Technology Integration and Globalization

by Van Aguirre

(originally printed in SVC's Teaching & Learning newsletter, Fall 2007)

Over the past three years, Skagit Valley College has steadily worked towards integration of technology into its learning environment. At the same time, a heightened sense of global awareness has started to permeate the campus community. It is perhaps, a logical development for any innovative institution since technological advancement and globalization are the two forces shaping the world at the end of the 20^th century. Computer technology has ushered in a phase in our civilizational development.

 Thomas Friedman, a journalist and writer, observed that the world had undergone three great eras of globalization. Globalization 1.0 was the geopolitical expansion by powerful nations with military and mercantile capabilities, a period characterized by exploration and colonization. Globalization 2.0 started around the 19^th century with the Industrial Revolution and ended in the 20^th century with companies growing global in scope and operation. In the 21^st century, the writer noted, Globalization 3.0 would acquire its unique character when individuals would have increasing opportunities to collaborate and compete globally.

If this is so, what would Globalization 3.0 mean to us in Skagit Valley College? In his Faculty In-Service presentation at the start of the Fall Quarter, Dr. Gary Tollefson pointed out that there are more honor students in China than we have students in the United States. With communication and travel industries fueled by exponentially growing capabilities of computerized technologies, the talents and services of these ambitious, success-driven Chinese students will  be available to anybody in the world; and as we are already witnessing, global companies will employ them. Our students, in one way or another will need the skills to collaborate and compete successfully with their counterparts from countries like China.

According to Friedman, some Chinese business leaders do not think that the US fully understands the challenges that Americans are facing. True or not it seems alarming enough, especially when we consider that Chinese leaders also believe that they are still trying to catch up with India in a race to provide manpower to the global industries; and these are not the only countries in the bandwagon.

In 2006, I had a discussion with a Canadian CEO who was trained in the Japanese corporate office in Osaka. Four years later, he was assigned to head the corporation's French subsidiary from its branch office in Canada to support research and development of a major US partner. He offered one of the best reasons I have heard why there has been a need for technology integration in our learning environment. On his way to Chicago after a trip to India and Taiwan, he told me, "Whenever I am asked what would be the primary motivations for successful integration and the need for a complete shift in pedagogic methods, I recite these words – disaggregation of job functions, globalization of innovation, Dalian and 'Namaste'. Our world isn't round anymore; technology has flattened the playing field." If you have read "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman, you probably understand what he meant.

Disaggregation of functions is the basis for successful outsourcing. If a job can be fragmented into several tasks to allow some of those tasks to be performed remotely and effectively at reduced operating cost, then outsourcing will be an attractive option. In a laissez-faire economy, the basic law of economics will prevail. Products and services that can be manufactured or performed at a lower cost elsewhere will move; to China, India, Russia, Mexico or anywhere else in the world made reachable by technological advancement. The era of multi-national mega-corporations offers governments less leverage for interventionist measures.

This growth in successful outsourcing leads to globalization of innovation which in turn will create cities like Dalian in China. Sooner or later if not now, a successful professional in the US will most likely learn to say the Indian greeting "Namaste." In the 21^st century, geopolitical boundaries which have allowed for protectionist economies may very well be a thing of the past. Centuries of political and cultural differences that divided nations would be set aside to accommodate economic realities.

Talking to administrators, faculty and students, it is apparent that SVC is aware of the challenges that confront the work force of our nation. Many also generally believe that the integration of technology into new pedagogic methods is an essential factor in developing skills and discipline to give our students competitive edge in the job market. However, it is also apparent that there are questions as to what integration really is all about. How do we define it? How do we successfully implement it?  How do we measure its success?

Educators, early on, have thought of it as the availability and the effective use of technology, such as the definition by the National Forum on Education Statistics in 2005 - "…the incorporation of technology resources and technology-based practices into the daily routines, work, and management of school". In planning and implementation, some curriculum specialists measure its success by the number of classes that have moved from the traditional classroom setting into the virtual environment such as Blackboard. Others see it as technical competencies in both teachers and students. However, many educators have started to realize that these are only road signs.

Successful integration is neither simply about teachers who are skillful in producing multi-media materials to enhance understanding of core knowledge nor about students knowing how to submit assignments in powerful presentations. More importantly, it should not be all about virtual classrooms and online forums replacing traditional classes and collegial interchange of ideas. All of these are facilitators; they are the means but not the end, so to speak.

