is also a section from students saying how useful the system has been to them and a short section that tries to address some of the concerns of "conventional" educators.
While no one in the distance education field is likely to argue with Jones' rationale for alternative educational provision, the book leaves a lot out. No enrolment figures, let alone completion rates, are given; only one of the participating institutions (Colorado State University) is actually named. The criticism of "talking head" televised lectures in former telecourse projects is acknowledged, but dismissed because "advances in telecourse design have addressed these issues" (p. 53); however, the book gives no indication of the instructional design process, if any, behind the telecourses, nor any justification for the use of television, compared with, for instance, well-designed print materials. The book in the end reads as special pleading for a particular commercial initiative.
This initiative nevertheless does attempt to go beyond the common, and often short-lived, single telecourse project, by providing telecourses as part of an overall system of distance education. Since Mind Extension University was only launched at the end of 1987, it is too early to judge its value. Judged by the quality of the book, though, while Mind Extension University is an interesting idea, it may be just too superficial and simplistic an approach to bring American education up to the standard demanded by Jones himself.