Community College Journal

In his newest book, Cyberschools: An Education Renaissance, Glenn Jones evokes the rationalist philosophy of René Descartes, "Cogito, ergo sum--I think, therefore I am." For Descartes it was because I think, I exist. For Jones, it is because I exist, I learn.

In the introduction, Alvin and Heidi Toffler refer to Jones as a category buster. That he is. He displays his lack of easy categorization by delivering the history of higher education, outlining the evolution of distance learning, exploring the demographic pressures on current paradigms, and portraying the necessity of risk takers, all within a scant 165 pages.

Jones writes with passion. He blends the world of education and the world of media into a growing dust devil whose whirling winds sweep up Drucker's "knowledge workers" and today's baby boomers and hurls them into a future amalgam of virtual universities and 80 million Chinese students awaiting admission to higher education institutions.

Jones describes the living room as a classroom and the human brain as the world's first wet computer. He debunks the myth that lifelong education is just a fad created by an American baby boomer population bulge and instead delineates the worldwide demand for education and the need for it to remain a continuous process. He briefly examines the "budget-minded learners" -- those with degrees in need of retraining or more training--and postulates that they will be the fuel that feeds the fire of bare bones, no-frills, no-folly higher education where the only purpose is the end product--more education or more training.

Jones tickles the inner cortex with questions that probe and lure. "Is all information education?" "Are teachers just holographic projections?" The author mixes a historical perspective with contemporary fiscal and demographic realities, as well as with tomorrow's dreams. The idea, he says, "is to deliver education to people, instead of people to education."

But even Jones's thinking may fall short in one area. He speaks of merging education, computing, and the media into one medium. However he does not describe the role of entertainment in this new package. While some may see the entire world as a stage, Jones sees the entire world as a classroom and every "one room hut" as an access point in the age of knowledge.

In just a few pages, Jones captures the absurdity of it all. So much of what Jones describes is above and beyond any plans or controls. The global educational culture is "progressing outside the bounds of any grand design." Just who is in control? In Jones's world--no one and everyone. Distance learning may not be the answer to all problems of education, but clearly Jones sees it as a good start. He cites numerous examples of cyberspace education from the Western Governors' Virtual University to the on-line pioneers using the Internet in elementary and secondary schools. And he provides a lighthearted examination of what is often the dreary history of accreditation debates.

Jones includes several anecdotes of distance learning success and a helpful appendix of "Principles for Distance Learning." He gives a name to innovative, entrepreneurial solutions--"free market fusion."

Cyberschools: An Education Renaissance is an entertaining, fast-paced book that will provide the reader with an evening of thoughtful exercise and an excuse to reexamine those windows of opportunity that we thought had been closed years ago. To be explorers of the paradigm shift in education delivery, to push the envelope of virtual education, to face plentiful challenges, and take essential risks--that is how Jones paints the evolution of education in our global culture. Always becoming--trying, failing, but always trying again until cyberspace allows the student--not the teacher, not the institution--to be the true focus of educational processes.

Jones ends his passionate display with the cheer, "Long live the age of knowledge," and a quotation from I Ching, "All that ever stays the same is change," thus summarizing a proper ending to a quick and delightful immersion in cyber education. — by Paul A. Elsner, chancellor of Maricopa Community College, Tempe, Arizona

The Futurist

Demand for higher education is rising worldwide, but funding for traditional colleges and universities has not kept pace. Distance education—using television, computers, and other means to deliver education inexpensively to students where they live and work—could be the answer, according to Cyberschools: An Education Renaissance by Glenn R. Jones.

Author Jones, himself a tele-education entrepreneur, briefly reviews the accomplishments of distance education to date and suggests promising new ways to use computer networks and television to augment or even replace conventional lecture halls and classrooms.

As the founder and CEO of Knowledge TV, originally called Mind Extension University, Jones understandably argues that government should focus on converting books, pictures, and other primary learning resources to computer-accessible form and leave private industry free to deliver the material to students with minimal restrictions. Whether or not the world's political leaders share Jones's viewpoint, his book paints an intriguing and attractive picture of how new technologies offer opportunities for learning that are convenient, cost-effective, personalized, and often more active and cooperative than conventional college courses tend to be.

Computer access to virtual libraries of print, photographs, sound recordings, and motion pictures is one of the most exciting innovations Jones describes. Besides the Global Electronic Library, which the author's own firm has put on the World Wide Web, Jones reports on efforts by the Library of Congress, the University of California, the government of France, and a consortium of British universities to make primary research materials available at the click of a mouse to students and scholars everywhere.

But the human factor remains key. In the virtual classroom, as in a seminar or lecture, it is still the wit and enthusiasm of skilled and caring teachers that produce memorable, mind-stretching learning experiences. Perhaps the most valuable section of Jones's book is his " How to" guide for distance learners, which tackles such questions as how technologically savvy a course requires one to be.

The book also provides an appendix listing the Internet address of the Global Electronic Library <www.jec.edu/knonline/glp/gel.html.>, plus those of 22 other institutions mentioned in the text--a feature worthy of being emulated by other books and magazines.

Science Books and Films

Despite its diversions into mere advertising for the projects of Jones Digital Century, Inc., this book is a reasonable short introduction to "distance learning." Jones covers the history of broadcast college instruction, going back to "Sunrise Semester" on PBS in the 1960s. He identifies the organizations and people active in the movement today and is accurate in distinguishing its unique markets: older working students, third-world countries, "budget-minded learners," and corporations.

Jones is right in implying that the demand for "distance education" is growing as public funding stagnates and information technologies proliferate. On the other hand, I think he too easily adopts careerist values as the goal of education. In addition, lacking the time and skills to process the great quantity of available information on the Internet may leave learners even less critical of Jones’s facile interpretations of the marketplace.

Given the book’s uncritical boosterism, it is heartening to see a discussion of quality and accreditation. The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education’s "Principles of Good Practice for Electronically Offered Academic Degree and Certificate Programs" are in an appendix. A final chapter on "free-market fusion" is merely a plea for mixed private-public partnerships. This volume is by no means a serious, scholarly examination of the topic, but it is easy to read and overwhelmingly optimistic. – by Ming Ivory, James Madison University, Harrisburg, VA

Voice of Youth Advocates

Jones provides an introductory overview of distance learning meant for a general audience rather than the educational media specialist and others already involved in distance learning. Jones covers the early development of distance learning, its present status, and its future role in education. Jones argues that technological advances in which boundaries of time and distance are dissolved between media, computes, and education will reconceptualize the way education is delivered during a time when fiscal support for higher education is declining and teachers are in short supply. Distance learning, he writes, has the capacity to reach a large and diversified population at a time when it is estimated that a higher percentage of U.S. workers will be employed in an information economy and when an emphasis is being placed on life-long learning.

Jones, founder of Jones International, emphasizes the entrepreneurial role of private companies in the provision of distance learning and devotes one chapter to the development of the TV channel, Knowledge TV. He describes electronic courses and projects that have been initiated at elementary, secondary, and college levels at local, state, and national levels in the United States, as well as global projects. An appendix includes principles developed for electronically delivered academic programs developed by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. – Dr. Hilary S. Crew.