Converge Magazine reported that the World Future Society predicted that one of the ten breakthrough technologies that “will transform life as we currently know it” is distance education. I was amused because (1) it has already transformed so many people’s lives and (2) most people no longer call it “distance education”.
In the article, Roger Schank said that not much has changed in the past fifty years. His vision is that students should be put in simulated environments where they can learn by doing, rather than memorizing facts and formulas, and believes that few education leaders and politicians are visionary enough to make sweeping changes.
While I agree about the lack of sweeping changes, I disagree about the role of memorization and the lack of change. Memorization is essential, but it needs to be coupled with learning how to apply facts and formulas in meaningful ways. Medical students, to pick on a discipline where memorization is crucial, can not just “learn by doing”. And the change is evident in every aspect of education, although one can certainly argue not all change is for the better. This sentiment was expressed last week at the Health 2.0 conference, where Esther Dyson said “we should be paying for health, not for health care, and we should take $5 billion and train more gym teachers.”
Back to the future – I mean back to my points. Distance learning and educational technology has certainly transformed education but there is room for more change. And what we call it matters: e-learning, online learning, etc. are the more au courant terms. When I read about distance learning, it reminds me of correspondence schools. And even one of the few remaining correspondence schools recently changed its name. The International Correspondence School is now Penn Foster. Started in 1890 by newspaperman Thomas Foster, the initial goal was to help anthracite coal miners become mine superintendents and foremen, studying over candlelight following a 12-hour shift. Talk about people who would have been better off in simulated environments!
The glow of technological devices has replaced candlelight, email has supplanted postal mail, and the e-learning of today is not just lessons placed online but uses innovative technologies to engage learners. The classroom has not been replaced because it serves an important role, as Saul Carliner eloquently articulated in the controversial Long Live Instructor-Led Learning. I wonder what the World Future Society has to say about that.
The World Future Society, interesting, does have something to say about pandemics. An article about the Threat of a flu pandemic, from a 2006 issue of their magazine, was just updated to say that the initial carriers were birds rather than pigs but that the article “still provide[s] a reliable picture of what government response to a pandemic might entail”. While Stephen Downes might have a field day reviewing and grading their past predictions, this article seems quite accurate although not a prediction per se.
No one will argue that predicting the future is hard, Jeane Dixon notwithstanding. But, using the right terminology makes it easier to look to the future.

Recently I learned how to put together a memorial service and how to make cotton candy. The former was for the sad occasion of my father’s death and the latter was for my daughter’s elementary school fair. The commonalities are that, in both cases, assistance came from more experienced individuals, my knowledge sufficed for the occasions but had neither depth nor breadth, and the knowledge and skills are perishable in that they are unlikely to be used again.
What does it mean for learning to be perishable? Certainly, there is little difference between the process for acquiring perishable or more permanent learning because some degree of mastery is required: A memorial service needs to go smoothly and eager children must not be disappointed. I think what perishable learning ultimately means is that blinders go on.
In the case of the memorial service, I had little curiosity about the the psalms we chose or the reasoning behind order of events although my understanding of the mourning process is more comprehensive due to expert guidance. And, knowing that I may never make cotton candy again, I was less curious than I otherwise would have been about how the machine worked or the composition of the vibrantly colored powder, but may retain the optimal flick of the wrist that I mastered after a few tries.
Were these pursuits that would be repeated, I would have had far more questions. The answers could have led to new questions. Perishable learning is pervasive because of the multitude of situations that arise when one uses software once for a project or rents a car without bothering to master the bells and whistles. Perishable learning, therefore, is not merely learning that is discarded in the same way perishable foods are discarded after their time, but learning that does not invoke further pursuits and tangents.

Not only has technology “dramatically changed the way students experience university life,” according to The Guardian, it has impacted how they learn about schools. College selection has progressed far beyond browsing college catalogs in the library, although the many online (web) and offline (college coach) methods primarily target high school seniors. How, then do early- and mid-career professionals find graduate programs? Not surprisingly, through searches.
I have been thinking about this because of two experiences. This first was a program review and technology evaluation for Goucher College’s Master of Arts in Historic Preservation. Students and alumni, when asked how they heard about the program, mentioned searches and word-of-mouth. In the former case, many stumbled upon the program after multiple searches because their initial search terms were not “Master of Arts in Historic Preservation”. One of the recommendations the program review committee made was to determine what are the terms current students used to find the program and make sure through a combination of techniques that these terms actually led to the Historic Preservation program website.
Then, I started helping the Tufts University School of Medicine Pain Research, Education, and Policy (PREP) program promote their program using social marketing techniques. Not surprisingly, they have a similar situation: students primarily find out about the PREP master’s degree online. This time, my recommendations, in a detailed proposal, led to funding for a PREP student, Pam Ressler, and a series of meetings, including one with students, alumni, and faculty providing ideas about the types of students who might be interested in the program and the search terms they might use to find it.
To date we have launched a blog about pain. The initial entries include data about the disturbingly high number of people who are in pain (26% of Americans reported being in pain for more than 24 hours during the prior month) and the provocatively titled, “Is Pain a Symptom or a Disease?” Pam, as community manager, has student, alumni, and faculty commitments to write new posts, since blogs, especially group blogs, rarely manage themselves and the quickest way to lose a visitor is for the most recent post to be 6+ months old.
If you think the PREP blog was a good idea, I will only take partial credit since one of my sources of inspiration was the U Mass Online blog, which is also a group blog that brings in multiple perspectives. I don’t know how successful it has been at attracting new students but I would imagine that someone considering the program would likely be influenced positively by their posts.
Blogs are a great way to come up in a search. I blogged one of the last articles I wrote, “Dr. Google: Your Patients, the Internet, and You“, and, when I search on it, not using quotes, my blog entry comes up first in Google.
If your prospective students are online, they are likely to be doing searches, one of the most popular online activities. Blogs are a great way to attract their attention. There are other initiatives we have planned and I’ll write about those once we implement them.