Indeed, there are concerns that dilution of academic discipline may result if these are the sole focus of integration. To think only in terms of access and investment in infrastructure on one hand, and/or curriculum and teaching on the other, may point to a narrow and ultimately unsuccessful implementation. Successful integration leads to one goal, the development of skills and discipline among students in the use of technology in continuing pursuit of knowledge through discriminate acquisition of pertinent and accurate information with the aim of timely productive application.

Over the years many otherwise realistic plans by schools for successful integration have suffered set-backs because of unrealistic focus. There have been misconceptions that tend to derail the early efforts by educators. The two more common ones can be generalized in the following expectations. First, the teachers must produce classroom materials in digitized format to incorporate in the classroom activity. Is it time well spent for a science teacher to shoot a half hour video and then spend several days trying to produce a 15 minute presentation out of that file? Second, the schools need to provide expensive computing equipment; the best that the ever shrinking budget can support to have effective use of technology in the learning environment. As one teacher reminded me, we were able to send men on the moon with computing systems that were so much less powerful than a kid's video games of today. How much interest and excitement can be achieved in the exchange of ideas with one $500 computing unit?

Our flattened world in the 21^st century has made it essential to integrate technology in the learning environment and as educators take on this challenge, it has become apparent that the best plans for integration must place equal importance between hardware/software acquisition, faculty training and curriculum design. Nevertheless, let us be reminded, every now and then, that great technology is never the foundation of good teaching.

Investment in high-performance technology and technical competency among faculty must translate to technological literacy among students. Technological literacy as defined by The International Technology Education Association in 2000 is "the ability to use, manage, assess, and understand technology." In a 2002 publication "Technically Speaking: Why All Americans Need to Know More About Technology", the definition was expanded by Greg Pearson and A. Thomas Young to encompass "three interdependent dimensions – knowledge, ways of thinking and acting, and capabilities," that would allow people "to participate intelligently and thoughtfully in the world around them".

Thomas Friedman has claimed that we are now living in a flat world. In his book, he has written about college students in India who have been preparing US Income tax returns for about half a million Americans. Chinese in Dalian have been working for Japanese multi-national companies. Even an order for a meal in a McDonald restaurant in Missouri is being taken by a person in Colorado. Can students in Australia provide that service? I'm sure it can be done, especially at times when takers in Colorado are sleeping.

In 2007, The International Society for Technology in Education in its newest release of National Educational Technology Standards for Students: The Next Generation, has emphasized "that to learn effectively and live productively in an increasingly digital world, students should know and be able to use technology for creativity and innovation; communication and collaboration; research and information fluency; critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making; digital citizenship; and technology operations and concepts." To be able to accomplish this among students with our infrastructure and technical competency is what ultimately Technology Integration should be for Skagit Valley College.

(This article represents Van Aguirre's personal views, not an official SVC IT/DE position.)

Thoughts On Global Awareness

by Dr. Theo Antikas

Courses such as "Olympic History, BC" or "Democracy in the Classical Era" would lead students into searching true values or facts and reasoning morality. They prompt an in-depth study of ancient societies in the light of democracy as opposed to tyranny, the ekecheiria (truce) as opposed to war, etc. Addressed to students of diverse disciplines or ethnicities it enables them to grasp the Olympic Ideal axiom considered a major step in civilization, as its purpose was to transform any aggression among men (i.e. warfare) into peaceful contest(s). Being the most sought after courses by students in history, archaeology and sociology (e.g., in Greece and the E.U) in 2004-05, I trust they would be of great value in "provoking" or "stimulating" global awareness

On the other hand, global courses like "World Civilizations" (not the simplistic "Eastern", "Western" or "Renaissance" classes) would expose ethnically diverse students to the influence(s) of the Egyptian, Chinese, Greek-Roman et al cultures on peoples and societies other than their own that spread from Scandinavia to Egypt and from the Middle East to the Pacific. It enables students to grasp the ideals governing art, culture, politics, religion, cult, even athletics, as expressed by ancient historians, writers and philosophers thus enhancing global awareness.

Abstract entities as ethos, morality, deontology, awareness are neither found on the 46 human chromosomes nor on the family tree. They must be taught by the school, and that is the purpose of this college's global awareness project—nothing more or less.