Evaluate Programs

Champion Good Examples
Keeping track of programs can lead to some very good examples of how technologies can be used to support learning that is appropriate, accessible, and meaningful. These mayor may not use the latest technologies but demonstrate a good application, one from which lessons can be learned, one that may serve as a model or provide a framework that can be adapted for other situations. They demonstrate sustainability and can continue on an affordable and manageable basis even after start up funding is no longer available. They meet stated evaluation standards and address a defined learning need.

Documenting and championing these examples achieves a number of goals. It can achieve visibility for a program so that it is less subject to cutbacks or elimination. It can provide positive feedback to planners and participants and develop their confidence, encouraging them to undertake other initiatives. And by confirming the value of a particular technology for certain applications, it can help support the sustainability of that technology. Letters of appreciation, letters to decision makers, informal feedback and active participation in meetings can all be used to indicate support.

For example, recent reports have (once again) predicted the phase out of audiotape, one of the most useful, user friendly and affordable technologies for learning. It is the one technology other than print that people can use themselves to develop learning materials in almost any situation and it is extremely useful for those unable to use print materials. It is essential in language learning and can be an important part of other applications such as learning technical skills (where people are talked through an activity) or where the voice is an important part of learning (such as in counseling, music or speech). Documenting these applications would help challenge the elimination of audiotape.

Analyse the Bad Examples
Observing that a program or application didn't work well is just the beginning. The next step entails pinpointing why it didn't work so that this example is relevant for future decision making. Questions to ask include whether the problem was intrinsic to the technology or the result of circumstances that could be different next time.

Other questions include: Why was the technology used in this case? Was the program well planned, in consultation with everyone involved including instructors, learners, and managers? Was there enough lead time to put it in place? Was the technology appropriate for this context and this type of learning? Was the technology reliable? Did instructors or learners have difficulty using it? Could some of the negative outcomes be reduced or eliminated by using different strategies or by taking more time? Are there positive outcomes that could serve as a lesson for future action?

Discover What the Options Really Are
Often technologies are presented with unnecessarily limited options, like when Henry Ford offered Model Ts in any color as long as it was black. Early telephony could accommodate group discussions in a community, and was even used for broadcasts, but this function was eliminated by about the 1920s through structural and technical decisions by corporations and governments.

Today, there are similar decisions to be made about expanding the broadband access needed for increased use of computer and conferencing systems (ISDN, ASDL, cable, satellite, etc.). Some of them involve changes at a central point, some involve changes to entire infrastructures, such as the type of cable that carries the signal, some involve changes to how the cable is used and how the signal is prepared for distribution.

Regulatory decisions may also limit options as in the new CRTC stipulation that one component of service cannot be used to subsidize another component. This change is a political decision that may well result in whole areas not receiving service because the cost cannot be reasonably recovered by charges to subscribers.

Behind such a decision is a range of possible choices, both technical and political, about what kind of systems to use, what groups of subscribers or types of service are considered when assessing cost recoverability, what policies govern specific rate structures, and so on. These choices are rarely exposed or explained in decision making, or tend to be addressed superficially. The costs of any service can be defined in a variety of ways depending on how the various expenses are accounted for.

Find out Where the Boat is Going...
...and decide if that's your destination before you jump on for fear of missing it. We too are decision makers, but our decisions can be influenced by external pressures like the urgency to not "miss the boat." This is particularly compelling for women who have felt left behind by many technologies in the past. There can be a strong desire not miss out this time, to have a chance to influence how things will work out before it's too late.

But each of us needs to assess our own goals, and how any given initiative is related to them. Heather Menzies argues in Whose Brave New World for the need to take time to connect with each other in a personal way to reflect our realities and share our perceptions so we can assess the implications of a particular direction in society.⁶ Creating a sense of urgency, a standard tactic of both high pressure sales and of propaganda, prompts us to bypass our better judgment, circumvent considered thought and jump on the boat.