Bizhan Nasseh
Special Assistant for Educational Technology
Ball State University
RB – 237|
Muncie, Indiana 47306
Bnasseh@bsu.edu
Ball State University Muncie, Indiana

Introduction:

In the last two decades, society has made an enormous investment in technology-based infrastructures in higher education institutions (HEIs). These institutions have infrastructures, human resources, knowledge bases, and the responsibility to deliver needed education in order to continue the transformation from an information society to a knowledge society. Furthermore, HEIs must prepare citizens with skills and knowledge that can help them to survive and prosper in this tough global economy and information society.

Technology-based education (TBE) and technology-assisted education (TAE) are not an option for HEIs. TBE and TAE are high priority for on-campus education and vital for off-campus education. The main characteristics of the TBE and TAE are:

• Teachers and students both are lifelong learners.
• Educational opportunity is not just local but also national and global.
• Distance education is a mission for higher education institutions.
• The focus of education is not on teaching but on learning and services.
• HEIs are in the business of learning. The same principals of the business process such as competition, quality, and satisfaction are main factors.
• The process and content of teaching and learning are based on the needed competency with the opportunity of learning-while-doing activities.
• Re-engineering in the higher education institution's business operations and instructional deliveries is a primary goal.
• HEIs are utilized as learning organizations with culture, vision, leadership, innovative programs, infrastructure, and support resources.
• New pedagogy is developed to facilitate outcome-oriented education in an empowered environment.
• Adaptive intelligent learning resources are established to facilitate the process of teaching and learning, and learning activities based on the needs and environment of learners.

Before 1970, a college education could generally be expected to be an adequate basis for a life-long career, but after 1970 that sort of security began vanishing rapidly. Davis (1996) wrote that during the industrial period of this century the educational portion of a person's life was basically from kindergarten through college. Today we continue expanding the number of years it takes to get educated, until now the necessity is adjudged lifelong learning.

The reason for this continuous learning is that the half-life of what a person learns - or period of need for a given body of information - is getting shorter and shorter. Today, half of what an engineer learns as a freshman is effectively obsolete by the time he or she graduates from college and enters the work force. Adult education to produce better job performance and job advancement has become a serious issue for society and the work force.

In 1989 at the European Particle Physics Labroratory (CERN) in Geneva, British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee developed a protocol that he called World Wide Web (WWW). In 1993, the development of Mosaic – a simple, graphical web browser that was freely distributed over the Internet – brought the general public closer to networked communities and information resources. The development of WWW and the browser provided new possibilities and challenges for education and business. Advancement in computer and communication technologies in the 1990's has completed the transformation of society from data-oriented to information-oriented. The creation of the Internet as a global network and the worldwide web as a delivery medium brought new directions and utilization beyond anyone's wildest imagination.

By developing an online interactive multimedia computer application from a concept, students have great opportunities to experience the concept by changing the computer application with different input. A dynamic and interactive computer program can have the ability to interact with the user, to reflect upon input, to offer advice for a solution, to evaluate responses, to create new situations, and to provide reasons for incorrect answers. At the University of Maryland, the Great American History Machine is a computer program that gives students the opportunity to add a railroad, a new business or to eliminate existing elements in order to see the effect of these actions on the population, or to add population to see the resulting changes in economics. This is a great opportunity for deep learning that today's learners are expecting to find in technology-based learning activities at HEIs.

The definition of learning is changing rapidly. Not long ago, a college degree and mastery of a body of knowledge was adequate for a lifelong career. But today -- in addition to mastery of a body of knowledge -- students must develop critical thinking and teamwork abilities, learn accessing and processing information, communication skills, digital collaboration, and develop a baseline knowledge of information technology and lifelong learning skills. In this tough global economy and information society, being a lifelong learner is the only way to preserve status or advance to a new status. As Carol Twigg (1994) mentioned, we are seeing dramatic changes in who is learning. Only 43% of the nation's undergraduates are under the age of 25 and attending a four-year college on a full-time basis. For example, 51% of full time students at Indiana University in Kokomo (a nonresidential campus) are over 24 years old and 75% of these students are working full- or part-time. Nasseh (1996), in research study, reported that over 71% of students who participated in the computer-based distance education from six institutions indicated that they are over 22 years old and 61% of them are married. These are strong indications that the new generation of lifelong learners will attend formal education along with other commitments such as family, work, or community in their lives. This group of learners has special objectives for participation. They see higher education institutions as the provider and themselves as the customer of education. The need for competency-based education, tough global competition for attracting students and the rapid extension of virtual classes and virtual universities are changing current educational systems to a market-driven educational system. The growth of the global business of learning will continue in the 21st century.

