Happy Christmas in the post industrial society!

I'm probably a bit sad but I find that the days before, during and after Christmas are a good time to take stock. Earlier this month I was reflecting on the title for this research. I included 'post-industrial' in the title to reflect the step change in the way distance education has moved in the last 10-15 years. Otto Peters is acknowledged as one of the Gurus of distance education theory and in the early 1980s he published a comparison of distance teaching with industrial production. As an engineer by background I found this particularly interesting and could see much of what he described in the way my College was set up. It could clearly be seen to organise its work around the needs of a correspondence style design and delivery. This was afterall its original approach but one that has not changed dramatically in the 19 years I have worked there.

Essentially only the technology used has altered whereas the pedagogy remains virtually the same. This has been in contrast with the expansion of information and communications technology which has forced change in the way in which distance learning is designed and delivered. Peters recognised this in the early 1990s and wrote that ‘in a post-industrial society the traditional industrial model of distance teaching will no longer satisfy the new needs of new types of students with their particular expectations and values which, seemingly, not only differ from those of the students in the industrial society but are in many cases even the exact opposites of them.’

It was this interpretation of post-industrial to which my title alluded. Doing further digging around in the last 3 weeks I have become more aware of how many different interpretations exist for post-industrial society. These include variations on post-modern society, information society, knowledge society and more. It may come as little surprise that my Christmas presents from my family have included several books examining these different meanings which I am reading through in between mince pies, turkey and the rest of the festive events!!

I hope that your Christmas has been peaceful and that 2008 is a good one for you what ever you do.