scholarly journals Policy Dialogue: Online Education as Space and Place

2021 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 534-545
Author(s):  
Carroll Pursell ◽  
Toru Iiyoshi
Keyword(s):  
Online Education ◽  
Educational Innovation ◽  
International Committee ◽  
Leonardo Da Vinci ◽  
History Of Technology ◽  
Policy Dialogue ◽  
Massachusetts Institute Of Technology ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Institute Of Technology

AbstractThe rise of online learning over the past few decades has raised fundamental questions about the kinds of “spaces” and “places” this mode of education creates. Do they support meaningful exchanges? Can they advance educational equity, access, and community-building? Are they comparable to in-person classroom experiences? The recent COVID pandemic and the global turn toward virtual learning in response have brought such questions into sharp relief. These were the questions and contextual factors that brought distinguished historian Carroll Pursell and international educational technology authority Toru Iiyoshi together for this policy dialogue. Their conversation takes readers on a wide-ranging discussion about the interplay between education, technology, and society writ large. And they offer insights into the past, present, and likely future of education in an era of accelerating technological change.Carroll Pursell is the Adeline Barry Davee Distinguished Professor of History (Emeritus) at Case Western Reserve University and Distinguished Honorary Professor of History at the Australian National University. He held faculty positions at the University of California at Santa Barbara and served as the Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Lehigh University. Pursell is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and former president of both the International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC) and the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT), which also awarded him its Leonardo da Vinci Medal for outstanding contributions to the history of technology.Toru Iiyoshi is professor and director at the Center for the Promotion of Excellence in Higher Education at Kyoto University. Previously, he was a senior scholar and director of the Knowledge Media Laboratory at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He also served as senior strategist in the Office of Educational Innovation and Technology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Iiyoshi is a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Technology and Education and past recipient of the Outstanding Practice Award in Instructional Development and the Robert M. Gagne Award for Research in Instructional Design from the Association for Educational Communications and Technology.HEQ Policy Dialogues are, by design, intended to promote an informal, free exchange of ideas between scholars. At the end of the exchange, we offer a list of references to readers who wish to follow up on sources relevant to the discussion.

Interactive, Flexible, and Adaptable Decision Support Systems

2009 ◽  
pp. 557-562
Author(s):  
John Wang ◽  
James Yao ◽  
Jeffrey Hsu
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Decision Support ◽  
Decision Support Systems ◽  
Support Systems ◽  
Massachusetts Institute Of Technology ◽  
Organizational Decision Making ◽  
History Of ◽  
Computer Based ◽  
Institute Of Technology ◽  
The Many

Over the four decades of its history, decision support systems (DSSs) have moved from a radical movement that changed the way information systems were perceived in business, to a mainstream commercial information technology movement that all organizations engage. This interactive, flexible, and adaptable computer-based information system derives from two main areas of research: the theoretical studies of organizational decision making done at the Carnegie Institute in the 1950s and early 1960s as well as the technical work on interactive computer systems which was mainly performed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Keen & Morton, 1978). DSSs began due to the importance of formalizing a record of ideas, people, systems, and technologies implicated in this sector of applied information technology. But the history of this system is not precise due to the many individuals involved in different stages of DSSs and various industries while claiming to be pioneers of the system (Arnott & Pervan, 2005; Power, 2003). DSSs have become very sophisticated and stylish since these pioneers began their research. Many new systems have expanded the frontiers established by these pioneers yet the core and basis of the system remains the same. Today, DSSs are used in the finance, accounting, marketing, medical, as well as many other fields.

Designs for Comprehensive Community Colleges: 1958-1970

1989 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Brint ◽  
Jerome Karabel
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Private Schools ◽  
The State ◽  
Public Higher Education ◽  
Massachusetts Institute Of Technology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Total State ◽  
Institute Of Technology ◽  
State Organization

No analysis of the history of the community college movement in Massachusetts can begin without a discussion of some of the peculiar features of higher education in that state. Indeed, the development of all public colleges in Massachusetts was, for many years, inhibited by the strength of the state’s private institutions (Lustberg 1979, Murphy 1974, Stafford 1980). The Protestant establishment had strong traditional ties to elite colleges—such as Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Williams, and Amherst—and the Catholic middle class felt equally strong bonds to the two Jesuit institutions in the state: Boston College and Holy Cross (Jencks and Riesman 1968, p. 263). If they had gone to college at all, most of Massachusetts’s state legislators had done so in the private system. Private college loyalties were not the only reasons for opposition to public higher education. Increased state spending for any purpose was often an anathema to many Republican legislators, and even most urban “machine” Democrats were unwilling to spend state dollars where the private sector appeared to work well enough (Stafford and Lustberg 1978). As late as 1950, the commonwealth’s public higher education sector served fewer than ten thousand students, just over 10 percent of total state enrollments in higher education. In 1960, public enrollment had grown to only 16 percent of the total, at a time when 59 percent of college students nationwide were enrolled in public institutions (Stafford and Lustberg 1978, p. 12). Indeed, the public sector did not reach parity with the private sector until the 1980s. Of the 15,945 students enrolled in Massachusetts public higher education in 1960, well over 95 percent were in-state students. The private schools, by contrast, cast a broader net: of the nearly 83,000 students enrolled in the private schools, more than 40 percent were from out of state (Organization for Social and Technical Innovation 1973). The opposition to public higher education began to recede in the late 1950s. Already by mid-decade, a large number of urban liberals had become members of the state legislature, and a new governor, Foster Furcolo, had been elected in 1956 on an activist platform.

MIT as Catalyst for High-Technology Start-up Companies

1999 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 409-411
Author(s):  
Karen Hersey
Keyword(s):  
Research University ◽  
High Technology ◽  
Educational Environment ◽  
Success Factor ◽  
Massachusetts Institute ◽  
Massachusetts Institute Of Technology ◽  
The Past ◽  
Entrepreneurial Spirit ◽  
Start Up ◽  
Institute Of Technology

There are more than 4,000 companies providing services and products worldwide whose roots can be traced to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) educational experience. While MIT's unique origins may be partly responsible for the success of its students and faculty in starting new businesses, the main success factor is directly related to an entrepreneurial environment that has been consistently nourished, encouraged, and sustained over the past 100 years. This paper provides the reader with a glimpse of MIT as a breeding ground for entrepreneurs. Its history, its geography, its position as a leading US research university, and its continued strong links with industry are all factors in its unparalleled success as an educational environment that engenders an entrepreneurial spirit among students and faculty that is exceptional.

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