The student body will continue to grow into two different groups. The first group is a student body less than 25 years old, who comes directly from high school to college for undergraduate and -- in some cases -- graduate education. The second group is learners who are 25 years old and over. They come back or start college to earn degrees, learn new skills, or upgrade current skills. These two groups coexist in the current formal education system with different needs, styles, characteristics, expectations, and experiences.

Current students in HEIs may be said to be of the PC and Nintendo generation (nin-gen). Most of the nin-gen had opportunities to use PCs in high schools and homes. Additionally, they use interactive games for fun, challenge, and enjoyment. These experiences provided them with new expectations from technology-based education in HEIs. They see interactivity as a part of technology-based learning activities. At the same time, higher education institutions are having a difficult time transforming process-oriented and face-to-face education to technology-based and outcome-oriented education. HEIs have a great opportunity to understand the current generation's cultures, expectations, and needs in order to prepare for the generation who will storm the campuses in the 21st century. The focus of this section is to describe the future generations that will provide the impetus and help for the changes in the operation and instructional delivery of HEIs.

At the present time (1998) an estimated 51 million students are in the K-12 educational system in the United States of America. This number will grow until by the year 2004 over 55 million will be studying in the K-12 school systems. The demand for higher education will of course continue to grow. In the new century, this Internet-generation (net-gen) will storm to higher education institutions with a different philosophy and ideology about education, communication, technology, and the institutions themselves. By the year 2000, most of the students coming from high school to HEIs are net-generation. At the same time, the transformation from an information society to a knowledge society is completed or is in the process of completion. As Don Tapscot (1998) mentioned, the net-generation that in 1999 will be between the ages of 10 and 20 was born in the era of computers and the Internet. The net-gen will bring different expectations from technology-based contents and materials, a different culture of communication and collaboration, different attitudes toward technology, different ideas toward the process of teaching and learning, different expectations from teachers and the campus community, a different way of participation in the networked community, and different levels of knowledge and curiosity. The message is very simple: they are ready for a challenging technology-based learning process and activities.

Are HEIs and teachers ready for this generation of learners? They see computers and network technologies as entertainment tools with potentials for many new discoveries. They will affect the current campuses' operations, communications, cultures, and processes of teaching and learning. They will help our teachers to incorporate effective technology in the learning processes and activities. They will help HEIs to prosper in the 21st century. They see teachers as partners in a team to accomplish the objective of learning. They see the institution as a place with needed resources, tools, and knowledge for discovery, research, and innovation. They see the learning process as innovative, creative, unique, and digitally based. They see learning activities as entertaining, individualized, and an enjoyable journey. They see education as fun, sharing knowledge, challenging, and offering discovery -- all of which can help them to be ready for the challenge of a knowledge society and a global economy. They have positive attitudes toward the future and see it as an extension of today with education as a major part of their lives and work. They are eager to be lifelong learners and skilled knowledge workers of the knowledge society.

In the last 20 years, HEIs invested heavily in infrastructure without a similar investment in instructional delivery and faculty development. At the same time, on-campus computers and networks became more powerful and complex without a clear advancement in intelligence of the applications and a higher level of utilization in instructional delivery. The hope is that this new generation's expectations and contributions will focus HEIs toward innovative ways of utilization of these expensive investments. Higher education institutions have a great opportunity to utilize net-gen's talents, knowledge, suggestions, abilities, and innovations in redesigning their own educational and operational processes. Simply put, the survival of residential campuses is dependent on HEIs' ability to learn from the Internet-generation and provide a challenging digital environment for learning materials and learning activities.

The following are some of the characteristics of the Internet-generation.

