Year: 1991
Type: book-review
Abstract: In Higher Education and the New Technologies, Ben Davis of MIT traces the history of society's involvement with technology, starting with the campfire and concluding with interactive videodisc.The campfire is a good metaphor for technology in higher education.Campfires draw us, promise heat, light, and keep unwanted elements away.Technologies in higher education hold much promise: computers, videodiscs, CD-ROM, interactive videodiscs and interactive computer-assisted instruction all promise great benefits.This book reports on the delivery of the promises.The book contains seventy papers and summaries from the 5th Congress of the European Association for Research and Development in Higher Education and the Dutch Association for Research and Development in Higher Education held in 1987.Most authors come from Holland but there are articles from the United Kingdom and a few from the United States and other European countries.The book deals with these topics: introducing technology into higher education, innovative prototype programs in artificial intelligence and computer-assisted-instruction, design and development approaches for high technology, instructional design and research, management information systems in education, interactive video, and games and simulations.The book is difficult to work with for several reasons.The editors chose articles varying widely in quality and topic.In addition, they did not summarize the contents forcing the reader to wade through a potpourri of case studies, philosophical positions, and research reports.The abstracts are not particularly helpful because some contain introductions to the articles instead of concise summaries of content.Finally, there are not consistent definitions in the book, authors use their own terms without regard to standard definitions; e.g., computer-assisted-instruction, computer aided-learning and intelligentcomputer-assisted-instrüction are used interchangeably.Proofreading and typesetting errors abound adding to the readability problems.
Author: Richard F. Lewis
Institution: University of Windsor
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W1770775804