Potential impacts of technology costs on educators

Technology costs can affect the viability of agencies that lack technology and increase pressures for cost recovery for those that do have technologies. Both of these can constrain educational objectives.

For non profit agencies, or agencies that provide learning or training on a cost recovery basis, it may not be feasible to invest in technologies for learning. For example, immigrant serving agencies or literacy providers who typically operate on very limited funds, may not be able to accommodate educational technology at all, much less provide sufficient equipment for their learners to use. This can mean limited or no access to grants that require technology, and/or loss of learners to organizations that can offer access to technology.

Institutions and organizations that have invested in new learning technologies may face higher costs that must be recovered. A number of observers have pointed out that the cost of materials development for the new learning technologies may well be beyond the means of individual public sector institutions, and they will have to seek out partnerships, either among public institutions, or between public institutions and private sector organizations in order to cover the high development costs.³⁹ This in turn, means that, in the drive toward cost recovery, there may a tendency to enroll larger numbers of students than the rest of the system can support, in terms of tutoring, study skills and counselling.

Alternatively, institutions may sell courseware to other institutions whose learners mayor may not have the same needs as those for whom the materials were originally designed. For example, a business development program developed for urban learners was subsequently provided on a cost recovery basis to quite a different cohort, women living in northern remote communities. The northern learners had to struggle with material that reflected a very different experience from theirs, in terms of community situations, social expectations, transportation and communication issues and types of businesses they could operate.

Highly visible investments in new technology may overshadow the less visible but essential human interaction involved in tutoring and advising, which cost cutters within an institution may be tempted to see as expendable, rather than an integral part of the learning experience. This view regards learning as tantamount to delivery and receipt of information, rather than as human growth and change.

Community level costs

In many regions of Canada, governments and agencies have initiated establishment of community learning sites. For example, over 20 years ago, Newfoundland set up a system that now has over 200 local centers that can receive teleconferences educational programs, delivered by post secondary institutions, medical educators and school systems. In most cases, governments and agencies external to the community provided funding. Now that there are initiatives by SchoolNet and other programs to establish linkages with the information highway in schools and libraries in many communities in Canada, it seems more likely that community access will depend to a greater extent on community initiative and funding.

There are some implications for both costs and access when funding of community sites shifts to the community. Typically, externally-funded community learning sites were equipped to receive programs offered by particular educational institutions to that location. For example, if a local college provided programs by audio conferencing, community sites would be provided with audio conference equipment. Community initiated access sites may make their own determination about what equipment is needed, and there mayor may not be a match between the equipment at a community site and the equipment required to receive programs offered by a particular institution. Communities are unlikely to invest in equipment and staffing for audio and/or videoconferencing unless educational providers make a commitment to provide programs to that community site. In the climate of budget cuts, institutional program commitments can be fragile, potentially leaving a community without programs and with the cost for unused equipment.

Community access sites that provide basic computer Internet access have costs for space, computers and software, and paid or volunteer staff to provide training and technical support. Under the Community Access Program (CAP) sponsored by Industry Canada, some funding assistance is available to set up these types of facilities at community sites. However, CAP sites are not specifically designated as learning sites: they are intended to serve a number of purposes, especially local businesses. As well CAP does not require sites to make equal access provisions supporting equitable participation by women, minorities, or disadvantaged groups.