• They are comfortable with and eager to contribute to the knowledge bases of the digital community.
• They are innovative and demand empowerment in the processes of learning and learning activities.
• They are curious and are natural researchers in the discovery of learning resources from the global network.
• They are generous and share their knowledge easily with the digital community, teachers, students, and institutions at the global level.
• They are adaptable to changes in computer and communication technologies and their applications in life, education, and work.
• They are confident and enjoy the local, national, and global digital journey.
• They are excellent partners for teachers and HEIs in the developing technology-based education.
• They pursue opportunities for discovery, creation, innovation, and experimentation.
• They have a passion for the creation of technology-based learning activities and digital communities.
• They have the potential to create a new culture for HEIs at the global level.
• They create a sense of unity and collaboration in global communities for HEIs around the world.
• They are ambassadors who will bring cultures, countries, and religions closer by digital communication, collaboration, and the sharing of knowledge.
• They respect digital communities and society, and develop standards and procedures for digital communication and collaboration.
• They understand what they need to learn; they will help HEIs to understand what and how to teach them.
• They demand an empowered environment for the design of learning process and learning activities.
• They have global orientation with resources and communities.
• They have individual styles, but fit perfectly in the digital communities in local, national, and global levels.
• They see their future as a part of their discovery and learning in HEIs.
• They prefer physical isolation in social and learning activities.
• They are the most socialized generation in the digital world and most isolated generation in the physical world.

In summary, the main characteristics of this generation are sharing knowledge, the ability to discover, adaptability, and being comfortable with the digital world. Their talent and imagination can help an institution to integrating technology in the learning activities. Their deep involvement in the global network and collaborative work will help provide unity among cultures, religions, and races. Already millions of young people from around the world are sharing with each other their knowledge, concerns, and thoughts on many technical, political, and social issues. Most of these interactions are private and personal, but recently many institutions are developing international collaborative works and group projects through the Internet. This global interaction is the hallmark of educational and social activities of the net-generation in the 21st century.

Now, the net-generation is composed of students in grades K-12 of the school systems. The current generation of students in HEIs has some characteristics of the net-generation. In the next few years, HEIs have the opportunity to learn from current students in order to prepare the educational environment for net-generation. The net-generation will not only change education, but will also change economic, family, work place, and societal structures. Don Topscot (1998) wrote, "… you have kids who go onto the Internet to do third-party evaluations of every form from cars to vacations and come back with information that affects the family purchasing."

Higher education institutions should understand the expectations of this generation of learners. Knowledge of their expectations will help HEIs to providing the needed environment, infrastructure, and opportunities. As virtual universities and global education models continue to grow, the net-generation has the potential to find the quality it needs in challenging education from cyberclasses in the global network. Because HEIs are losing their geographic monopoly, they must act quickly to understand the net-generation and prepare the needed resources for this challenging and enjoyable journey in the 21st century.

The following are some of the net-generation's expectations from higher education institutions.

• They expect quality digital infrastructure and the appropriate resources.
• They expect adequate access, bandwidth, computer power and support for interactive multimedia web-based applications.
• They expect the opportunity for asynchronous learning even if they are residential students.
• They expect HEIs to respect their learning styles and provide individual opportunity for growth and development.
• They expect digital communities with openness and knowledge sharing.
• They expect a partnership in the design of the teaching and learning process and learning activities.
• They expect policies and procedures that encourage, motivate, and facilitate learning activities.
• They expect adaptable processes that can help them to personalize learning based on their talents, abilities, and styles.
• They expect integration of technology in every aspect of business operation and instructional delivery.
• They expect technology that enables communication, collaboration, and cognition.
• They expect information- and knowledge sharing and collaboration in campus communities.
• They expect to be prepared for the current information society as well as for the future knowledge society.
• They expect to be understood and to be communicated openly and honestly by teachers and the leadership of HEIs.
• They expect accessible leadership in HEIs without the barriers of a hierarchical system of operations.

