Future Technology: The University of Phoenix Workplace & Classroom
In 1976, Dr. John Sperling founded University of Phoenix (UOP) and made a commitment to provide working adults with local higher education options at convenient class times. Today, students study at more than 200 locations, as well as through online programs available in countries around the world. Not only will adult learners attend classes that are convenient for them, they will earn their degree on their terms, with the help of educational technology (UOP, 2012). Higher education can open many doors. However, overcoming the demands of family and work to focus on education can be a challenge. University of Phoenix helped pioneer many of the conveniences that many students now enjoy -- evening classes, flexible scheduling, continuous enrollment, a university-wide academic social network, online classes, a digital library and computer simulations. In addition, the University has 20 years of experience in online education -- a kind of education that's research-proven to be just as effective as conventional instruction (UOP, 2012). Hence, UOP paves the future with virtual classrooms and virtual offices.
Technology at UOP
Changes in technology continue to alter possibilities for learning and create new challenges for pedagogy. Over the last two decades, colleges and universities adapted and responded to the Internet, email, chat and instant messaging, course management software, podcasts, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and much more. The growing use of mobile technology at colleges and universities is the most current trend forcing educators to evaluate the merits and limitations of a new technology. Education is a future-facing activity. Assumptions about and aspirations for the future underpin all levels of educational activity: from learners deciding what to study in the light of their aspirations for their future lives, to national debates over the curriculum and teaching methods that will best equip societies for future social, economic and cultural worlds. From discussions of national strategy, to day-to-day interactions between educators and learners, ideas about possible futures are instrumental in rationalizing and generating educational change.
Educational technology plays an important role in distance education system. The educational technology research ?eld has been at the heart of debates about the future of education for the last quarter century. By adapting new communication educational technologies in distance educational programs, UOP's quality could be ensured. Instructions conducted through the use of technologies, which significantly or completely eliminate the traditional face-to-face communication between teacher and students lead to distance education. Today, media such as computer, artificial satellites, digital libraries, telephones, radio and television broadcasting and other technologies are presenting their potential for the purpose. Audio, video, and print materials provide the base while internet is becoming cheap, fast and effective medium. Immense resources are already available on the web. Hence, the future of technology will challenge the current organization around the unit of the individual, the school and the discourses of the knowledge economy, and will require the development of new approaches to curriculum, cross-institutional relationships, workforce development, and decision-making.
In addition, UOP technology is revolutionizing the field of distance education and virtual offices via telecommuting. So in the future, positive changes can be apprehended. Technology is embedded in society's culture, and employees and students are immersed and dependent on it as well. It changes so rapidly and has such a pervasive impact that it is actually determining society's culture. Since technology is an important factor in distance education and in the workplace, UOP uses four types of media namely print, audio, television, computers for teaching and communication purposes (UOP, 2012). Insomuch, employees and students are accustomed to media in one technological form or another.
Distance education is a field of education that focuses on pedagogy/andragogy and the technology incorporated in delivering education to students who are not physically "on site" to receive their education (de Winter et al., 2010). Instead, teachers and students may communicate asynchronously by exchanging printed or electronic media, or through technology that allows them to communicate in real time. Hence, UOP has embraced the use of technology in the workplace via telecommuting and in distance education (Skype, teleconferencing, e-mails, mobile devices, blackboards, etc.…), thus emerging as a viable and vital force in technological delivery system within higher education. The practice of distance education has dramatically changed since the early 1990s. Educators are using technology to increase the distant learner's access to the local classroom, to improve access of all learners to resources, and to make the experience of the remote student comparable to that of the local learner. Much of the growth comes from a rapidly growing demand for educational opportunities directed toward and designed for some specific target groups. Distance learning activities are designed to fit the specific context for learning, the nature...
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