The Media Futures Institute works to cultivate methods in which telemedia can be used to benefit society, empower individuals, and create opportunity.

This work is focused particularly in those areas where the empowering, collaborative, and educational potential of telemedia can have the greatest chance to create jobs, facilitate career adaptation, improve economic performance, and inspire entrepreneurship.

The Media Futures Institute program is a unique online training initiative, whose primary intention is to:
¶ provide educational programs utilizing leading-edge media technologies
¶ work in association with local institutions, associations, and private enterprises
¶ provide world-class, cost-effective educational opportunities
¶ encourage the development of unique cooperative ventures.

Introduction to Telemedia

We are in the midst of a revolution in human communications. It is changing how we communicate with each other, how we work together, how we create and share knowledge. This revolution is already fundamentally transforming society, and its implications for individuals, enterprises, and communities are dramatic. The most important element of this revolution, and certainly the most powerful, is the new medium of interactive communications, telemedia, which is already linking millions of people around the globe.

Telemedia is the computer-mediated communications medium that links people throughout the globe via networks of computers and telecommunications devices. The devices are intelligent mediators that manage, manipulate, and store media in a digital form which can be passed through telecommunications pipes such as phone and cable lines, fiber optic cables, satellites, and wireless devices. It makes possible an entirely new level of interactivity, fostering engaged participants instead of passive users. It is unique in supporting all forms of dynamic communications: one-on-one, small group, mass broadcasting and a wholly new form of many-to-many or interactive mass communications.

With telemedia, people have much broader access to information, in multiple forms, from multiple creators, and through multiple channels. It makes possible a learning process whereby people can gather knowledge when they need it, either from the vast repositories of information and research or directly from the individuals and experts who are connected through the networks. Perhaps most importantly, it presents the potential for dozens or even multiples of dozens people to be brought together in collaboration to support a movement, solve a problem, or fulfill a need.

Doing business in the digital millenium without an Internet connection is like doing business today without a phone. The Internet has grown dramatically in a few years and this high growth will continue for the foreseeable future. Along the way it will evolve into a much more powerful tool than it is today. In 10 years time, today's Internet will look as rudimentary as the first PCs of the eighties now look to us today. The Internet is essentially a tool for communication, and Internet based email will be universal. The Internet will be in common, everyday use to market, sell, distribute and support products.

Telemedia will be an immensely powerful tool for research and business purposes. Vast databases and libraries of information will be readily accessible. New software tools, including powerful context-sensitive browsers and intelligent agents, will simplify access and provide security for commerce and copyright. The power of the Internet's telecommunications backbone will evolve to provide ever greater bandwidth for robust business and education applications. Market demand is readily identifiable and all the major telecommunications and cable companies are investing massive sums of money to increase and extend the infrastructure.

The next ten years is going to be a period of dramatic and profound change in virtually every sector of society, as we enter the digital millenium. Those who have experienced the richness of telemedia understand its ability to empower individuals, inspire collaboration, and facilitate learning. The power of telemedia is people as the ultimate source of knowledge ‚ not the physical mass of wires, or the complex networks, or the vast databases of information. It is people and their relationships, insights, spirit, and expertise that are passed from one person to another that engender the magic of this interconnected world.

The Knowledge Economy

The technology revolution, led by advances in information and communications technology, is changing the global economy by increasing the importance of knowledge as a factor of production. It is also changing the nature of markets, competition, and sources of comparative advantage. And it is providing solutions to the consequences of rapid population growth and resource depletion, offering hope for the sustainability of increased economic activity.

Fueled by research and the rapid generation of new knowledge, technological innovation has become the major factor behind increases in productivity. The knowledge content of goods and services ‚ from science, advanced design concepts, intelligent materials, automation, software, sensors, advanced services, new medical concepts ‚ has increased. And more and more of the goods and services in the world market are the result of complex production processes. The great speed of technological change and the rapid accumulation of new knowledge mean that firms failing to incorporate new knowledge lag behind in productivity and competitiveness.

As the world economy becomes more knowledge-based, the value added by information propels the more-developed countries. But the knowledge revolution also creates opportunities for developing countries to emerge from dependence on low-cost labor as a source of comparative advantage, increasing productivity and incomes.

Technology is not, however, a package that can be bought off the shelf and become immediately productive: it is a cumulative process of learning. So, for developed and developing countries alike, the ability to realize knowledge-based productivity gains depends on a country's capacity to tap the global system of generation and transmission of knowledge, generate indigenous knowledge, diffuse and transfer information, and use that knowledge in productive activity.