The old culture, philosophy, and leadership will not succeed with the new generation of learners. Just four years ago Peterson's -- the venerable college guide -- tallied 93 "cyberschools", whereas the 1997 Distance Learning guide includes 762 (Forbes, 97). With the explosion in the cybercourse offerings by traditional universities and virtual universities, the net-generation has the technical skills and options to find the ideal environment for their learning activities. For the first time, many higher education institutions feel pressure and the necessity to attract students. The situation is serious and the success of these efforts has a direct relationship with the survival of the HEI. There is great opportunity for HEIs to encourage, understand, and involve the net-generation in building a strong bridge for education in the 21st century.

In 1979 when I returned to formal education for my graduate work in computer science, I was the only student over 30 years old in most of my classes. The majority (over 90%) were young students who came to graduate programs after their undergraduate programs. In 1992, when I returned for another graduate study in education, the majority of students (over 90%) were over 30 years old. The changes in who is learning were demonstrated by the dramatic shift in two of my graduate studies in 1979 and 1992. I am sure the subjects of computer science and education had a major role in the shift of the students' ages, but still it was a dramatic change in student body. As cited earlier from Carol Twigg, only 43% of the nation's undergraduate students are under the age of 25 years.

We are witnessing a change from the traditional education model that is being replaced with a humanistic life learning model that is not limited by age, gender, social status, ethnicity, and nationality. With such rapid changes in knowledge bases, needed skills, and the tough global economy, educating the work force has become increasingly important to preserve the status of society. Today's society -- more than ever -- is concerned with the ability of the citizens to respond to rapid changes. We are seeing more and more adults return to formal education, and lifelong learning is becoming nearly as much an integrated part of life as breathing and eating. Adult learners are storming the learning centers to improve their skills and knowledge bases. This generation of learners is creating a mass market for the business of learning. They also bring new expectations that will change higher education institutions in a different way from the needs of the net-generation.

Since 75% of the current workforce will need retraining by the year 2000 and a new learned skills requires to be updated every five years, educational institutions have a great opportunity and market for attracting new learners. HEIs have tough competition in attracting this new generation of learners and providing needed education. The growing crop of companies aligning themselves with educational institutions -- such as Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, and Sun universities -- are strong indications of the companies’ and adults' needs for competency-based education. In addition, giant corporations such as Microsoft will continue to create competency-based formal learning that helps participants to be certified with specific skills in Microsoft's products and services. For example, Motorola requires its 139,000 employees to take at least 40 hours of training a year at Motorola University. Motorola University in Phoenix attracts 75,000 engineers, business staffers, and non-employees a year. The quality of learning activities attracts learners outside of the company to the learning programs. This learning opportunity will grow in the future and will draw away some of the continuing education market from HEIs. But adult continuing education as a mass market obligates HEIs to understand the characteristics and objectives of adult participants.

Traditionally, an adult is a person over 23 years old with responsibilities such as a family, a job, and various social commitments. This adult has a clear objective for educational participation and expects a higher educational institution to provide the opportunity to accomplishment the desired objective. The ability of HEIs to provide the education needed by adult learners is one of the most important issues floating over campuses. Most of the adult learners are passive learners, who were educated in the traditional mode. From kindergarten through grade 12 in the public school system and then through their college education, they sat in the classroom with the teacher fully in charge of the process of teaching and learning, working to absorb the content and materials, and participating in traditional learning activities. Most of this group can be included with the TV-generation, which utilizes the television as another passive learning and entertainment tool. This group can be divided into two subgroups.

The first is the group of adult learners who participate in on-campus classes and prefer a traditional education. At the present time, this TV-generation is participating in the classroom with the nin-generation, and they are changing the traditional student body on campuses around the country. The nin-generation is comfortable with a traditional pedagogy and a combination of lecture-based and technology-based education. But the TV-generation of adult learners is having a hard time adjusting to technology-based teaching and learning activities and a formal educational setting. At the same time, HEIs are trying hard to incorporate more and more technology in the process of communication, collaboration, and cognition in the on-campus classes.

HEIs should use a pedagogy that helps build a learning community that can help interaction and communication between adults and young learners. This is an effective means for adults to feel comfortable with a formal setting, to share their experiences in life and work with others in the class, and to learn technology operation and utilization from younger students.

