Harmonizing Global Education ─ From Genghis Khan to Facebook

Distance education (DE) offers ways to reach the many people around the world who lack access to education and training by other means. International DE methods, however, are fragmented, and distance educators have often abandoned new technologies before giving them a chance to develop. As a result, many current DE tools and techniques are incompatible with the needs and cultures of different global regions. With the goal of designing efficient, relevant DE for worldwide audiences, Harmonizing Global Education invites scholars and practitioners to consider the historic development of technology-based education and communication studies, going back further in the literature than is often assumed necessary.
The book examines a wide range of historical ideas capable of shaping modern DE, including the Luddite Revolt among British textiles workers in 1811-12, the evolution of cubist art and musical aesthetics, and the visionary advances of early twentieth-century Soviet multimedia specialists. The author urges an awareness of previous generations of communications studies, and shows how audience research relating to traditional media can be relevant in the design of current internet-based and social media approaches. Today's open universities have grown from these earlier historical efforts, and the future success of open and distance education depends on learning from the successes and the failures of the past.

Jon Baggaley is Professor of Educational Technology at the Centre for Distance Education, Athabasca University, Canada.

Tables and Figures
Introduction and Acknowledgements

CHAPTER 1: The New Silk Road
1.1) The Gold of Timbuktu
1.2) Open and mega-universities
1.3) Traditional and new media
1.4) The mobile learning tradition
Summary

CHAPTER 2: Wax and Wane
2.1) Fin de siècle
2.2) Knowledge is power
2.3) The Luddite Revolt
2.4) Media adoption
Summary

CHAPTER 3: Why is the Sky Blue?
3.1) Cubist analysis
3.2) Cubist synthesis
3.3) Cubism online
3.4) Online constructivism
Summary

CHAPTER 4: Building Global Practices
4.1) Lost foundations
4.2) The asynchronous years
4.3) A Web-based bubble
4.4) Practical evaluation guidelines
Summary

CHAPTER 5: The Power of Many
5.1) Double-edged swords
5.2) Pedigree of a plagiarized piece
5.3) The uncritical mass
5.4) A giant structure
Summary

CHAPTER 6: Harmony and Counterpoint
6.1) The man who mystified Moscow
6.2) Imperfect harmony
6.3) Global counterpoint
6.4) A fugue state
Summary

CHAPTER 7: The Prism of History
7.1) Down on the farm
7.2) "There it is!"

Notes
References
Index