新世紀(jì)大學(xué)生英語綜合教材3Unit5A.doc

Education in cyberspace On a recent business trip a man asked me what I did for a living. I replied that I wrote and taught college courses.1在最近的一次出差途中，有人問及我的職業(yè)，我說自己是從事編寫和教授大學(xué)課程的。Oh? he said. Where do you teach?2“哦？那在哪兒教書？”他問道。A honest answer came out of my mouth before I could think. Nowhere, I said.3我不假思索，老老實(shí)實(shí)地答道：“虛無空間里”。 Its true. Since 1990 I have taught and counseled for what a friend of mine calls keyboard colleges distance-learning degree programs.Where I teach is inside that electrically charged space that lies between my phone jack and the home computers of a group of generally older-than-average college students.4我說的是實(shí)情。1990年起，我就在被朋友稱作“鍵盤大 學(xué)”里教遠(yuǎn)程學(xué)位教育課程并提供輔導(dǎo)。我的課堂是在充滿電荷的空間里，其間一端連著我的電話插座，另一端連著一群年齡偏大的大學(xué)生家里的電腦。 In 1990, I designed Americas first online counseling center for distance learners. Since then Ive worked with more than 7,000 learners online. Ive flunked a few of them. Ive never personally met any of them. 51990年，我籌建了美國第一個遠(yuǎn)程學(xué)習(xí)者在線輔導(dǎo)中 心。迄今為止，我已在線輔導(dǎo)了700多個學(xué)生，其中只有幾個人不及格，而我本人卻從未與他們謀面。 For want of a clearer explanation of my career situation, I told the man who inquired that I teach in cyberspace. Im a virtual professor, I tried explaining. Distance learning online degree programs virtual universities. 6由于無法更清楚地解釋我的工作環(huán)境，我只能告訴這位問話者：我在虛擬空間教書，“是個虛擬大學(xué)的教師?！蔽以囍蛩忉尅斑h(yuǎn)程教育在線學(xué)位課程虛擬大學(xué)”等 等。 The mans face remained as blank as a clear summer sky. I couldnt tell whether he was silent out of respect or keen confusion. I imagined both to be the case , so I settled in to explain what I have to explain frequently these days: the decline of the American college campus and the rise of the American educational mind as I see it.7那人的臉上仍舊一片茫然。我不清楚他沉默不語到底是因肅然起敬所致，還是純粹對此稀里糊涂。我猜想兩個原因都有。于是，我就開始解釋這些天來經(jīng)常解釋的事情：我認(rèn)為，美國的大學(xué)教育在衰退，而美國的教育新思維正在興起。 Distance learning, or educational programs where pupil and professor never meet face-to-face, is nothing new. Sir Isaac Pitman of Bath , England, hit upon the idea of having rural residents learn secretarial skills by translating the Bible into shorthand , then mailing these translations back to him for grading . He began doing this in 1840. And he made mound of money doing it.8遠(yuǎn)程教學(xué)（即師生不用謀面的教育課程）并不是件新生事物。英國巴斯大學(xué)的艾塞克彼特曼爵士曾突發(fā)奇想，讓鄉(xiāng)村居民把圣經(jīng)轉(zhuǎn)換成速記文字，然后郵寄給他評閱，以這種辦法教會他們文秘技能。1840年他就開始實(shí)施，從中賺取了大筆的金錢。 I dont teach shorthand; I teach psychology and career development. I write many of my own lessons, though, just as Sir Isaac had to do. My post is the World Wide Web. I post assignments toelectronic bulletin boards and send graded papers across the international phone lines in tariff -free e-mail packets. I convene classes and give lectures in online chat rooms when need be.9我并不教速記，我教心理學(xué)和職業(yè)拓展。但還是和艾塞克爵士一樣，很多課程是自己編寫的。我的崗位是在萬維 網(wǎng)，我把作業(yè)張貼在電子布告欄上，把批閱過的試卷用電子郵件通過國際電話線發(fā)送出去，而且免交關(guān)稅；必要時，把班級學(xué)生召集起來，在網(wǎng)上聊天室里在線講課。 Is this any way to dispense with a real college education? Can people learn without sitting in neat rows in a lecture room listening to the professor the Sage on the Stage10難道這種方式能夠摒棄現(xiàn)實(shí)中的大學(xué)教育嗎？學(xué)生難道不用整齊地坐在教室里聆聽老師講壇上的圣人講課就能學(xué)到知識嗎？Yes, absolutely. Why not? In fact, while many people find it hard to imagine a college with no campus, I nowadays find it hard to imagine teaching anywhere other than in the liberal freedom that is cyberspace.11絕對可以，毫無疑問。事實(shí)上，很多人都認(rèn)為沒有校園的大學(xué)難以想象，可我現(xiàn)在卻以為不在網(wǎng)絡(luò)空間這塊充滿自由氛圍的地方教書才是匪夷所思呢。 In cyberspace, I listen, read, comment and reflect what my students have to say each of them in turn. What they know, they must communicate to me in words. They cannot sit passivelyin the back row twiddling their mental thumbs as the clock ticksaway .They must think; and horrors of horrors, they must write . Thinking and writing: Arent these the Hallmarks of a classically educated mind? 12在網(wǎng)絡(luò)空間里，我傾聽、閱讀、評價(jià)、思考學(xué)生們表述的觀點(diǎn)一次一個，輪流發(fā)言。