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Workshop B
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Workshop A |
Workshop B |
Workshop C |
Workshop D
Workshop B - Session 2
Jan Vissar works for UNESCO and works on the project 'Learning without Frontiers'. He is going to place broadcasting in that context. Adult learning is an integrated component of the whole learning dimension of human life. Learning is something that cannot be divided into portions - it happens across and along the life span, across life, and in a sense it serves different purposes and goes for different pursuits. This is important because we used to think of school learning as something that is related to human development. This was related to a particular age bracket, from, say, starting 4 or 5 years old to 20-25 years old. That is outdated. Human development is a life span phenomenon, people do not stop developing when they have reached the end of adolescence. They go on developing. The learning environment is potentially rich in relation to the school. It occurs before, during and after school; and during the school it occurs both inside of school and outside of school. There is also a distinction between intended learning and accidental learning; learning that was not pre-planned, was not pre-meditated. There are different contexts in which learning takes place: formal, non formal and informal, and in multiple settings, multiple spaces for learning: physical, virtual and social. The physical can be closed, it can be open; the virtual environments can vary according to the media infrastructure and there also different social connections. Rich Environment That rich learning environment is poorly taken care of. What we basically intend is that the learning, during and inside of school, is intended learning and it occurs in formal settings; the spaces for learning are in the physical sense closed and there is little attention to those other opportunities. Adult learning to a large extent is based on that same model. It is changing and much more change needs to take place. So that is the learning environment. Then there is the technological environment. Technology should not just be seen as a plug-in to the existing learning environment. There is an interaction between the learning environment and the technological environment. We in fact see that the technological environment does influence already the way that we see the structural learning environment but it should also happen the other way around. My ideal would be for the technological environment to be driven by the needs for the development of learning. Also it is important to consider the technological environment as a multi-dimensional environment because people activate channels of learning in multiple ways and they may do so through multiple technologies. In the context of adult learning there are two different areas where technology can be used for learning. One is the alternative to the school system, that relates to the traditional education, to such notions as second chance learning, people who had wanted to engage in school learning, but at a certain time, could not. The whole broad second area is the modalities of learning that are not based on the school conception. This is very much an underdeveloped area as it relates to both intended and unintended learning. Uses of technology is not a separate area but it is rather the different purposes for which learning can be used, for which technology can be used. For example, communication purposes have to do with the instructional dimension of the learning process; they have to do with the meta-instructional processes, the way we facilitate the learner to get to know about the learning process itself, the motivational processes that are involved and the communication about the system as such, that allows us to control the learning system. In broadcasting, the technology is a dimension of the technological environment and should not be seen as separate from it. It is a very important dimension because it reaches large audiences and it has some very strong components. It has a long history. It is very well developed. Questions I have put some questions. The first is: how can broadcasting technology be used best in conjunction with the other technologies that we have available? 'Other technologies' does not necessarily mean only the sophisticated new technologies, but the whole range of technology starting with the classroom technology, the print technology, and also including digital computer technology and the like. Second question: recognising that any technology has its own strength and weaknesses, how can our particular broadcasting technology best be complemented by those other technologies and other modalities of use? Both those different questions should be seen against the background of the four purposes of educational communication. Thirdly, what can the broadcast technology best be used for? My point is that we should best use it for the re-establishment of a culture of learning by doing the following things: by pursuing the individual and creating new mindsets among people of all ages - not just the adult population, because adults are part of a multi-aged group - about the importance of learning and about the beauty of learning. Then there is something that we in UNESCO do in our promotion of culture - the notion of preservation and representation of culture. You have a cultural heritage that you first of all try to preserve. But you do not just preserve it and hide it, you also want to represent it in order for it to serve a purpose. Learning is something that we have somehow unlearnt, because of the narrow way the school system has focused on a particular kind of learning. We have lost some important dimensions of learning. The broadcast media can in my view bring out the richness of learning, and present it in its full richness and thereby motivate the population for learning purposes. Finally, broadcasting can contribute to the development of the culture of learning in three different ways:
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