Adult learners have many other commitments in life and work, and many prefer virtual classes and distance education. Several different options are available for distance education. For example, the learner has the opportunity to participate in a synchronous course in the form of satellite-based distance education. This method can reach a large number of sites over a wide geographic area at national or international levels. Broadcast TV is used to reach a limited geographic area such as a city or a state. The newest method is computer-based distance education over the Internet. The success of this method is related to the availability of computer and communication technologies, instructional delivery, online content and resources, and the competency level of both teacher and student. The World Wide Web has shown great potential for delivering courses on the web and being an accessible vehicle of distributed education for distributed peoples. In this environment of education, baseline knowledge of computer and communication technologies is a must for the learner in order to communicate, collaborate, and access learning resources. Providing the opportunity to develop these baseline skills and measurement of adequate competency are the new challenges for higher education institutions.

Zigerell (1984) wrote, "The ease with which modern communications technologies can link educational institutions to home, work-sites, and community centers has made adult education and lifelong learning matters of national policy." The main characteristics of an effective educational model for adult learners are:

• Outcome-oriented education.
• Teacher-student-centered or student-centered educational model.
• Teachers and students as a team to accomplish task of learning.
• Educational opportunity that is independent of time and place.
• Educational model that can satisfy learners’ objectives in a problem-centered learning model.
• Pedagogy model that supports empowerment and self-directed learning.

Adult participants are motivated to learn new knowledge and skills to utilize in life and at work. Advancements in computer and communication technologies have provided a great opportunity for HEIs to provide educational models that fit with adult learners' needs.

In addition to technology, higher education institutions should implement a learning model that supports outcome-oriented education. Professor Benjamin Bloom from the University of Chicago introduced a model of learning based on the following learning levels. This model has great potential for deep learning, technology-based, and competency-based education.

• Knowledge -- Contents, materials, practices, and techniques that provide opportunity of learning for learner.
• Comprehension -- Understanding the new knowledge and ability to explain them.
• Application -- Ability to use the new comprehend knowledge in a concrete situation.
• Analysis -- Ability to beak subject down into its component parts in order to understand how the pieces fit with each other. It also helps learner to recognize where needs more knowledge in order to understand in the depth subject matter.
• Synthesis -- Ability to put back different pieces of new knowledge together in order to understand new information or to use pieces in different situations.
• Evaluation -- Ability to judge the usability of new knowledge by its outcomes.

As technologies have become more advanced and sophisticated, more creative online and interactive applications have been developed that can utilize learning models such as Bloom Taxonomy. The true measurement of technology-based education is directly related to the ability of HEIs to convert theories to computer applications, concepts to computer demonstration, models to computer simulations, events to computer case studies, and knowledge bases to computer intelligent systems. This conversion provides online interactive learning opportunities in the application level of Bloom Taxonomy. At present time, most of the HEIs practice until knowledge or comprehension level of the Bloom Taxonomy. Adult learners have clear objectives for their own participation, so good computer applications and learning resources have the potential to help learners acquire needed skills and knowledge.

Adult learners see the teacher as a partner who facilitates learning processes and activities. They see the institution as a place to acquire the skills and knowledge needed to prosper in their jobs and lives. They see technology as a tool to provide additional possibilities for learning and communication. They see the learning process and activities as innovative, outcome-oriented, and student-centered. HEIs must understand the characteristics and expectations of adult learners. This knowledge can help HEIs to attract adult learners and provide the needed educational environment.

The main characteristics of this group are:

• They have clear objectives for their participation in formal education.
• They have other commitments such as family, work, and community.
• They prefer to participate in the design of learning processes and learning activities (teacher-student-centered model).
• They have rich experiences that can help teachers in the design of a better learning process and activities.
• They prefer self-directed learning activities.
• They prefer traditional teacher-student relationships and face-to-face communication and collaboration.
• They have excellent hands-on experience that is a valuable asset to share with teacher and students.
• They respect the standards, procedures, and policies of higher education institutions.
• They demand outcome-oriented education worthy of their time and investment.
• They have individual needs, learning styles, and objectives for participation.

• They are very socialized in the physical world and very isolated in the digital world.
• They are comfortable with synchronous learning process.
• They are more problem-centered than subject-centered in learning (Knowles, 1980).
• They grew and learned in an environment that was dominated by passive education and entertainment (TV-generation).
• They have a hard time adapting to technology and technology-based education.
• They need the teacher's support and access to support staff in case of problems and questions related to technology.