他們必須書面把見解傳輸給我，他們不能坐在后排座位上，無所事事地打發(fā)時光。他們必須思考，最令他們頭疼的是，他們必須寫作。思考與寫作，那不就是傳統(tǒng)教育培養(yǎng)出來的人才所具備的特質(zhì)嗎？ I know my students not by their faces or their seat position in a vast lecture auditorium ; I know them by the words and ideas they express in their weekly assignments, which everyone reads online13我不是憑借他們的臉龐或是他們在寬敞教室里所坐位置來認(rèn)識我的學(xué)生，而是通過他們每周作業(yè)里的文字和觀點(diǎn)了解他們。這些文字與觀點(diǎn)大家都能在線讀到。 I am not a Sage on the Stage I am more a Guide on the Side. Often what the students say or write to one another, or the way they incorporate their work and career ideas into their papers and debates with each other, is more practically inspiring than any help I could provide them with.14我不是講壇上的圣人我更像是他們身邊的向?qū)?。通常，學(xué)生們之間“說”的或?qū)懙臇|西、把自己工作和職業(yè)體會融入論文和辯論的方式，比起我能夠提供的任何東西都更加實(shí)用，更有啟迪性。My average college kid s 40 years old. More than a few are in their 50s or 60s. They are telecommuting to campus because they could not, or would not, uproot their careers and kids or grandkids to move to a college campus an entity modeled after the learning of monasteries of medieval times.15我學(xué)生的年齡一般是四十歲，還有不少五六十歲。他們通過網(wǎng)絡(luò)來上學(xué)。因?yàn)樗麄儾荒芑蛘卟辉敢廪o去工作、離開兒女或?qū)O輩們搬進(jìn)大學(xué)校園那樣的大學(xué)無非就是一個依照中世紀(jì)修道院模式建立起來的教育實(shí)體。Many of them know what they are talking about. Even more so, they know why they came back to college to learn. A cyber-education suits them because it respects their abilities to define for themselves what knowledge is and to go after interference it. It encourages them to argue their points and their perspectives without the interference of a professor, who might be tempted to step in to “calm down” or refocus an otherwise wonderfully enlightening classroom debate. 16他們大多數(shù)了解自己所談?wù)摰臇|西，不僅如此，他們清楚自己為何返回大學(xué)學(xué)習(xí)。網(wǎng)絡(luò)教育適合他們，因?yàn)榫W(wǎng)絡(luò)教育尊重學(xué)員界定知識和追求知識的能力，鼓勵他們抒發(fā)自己的觀點(diǎn)和見解，沒有教師干擾，因?yàn)榻處熆赡軙椴蛔越亟槿胨麄兊臓幷?，把原本很有啟發(fā)性的課堂討論“平息”或者“引到別的話題上去”。 They are experiencing something very different from the traditional factory model of American education, in which everyone on the assembly line is delivered the same units of information (lectures and textbooks) and then must pass the same quality inspection (objective exams). This factory model where students sit in neat rows, holding up their hands for permission to speak, Clock-watching their way through textbooks and lectures that are broken into discrete bits of knowledge has never been shown to be an effective way to learn. It has, however, been proven to be a convenient way for colleges to record on transcripts that a standard body of knowledge has been17學(xué)生們體驗(yàn)到的東西完全不同于依照傳統(tǒng)工廠模式運(yùn)作的美國教育。在傳統(tǒng)教育中，生產(chǎn)線上的每個人接收到相同標(biāo)準(zhǔn)單位的信息（講座和教材），然后必須通過同一質(zhì)量檢查（客觀考試）。學(xué)生們坐在整齊排列的座位上，舉手請求允許后才發(fā)言，不斷地看著鐘表學(xué)課本、聽講座，課本和講座被分解成不相關(guān)聯(lián)的知識玩意兒。沒有證據(jù)顯示，這樣的工廠模式是有效的學(xué)習(xí)途徑，而只能證明這是一種很便利的方式：大學(xué)在成績報(bào)告單上記錄下標(biāo)準(zhǔn)份量的知識已如期地傳授。 Maybe teaching a liberal arts curriculum via a virtual environment makes more sense to me because it brings me backto what I learned to be a true liberal arts education. Studying philosophy in Athens, Greece, I was taught that to learn anything, one had to throw away textbooks and notebooks mere memory tools and instead rely on ones native ability to think critically.18或許，在虛擬環(huán)境下教大學(xué)文科課程對我來說特別有意義，因?yàn)樗梢宰匪莸轿耶?dāng)年所了解到的真正的大學(xué)文科教育。在希臘雅典研讀哲學(xué)時，老師教導(dǎo)我，要學(xué)到東西就得扔掉課本和筆記本這些不過是記憶工具的東西，要依賴我們與生俱來的本領(lǐng)進(jìn)行批判性思考。 While my cyber-students do have textbooks, the books are learning ; they are not the only