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Article Excerpt
The intersection of globalisation and information technology influences ethical positions and notions of responsibility within businesses and in distance education for school students. As the spatial and temporal distance between student and teacher increases, and is mediated by computers, there have been changes to the ways in which individuals and groups are able to share responsibility for students' learning. Virtual schools can be seen as the most recent implementation of distance education modes which have used predecessor technologies to educate students for many years. This new learning environment prompts a reconsideration of accepted practices, including questions of how responsibility should be apportioned.
Key Words
educational responsibility
school responsibility
computer mediated communication
ethics
distance education
educational technology
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We live in a globalised world where individuals draw cultural meanings and ethical values from electronic media and the Internet, as well as from traditional institutions. This is a world where geographic boundaries are proving malleable as information technology (IT) and markets interact across the world. It is an educational context in which Moore (1996) has noted that the power to communicate instantaneously across national borders is accompanied by uncritical assumptions about how we teach, and where, as Chareonwongsak (2002) observes, 'people have little time to understand and develop ethical stances' (p. 198).
The bankruptcy in the United States of Enron, and the charging of executives of WorldCom with fraud were events that indirectly arose from the interaction of globalisation and IT. The companies relied extensively on global computer-based systems for their operations, and the nature of the environment in which they operated may well have contributed to irresponsible or morally questionable practices. The medium through which profits are made fosters interconnectedness, a remapping of cultural understandings and a recalibration of accepted standards of behaviour.
There are similarities between the ethical concerns of the business world and some aspects of school education that go beyond coincidence. IT is a key component in both cases. Increasingly, schools are using IT regularly with their students, the Internet is used in classrooms to deliver subject content, and there are even virtual schools where students obtain an education from home via the World Wide Web.
There are now over 100 virtual schools in the United States alone (Clark, 2001), and additional examples can be identified in Canada and Australia. Definitions of virtual schools refer to breaking barriers of time and place (Mittelman, 2001), and the use of online computers to provide some or all of a student's education (Russell, 2004). The spatial and temporal distancing employed in virtual schools enables students to use their computers when and where it is convenient for them, rather than being subject to meeting at an agreed time in a school building. With this and some other variants of online schooling, the teacher is no longer physically present in the classroom with the students. When IT is used in these educational contexts, it promotes the replacement or modification of experiential learning based on direct teacher contact with a mediated equivalent. In doing so, it changes understandings of education, including notions of accountability and responsibility. The dilemmas emerging from the growth of virtual schools include the allocation of praise or blame for success or failure, and the challenge of reinterpreting accepted wisdom about the way in which that responsibility operates.
In this article, I discuss the nature of responsibility in virtual schooling environments. I trace the notion of responsibility in predecessor forms of distance education, including correspondence schools and schools of the air. I argue that a consequence of this inherited tradition of distance education should be the recognition that some of the problems associated with virtual schools are not new. However, I also contend that as new forms of schooling evolve in globalised information--rich environments, there are additional challenges for contemporary educators. I examine the ways in which that responsibility might operate for groups associated with virtual schools, including teachers, those involved in the IT industry, students and parents, and I argue that individuals and groups should be held accountable for the benefits or disadvantages arising from their involvement in these schools. Radical changes involving online computers and the separation of teacher and learner lead to a reassessment of who is responsible for the learning that takes place.
Prologue: Responsibility in predecessor forms of distance education
Three discrete historical phases, involving print, broadcast and online technologies, can be identified in distance education for school students (Table 1).The modes are cumulative. Hence the introduction of broadcasts (radio and television) meant that both broadcast and print-based (correspondence school notes) modes were in use, and the introduction of online schools saw the continuation of print and broadcast-based modes of distance education.
In Australia, a correspondence school was established in Melbourne in 1914 'to meet the needs of isolated children for schooling' (Correspondence School, 1978, p. 3), while a 'school of the air', using two-way radio, commenced radio broadcasts in the Northern Territory in 1951 (School of the Air, 2002).
Others followed this school at Alice Springs, and Ashton (1971) listed thirteen such schools twenty years later. These schools provided a valuable educational service to isolated communities in Australia's outback. Although students were involved in face-to-face meetings with other class members and the teacher through organised activities, including home visits, school camps and picnics, such contact was rare.
It is a characteristic of all forms of distance education that human agencies (individuals, groups or organisations) can be identified as responsible for students' learning. While learning can be explained by reference to many factors, only humans can be deemed morally accountable. Some changes in the composition and relative proportion of responsibility assumed can be identified with successive implementations of distance education. Figure 1 illustrates the application of this principle to the School of the Air variant. The relative division of this responsibility is notional.
Figure 1 Principal groups or individuals responsible for students' education in the 'school of the air' variant of distance education Home supervisor Student Teacher Educational authority
The parents or home supervisors accepted most of the responsibility for students' education (Ashton, 1971). Lessons were prepared by the remote teacher, usually with support from the Education Department, and were transmitted synchronously at agreed times. Writing of the School of the Air at Canarvon, Fitzpatrick (1983)...
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