Article in Chronicle about David Noble's new book: New Book by Critic of Distance Education Describes Privacy Threats.
I doubt if law enforcement even CARES what is said in 99.999...% of classroom discussions. It's a lot less captivating to outsiders than some professors seem to think. But if what is said in a classroom discussion is material to making a criminal case, I have no problem with transcripts being turned over to investigators armed with a proper subpoena. If Mr. Noble believes that academic freedom extends to preparing terrorist acts, then I am not going to follow him there. But don't administrators have a legitimate interest in what transpires inside their classrooms? And doesn't the concentration of classroom conversation into one physical space in audible form make those conversations easier to overhear, not harder? Then his book must be a very speculative fantasy, since the US military has had little or no impact on distance education so far. And how exactly is this threatening? Wouldn't it be a little less paranoid and conspiratorial to simply recognize that military personnel have legitimate educational needs, that the conditions of their service often make it impossible for them to attend traditional on-campus courses, and that the DoD has a legitimate interest in making educational opportunities available to them? I see this as being no different than a corporate educational effort that brings on-line and on-site courses to their employees. It's just that it's a 'corporation' with a million employees. So yes, it will be a significant market for DL, but is that really an argument against serving it? Noble's complaint seems to reduce to the fear that military interest may help further DL growth. As for Mr. Noble's fervent hope that DL is proving unpopular and is doomed to implode, I'd like to point out to him that a single large DL MBA program like Phoenix's has more students enrolled and grants more degrees every year than all of the neo-Marxist cultural-criticism of technology (so called "science studies") programs in the entire world do... combined.
The article calls Mr. Noble a "critic of technology." While I am aware this is to be understood within the context of distance learning, I can't help but wonder if he is also critical of other areas which utilize current technology? Is he a critic of: automobile technology: Lets go back to the horse/buggy. communication technology: Lets go back to rotary phones--or no phones. No, he is probably using his CELL PHONE to call his publisher regarding a FAX he just received. He rushes home in his 2001 BMW (latest technology) to watch the game on his BIG SCREEN TV. But never let it be said that technology is being utilized within the academy. Russell
Actually, it should not be understood only in the context of distance learning. Noble is a critic of technology in general, or at least of our attitudes to it -- see his book The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention.
And he does have some good points; the trouble is that he's one of those people who obviously doesn't know how to laugh at himself, which is why he will never appreciate the sort of universal respect that Wendell Berry and other technology critics have attracted. If and when he lightens up, he might be a force to be reckoned with. As it stands, he's the most unmarketable and least appreciated sort of author: the humorless critic. Cheers, ------------------ Tom Head www.tomhead.net co-author, Bears' Guide to the Best Education Degrees by Distance Learning (Ten Speed Press) co-author, Get Your IT Degree and Get Ahead (Osborne/McGraw-Hill)
For some unknown reason, I once confused David Noble with David Lodge, the absolutely hilarious novelist (with plots set in the academic world). (See Amazon list.) So my expectations made Noble's book even more depressing!
My sarcastic humor becomes reality, huh? Certainly technology should not be viewed as some "savior of humankind," however, it does indeed offer many opportunities which would not be available--DegreeInfo for one. Russell
Noble fears that the military's involvement (which, at this point, seems to be primarily as a consumer)in DL will restrict academic freedom. I think this is the sort of thing that Richard A. Pozner had in mind when he wrote a commentary for the February 2002 edition of The Atlantic Monthly entitled "The Professors Profess: Ordinary people can say stupid things. Brilliant people do it brilliantly." In it, Pozner says that college professors tend to make fools of themselves when they pontificate about subjects outside their area of expertise. Noble is a professor of history, not of military culture. Noble's phobia of the military is, by definition, unreasonable. I have attended two institutions of higher learning that are actually *run* by the Department of Defense: Defense Language Institute (DLI) and Joint Military Intelligence College (JMIC). If Noble's theory that the military would curtail academic freedom were true, than one would expect that these two schools would be in total lockstep with the military "party line," and that the curiccula at both schools would have been dictated by the DoD. I found this not to be true. At both DLI and JMIC, the instructors created the courses, and were responsible for their content. Furthermore, at neither school were the instructors "muzzled." A few examples from DLI: the Spanish instructors from Argentina spouted incessantly and angrily about one of our greatest allies, Great Britain. (It seems that they just couldn't get over the Falkland Islands thing. We were severly chastized if we refered to them as the 'Islas Falklands'--thier actual name--rather than the 'Islas Malvinas'--the name preferred by the Argentinians.) Instructors from Central America demoaned US involvement in the region. Others took a dim view of Puerto Ricans--as, in their view, Puerto Ricans aren't really Latinos, nor do they really speak Spanish. At JMIC, the instructors designed the courses and selected the texts. There too, intructors were not afraid to speak their minds. They rambled on about how the military intelligence establishment often stumbles and bumbles, they named names of those officials whom they thought the most foolish. They criticed US foriegn and domestic (go figure) policy. They pointed out how flawed our culture (both in the US at large, and in the military) is. While Noble is correct in thinking that the military values conformity, he is unreasonable in his fear that this desire for conformity extends to the classroom. For years, the armed forces have extoled upon their members the values of a college education at institutions they have absolutely no control over, nor could they hope to have control over. So, lets ask ourselves this: Who's the most likely control freak here, the military or Noble? Tracy<><
Article in The Nation about Noble's book: The Keyboard Campus. Some people will hate this article in the leftist Nation, but I think it's the most thoughtful review of the book I've yet seen.
Thanks for posting that, Gert. I agree that it is the best review of 'Digital Diploma Mills' that I've read. Critical of Noble's excesses, hyperbole and shallowness, but not slavish in its praise of DL either. I think that there really are important issues raised by many of the dramatic changes taking place in higher education. Not everything that's happening is positive and real dangers do exist. But those issues need much better treatment than Noble gives them. The guy seems to have become a caricature of himself as the angry gadfly, and may be doing as much harm to his own cause as to DL.
I don't know if you have seen this before Digital Diploma Mills: A Dissenting Voice by Frank White. The whole text is available at: http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue4_7/white/
The problem that I have with David Noble is that he has concocted a definition of "quality education" that, by design, excludes the unique features that technology brings to the table. Then, when he turns around and applies his unique definition of "quality education" to distance learning, it is found wanting--Surprise! Fundamentalist "cult fighters" (nearly all of whom have unaccredited religious degrees) use the same methodology to exclude certain denominations from their definitions of "Christianity." It is sad to see a university professor utilize this type of unscholarly approach. Although Noble makes some interesting points in his writings, his basic premise is flawed which makes much of his argument difficult to take seriously. Tony