Acquiring new technologies requires a system receptive to innovation, with incentives and mechanisms for translating knowledge into action. The process of diffusion and implementation is greatly strengthened if there is feedback from the users of technology to the generators of knowledge. For firms, turning information into value depends on their ability to manage their knowledge assets.

Technology is knocking down geographical boundaries, changing the structure of production and trade within and among countries. Previously nontraded goods (services) are becoming internationally tradable through information technology. Previously immobile factors of production (labor) are becoming mobile as geographic barriers have less meaning. Some manufacturing production is becoming globalized, with different components produced simultaneously in different countries. As the costs of communication fall, outsourcing services has become feasible-unbundling them from manufacturing activities to change the boundaries between firms.

Services have been the fastest growing component of both international trade and foreign investment in recent years. Caribbean countries, for example, have increased their share of the information processing market through lower wage rates, about a third of that paid for similar work in the United States. A subsidiary of American Airlines ships tickets to Barbados and the Dominican Republic, where they are processed in computers and the information sent by satellite back to the United States. A call made in the United States on an 800 toll-free line can be answered in the Caribbean and the transaction completed a few minutes. Other services include check clearing, insurance policy recording and claim processing, and hotel reservations, and there is growing demand for custom-built software programming, voice applications, video conferencing, mapping and geological services, and computer-aided architectural design.

Information and communications technology can make markets function more efficiently by reducing information asymmetries between buyers and sellers, eliminating the need for middlemen, and collapsing distance. Technology can also increase competition and market contestability by lowering barriers to entry, reducing the minimum efficient scale of production, and providing alternative production techniques. Industries previously thought to be natural monopolies (utilities) can become competitive. Often, this means that technology erodes the efficacy of regulatory frameworks, which become ineffective, inefficient, or incomplete.

Advances in technology have changed business practices and the way firms compete. Quality, fast delivery, and rapid responses to changing customer needs determine competitive advantage. In knowledge-based industries, firms can gain a temporary monopoly in the market through their proprietary information - but since their exclusive hold on information erodes quickly, the window for maintaining market advantage is very narrow. The business strategy of these firms consists of exploiting a series of temporary monopolies of knowledge. In some industries, mass production of customized products has become possible. In others, smaller firms are gaining over larger ones, and flatter organizational structures have an advantage over the more hierarchical.

While technology allows developing countries to participate more fully in the global economy, the danger is that countries that fail to use technology to their advantage will fall further behind countries that do, widening the gap between richer and poorer nations. What is needed is better diffusion, adaptation, and use of the new technologies. That requires raising the awareness of leaders and populations, strengthening global linkages, creating an environment receptive to technology, and adapting new technologies to local problems and conditions.

The technological revolution requires workers who are technologically literate and receptive to innovation - and who have a broad understanding of the modern world. Telemedia training gives practice in the use of tools for managing information complexity, and in understanding systems architecture.

With the rapid growth of information and changes in the structure of production, the set of knowledge learned in school or in early years on the job frequently is not sufficient. Workers need an educational and training system that enables them to stretch their knowledge to deal with emergent situations and that provides opportunities for permanent learning. Preparing them to use technology requires a combination of skill-development, practice with complexity, and the development of adaptive problem-solving capabilities. A combination of coached apprenticeship and guided self-assessment has proved most successful in training workers to deal with changing situations.

Fortunately, technology is creating new and better ways to educate workers ‚ such as interactive instruction, instruction transmitted by satellite, and computer-simulated work environments. Technology can thus be used to increase the access to higher quality training. The effective use of technology means matching solutions in search of problems to problems in search of solutions. In developing countries, this means emphasizing applied research and development along with practical skills. The concept of matching local solutions to local problems also applies to training, where important human issues must be fully addressed to promote the successful transfer of technology. Prepackaged knowledge for the use of technology is of little use in developing countries. To be absorbed, new knowledge must be grounded in what is already understood with technological concepts linked to local culture and knowledge.

Instruction that Fosters Innovation and Growth

John Dewey defined the nature of reflective thought as "active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusion to which it tends". Critical thinking is generally agreed to include the evaluation of the worth, accuracy, or authenticity of various propositions, leading to a supportable decision or direction for action. Information literacy has been defined recently as ranging from tool and resource literacy to publishing literacy (communicate electronically), emerging technology literacy (understand and incorporate new technologies), and critical literacy (the intellectual and social value of information). The last three literacies require creating, decision-making, and synthesizing other literacies into an understanding of the potentials and limits of information technologies.

