huridocs-tech Education via the Internet

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## author     : rverzola@phil.gn.apc.org
## date       : 01.06.99
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Philippine Journal
October 30, 1998
Second Opinion

Why the Internet is a poor learning environment by Roberto
Verzola

I first used the Internet more than five years ago, and thus
have used it longer than most local users. I've also been
working with computers since 1979, again longer than most
Filipinos have. I belabor these points so the reader may
appreciate that my opinions about computers and the Internet
are based on a long period of intimate association and
study, and not due to ignorance of the technology or fear of
the unknown.

I presume, on the other hand, that many of our education and
school officials have only recently become--or are not even
yet--computer-literate. I would imagine that quite a number
entertain persistent doubts about the educational value of
the Internet, but they keep these doubts to themselves for
fear of ridicule. School administrators today increasingly
feel compelled to install an Internet connection--however
expensive--for their schools to draw in new enrollees. Thus,
they go along with all kinds of incredibly expensive
proposals for Internet connections and Web browsing, most of
which will only make money for computer vendors and Internet
service providers (ISPs).

Is the expense justified?

Does the Internet's educational value truly justify the
expense? Would giving our children and our youth access to
the Internet, as the marketing hype claims, give them an
edge in learning as well as a headstart later in life?

The government seems to think so. One of its oft-stated
goals, for example, and one that is blindly echoed by
officials who think they are computer-savvy, is to provide
every school with access to the Internet.

Parents are as much a victim of the Internet hype. In their
desire to give their children the best learning
opportunities and the best education, they buy the most
powerful computer on the market, with the largest memory and
harddisk they can afford, and the fastest modem available.
Plus, of course, a subscription to an ISP.

I submit that the Internet is, in reality, a very poor
educational environment.

Building a good learning environment...

What, in the first place, is a good educational environment?

Let us start with the University of the Philippines,
arguably one of the best universities in the country. Let us
imagine ourselves in charge of improving the university's
educational environment. Here's what we're going to do:

- On the Sunken Garden, let's build a huge mall.

- In front of the School of Economics, we'll set up a
year-round fair.

- Behind the College of Engineering, we'll put a row of
moviehouses.

- Behind the College of Law, we'll open several nightclubs.

- By the way, we'll change the rules and allow teachers to
sell things to their students.

- We'll enrich the library collection with subscriptions to
Playboy, Hustler and similar magazines.

- Beside the chapel, we'll put a whorehouse.

You get the idea...

With these changes, are we nearer an ideal educational
environment? Given these "improvements", would you want to
send your children to U.P.?

.. or destroying it?

You wouldn't, obviously. We have, in fact, destroyed the
learning environment.

The Internet today is such a mixed environment. There are
hundreds of thousands of educational and learning sites,
that's true. But there are probably even more sites with all
manner of attractions, distractions and temptations for
students--all within a few keypresses or mouse clicks.
Because of the Internet's increasingly advertising-driven
culture, these sites are in fact easier to find than the
educational ones; their numbers are also rising faster.

Used carefully, the Internet can be helpful for doing a
number of things, I'd acknowledge. But it is definitely a
very poor environment for education and learning because it
destroys the carefully-designed school learning process.
Worse, it also exerts a powerful grip on the students'
psyche--in the same way that addictive drugs can. Today,
some psychologists are already warning against the emergence
of a psychological problem which is best described as
Internet addiction--when a user begins to take the virtual
world so seriously and he begins to lose touch with--or stay
away from--the real world.

Five senses or abstract symbols?

Effective education and learning needs a controlled
environment, one that is designed by instructors, professors
and education experts for maximum transfer of knowledge. If
you want exposure to the real world, you go on a field trip.
Even such field trips must be carefully planned, to optimize
the learning process.

Education also means learning to work with high-level
symbols. It means going beyond the level that is directly
appreciated by our five senses, the sensory level, and
thinking in more abstract terms. The Internet, however, is
moving in the opposite direction. Increasingly
advertising-driven, it is moving away from abstract symbols,
towards the purely sensory level, the level that demands the
least from its users. >From pure text, it has gradually
moved towards graphics, full-color, audio-visual, and,
today, live video. They are now talking of three-dimensional
video and, beyond that, of virtual reality using tactile
suits.

Television had initially promised to become a revolutionary
educational tool that would abolish mass ignorance and raise
the cultural level of the masses. Today, we call it an
"idiotbox". The Internet is today rapidly becoming the
interactive television of the 21st century. An interactive
idiotbox: is that any better?

Some suggestions

If the government wants to improve the learning environment
for students, as well as the entire population, it should
consider the following options:

* Expand school and public libraries. Build more of them.
Let us have a public library in every village. Adopt an
aggressive program to stock up these libraries by reprinting
the best educational books and translating them into local
languages.

* Implement a continuing skills-upgrading program for
teachers. A good, highly-motivated, well-paid teacher
supported with a carefully-designed curriculum and good
books will beat the Internet hands down as far as real
learning is concerned.

* Use the government-owned Channel 4, which is freely
accessible to anybody with a TV set within its range,
primarily for educational purposes. This channel has no
business airing basketball games, soap operas, sitcoms and
other inanities. Forget about cable TV, which needs a
monthly subscription and which the majority could not
afford.

* Acquire all kinds of documentary videos through compulsory
licensing, including the Discovery Channel series, and air
them on Channel 4. Allow other channels to rebroadcast these
materials.

* Form an experimental educational internet among schools
which already have necessary networking facilities. This
educational internet will only contain material that fit a
well-thought out set of criteria for educational materials.
Such an internet will will be completely separate from the
commercial, worldwide Internet.

We have today so little resources that it is absolutely
necessary to use them as wisely as possible. Surely, we do
not want to squander our precious resources on extremely
expensive Internet technologies that must be replaced every
three to five years.

Worse, the Internet will draw our students away from real
learning.



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