Providing learning opportunities for this generation is vital to enable society to compete in the global economy and transform itself from an information society to a knowledge society. They see the higher education institution as a place where they can gain needed knowledge and skills in order to solve problem or to create of a better environment for life and work. HEIs’ success in the attracting adult learners to their educational programs has a direct relationship with HEIs’ abilities in satisfying the following expectations of adult learners from higher education institutions.

• They expect outcome-oriented education that satisfies their objectives for participation.
• They expect teachers’ support and availability of support group in technology-based education.
• They expect partnership in the design of the process of learning and learning activities.
• They expect contents and materials that can help learning and development.
• They expect orientation and training opportunities in the technology-based education and asynchronous education.
• They expect adaptive educational programs that can be modified with individual’s styles and needs.
• They expect empowerment in the learning activities.
• They expect teacher-student-centered or student-centered environment.
• They expect to be treated as clients in the business of learning.

Adult education is a mass market for higher education institutions. Adult learners see HEIs as providers of a market-driven education. Commitment to a technology-based education should be a major strategic business investment for HEIs, thus it is very important that they understand this generation of learners and provide an environment that can attract and help them to gain needed skills and knowledge. Close interaction in the form of partnerships with businesses, industries, other educational institutions, and communities is the key for successful adult continuing education programs. The global network (Internet) and WWW have provided easy access to cybereducation for this generation without the limitations of time, place, and resources. This generation have clear ideas about their learning needs and they will only pursue opportunities that can help them to acquire these needed skills and knowledge.

Adult participation in continuing education is based on either personal choice or external choice. In the case of personal choice, an adult makes a decision to participate in formal educational programs in order to improve his or her performance, solve a special problem, and learn new skills and knowledge. In the case of external choice, someone else -- such as a manager at the workplace -- tells the adult to take formal education classes. In the internal choice scenario, the adult's satisfaction is measured by his or her personal evaluation of the educational process and outcome. In case of the external choice, the adult's improvement will be measured by improvement in job performance in the workplace. In the internal choice example, success is a choice, whereas in the second situation success is the main objective of participation.

In the 21st century, distance education will become a high priority mission for HEIs. In 1940 there was only one college-level credit course offered by radio, and that course failed to attract any enrollments (Atkins, 1991). Conversely, in 1995, Britain's Open University attracted 218,000 students from around the world (Open University, 1996). The Open University is a sample of many other virtual universities around the world. The growth in virtual classes, degrees, and universities will continue at a rapid pace in the 21st century, and the main characteristics of education in this new model are:

• Student-centered education.
• Outcome-oriented education.
• Global education.
• Time- and place-independent education.
• Interactive multimedia educational resources.
• Adaptive educational resources.

For HEIs, the delivery of technology-based education in this new era is not a choice; indeed, it is the only way of preserving their status and existence as education providers. Those HEIs that survive are the ones that understand how, why, and what to deliver to the new generation of learners. "How" defines the lectures, sessions, tests, and other processes that help the teacher to complete the process of teaching. "What" defines the course content, materials, and resources. "Why" defines the purpose of the course and the expected outcomes and competencies gained from this course by students.

The next few years are very crucial for the HEI in making this transformation to the new paradigm that can integrate technology, people, values, and processes. The new paradigm should be able to benefit learners from physical-presence-generation, to the TV-generation, to the computer-generation, and to the net-generation. The journey to the 21^st century is challenging, but institutions have commitments, responsibilities, intelligence, and resources for successful journey.

Stan Davis (1996). Slicing the Learning Pie. Educom Review, pp. 32-38.

Bizhan Nasseh (1996). Computer-Based Distance Education in Higher Education Institutions in Indiana, a Research Report. www.bsu.edu/classes/nasseh/test200/index.html

Don Tapscott (1998). Growing up Digital: The Rise of the Net generation. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Carol A. Twigg (1994). The Changing definition of Learning. Educom Review.

James Zigerell (1984). Distance Education: An Information Age Approach to Adult Education. The national center for Research in Vocational Education. The Ohio State university, Columbus, Ohio.