These ideas are applicable to the projects of the Media Workshop. The focus of our instruction will be on teaching real-world, career-applicable skills. We will present a learning environment that ignores the arbitrary delineation of academic or abstract versus vocational or concrete learning, and places the learner directly into a community of experts, confronted with self-selected, increasingly more difficult tasks. The content of the learning will consist of "tricks of the trade," the heuristic, problem-solving strategies experts rely on, cognitive management devices of goal-setting, strategic planning, monitoring, evaluating, and revising. The teaching methods employed will give participants exposure to experts' strategies by coaching, providing scaffolding, then fading - gradually handing over the control of the learning process to the learner.

There will be no real difference between what faculty teach - information and skills requiring cognitive management processes - and what might traditionally be thought of as task-oriented production skills. Following the expert/apprentice model, faculty with experience in the workplace will emphasize dispositions, or a set of attributes that represent a specific, enculturated point of view, rather than stressing complex reasoning skills. These faculty will minimize lecturing and didactic instruction in favor of micro-apprenticeships, project-centered exercises, and collaborative solving of authentic problems.

But teaching the participant how to think critically means more than critical analysis of book or magazine or web content, or a comparison of marketing strategies. Those are the medium or delivery mechanism of the information, not the meaning. Prescribing a checklist of criteria to look for or follow, or steps to take, leaves the participant unprepared when technology or market conditions change. Knowledge is transferred when it is embedded in a more general understanding of the workplace, the industry, and the marketplace. Therefore, publishing is best taught within the learner's knowledge base and developed into a network of meaning as charted by the faculty and the groups. Inquiry-based instruction with real-world applications in a collaborative setting presents the best opportunity for transferable knowledge. An example of this approach is the collaboratively designed and taught market research exercises, in which faculty from specific disciplines propose content-related problems that the participants and faculty jointly solve.

A constructivist framework for instruction shapes learning as an individual construction within the learner's environment. Instructional principles derived from constructivism include the following objectives:
¶ anchor all learning activities to a larger task,
¶ support the learner in developing ownership of the task,
¶ create an authentic task,
¶ design the task to reflect the complexity of the environment the learner will face,
¶ support and challenge the learner's thinking,
¶ encourage testing ideas against alternative views and alternative contexts, and
¶ provide opportunity for reflection on the content learned and the learning process.

The last two principles relate strongly to developing critical thinking attributes. Faculty need to bear in mind that technology supports knowledge construction but does not define it. Teaching technology-based tools will be part of the learning process and not an end in itself. Instruction in critical thinking in a publishing context is designed to achieve an understanding of the relationship of language to logic, which will lead to the ability to analyze, criticize, and advocate ideas, to reason inductively and deductively, and to reach factual or judgmental conclusions based on sound inferences drawn from unambiguous statements of knowledge or belief. Although appearing to be in the realm of philosophy or literature studies, critical thinking now emphasizes the mental attitudes or dispositions and the application of reasoning to everyday professional situations.

Critical thinking across the media disciplines shares common features:
1. Critical thinking is a learnable skill with faculty and peers serving as resources.
2. Problems, questions, interactions, and issues serve as the source of motivation for the participant.
3. Instructional techniques are assignment-centered rather than text- or lecture-oriented.
4. Goals, methods, and evaluation emphasize using content rather than simply acquiring it.
5. Participants need to formulate and justify their ideas in writing.
6. Participants collaborate to learn and enhance their thinking.

In short, faculty are encouraged to refocus their thinking away from individual mastery of the resources and the tools of skill competency. The focus should be instead on teaching the process of discovery within the participant's own contextual meaning. Will the sought-after information solve the problem, will it lead to learning, and the self-construction of knowledge? These will be the leading objectives as we practice and mentor the goals of media, communications, or information literacy.

We will not expect our participants to travel down our same path, but rather encourage them to become independent knowledge and career seekers. There is no right or wrong process of work or understanding, although there are many heuristics we can pass on. Effective instruction requires that we see knowledge and skill acquisition as amorphous and changing. As professionals, we are, too. The Media Workshop will therefore teach those who come to us our strengths, and then our formulas.