Jenny Johnson interviews François Marchessou
Johnson: How did you become interested in the field of educational
technology?
Marchessou: (Original
interest in Ed.Tech): I have to go back many years to the days when
I was finishing college at Poitiers University in France. I had
a small part-time job in the English dept. library and I was asked
to look after the record collection and some of the early open-reel
tape recorders. I ended up copying Macbeth or Winston Churchill's
Wartime speeches onto the tapes and doing a lot of tinkering with
the new equipment that was so exciting for students who had spent
their childhood in impoverished, technology-starved Europe. I then
spent two years in US Universities (at Brandeis and the University
of Iowa) on the Fulbright, going back to France doing my military
service in the language dept. of an army college and eventually
being appointed language laboratory director. From the language
laboratory, we moved into video (in 69-70), then felt we had to
become acquainted with communication studies and this led us naturally
to the broader field of educational technology.
Johnson: What is your philosophy of education/teaching?
Marchessou: Regarding
my views on education and teaching, I believe this is a diversified
multidirectional process which cannot be restricted to the student-teacher-institution
relationship. Many inputs from traditional learning come into play
and they have to be activated according to the highly diversified
needs of the present day students who cannot be socially "pigeon-holed"
as they were in my own collegiate days.
The new (and not-so-new) technologies lend themselves to the
creation of ad-hoc, flexible alliances that enable those students
to master their won learning processes while the teacher's role
is progressively becoming more creative.
This has been my own experience here at Poitiers with the progressive
introduction of "open", self-access multimedia sessions within the
traditional lecture-based "contact" pattern. I believe this is the
trend in our so-called developed countries and it would not be possible
without a balanced, carefully thought-out alliance of multimedia,
off-satellite TV, ISDN, etc. . .
This does not mean that the introduction of the technologies
within existing frameworks is an easy process. I have personally
seen how hard it is to establish a working Internet exchange between
a given high school in the US and a high school in Poitiers although
there is plenty of equipment as well as high speed connecting networks
in both countries with politicians claiming the schools in their
constituencies are now in tune with the world . . .
There are still a lot of administrative and psychological blocks
that have to be overcome. This calls for a great deal of patience
and well honed negotiating skills.
Johnson: How did you become involved in the field internationally?
Marchessou: Insofar
as my own involvement in international cooperation is concerned,
we can trace it back to 1973-74 and the organization of conferences
and seminars on audio-visual communication within francophone universities
under the auspices of AUPELF (the Association of French-speaking
Universities).
I thus had the opportunity of working with Jean Cloutier, the
then energetic and visionary director of the A-V center at the University
of Montreal. This led to exchange projects and to publications that
attracted some attention and I was asked to provide some consultancy
work in Algeria, Egypt, Argentina, etc . . .
Then (1988) came the European projects when I was elected to
the board of the educational channel that was being created at the
initiative of the European Space Agency in order to use some of
the transponder facilities on the experimental Olympus satellite.
I realized then that I had a theoretical and a tourist's knowledge
of Europe outside France and that it did take a great deal of time
and persuasion to get colleagues who were geographically close but
culturally different to get things done.
I must say that the situation has changed a lot over the past
ten years and we have been helped by the European union's repeated
calls for proposals with strong educational technology components.
I will just name a few acronyms here such as COMETT, DELTA, LINGUA,
LEONARDO, TEMPUS, SOCRATES because they stand as landmarks in the
history of Ed-tech networking.
Johnson: Describe a few of the projects/settings that you
have fostered and are fostering around the world?
Marchessou: At
present, this dept. (OAVUP) is mainly involved in three different
areas:
-In Europe we are fully involved as a full-fledged member of
a Telematics program called SELECT which is sponsored by Directorate
General XIII of the European Union: this is a major R and D project
which involves the development of a Learner Manager software that
will enable company executives to download on their office workstations
especially designed multimedia modules for advanced self-instruction
in English, French or Portuguese. The project is led by Italy's
largest multimedia company GIUNTI and partners include the University
of Wolverhampton, the Open University of Portugal and a major industrial
group. Outside Europe, we are doing some consultancy work in Mexico
and Patagonia (on a EU-sponsored project for distance education).
We are also working in close connection with a new university at
la Matanza on the outskirts of Buenos Aires with a view to setting
up a multimedia center and teaching dept. with a graduate program
in educational technology that will be fully accredited in Argentina
as well as in France
-In Brazil we are working with a number of universities (Brasilia,
etc.) within their Ed. Tech and distance education curricula.
-In Africa, we are mostly involved in Mozambique since there
is a long-standing connection between the two main universities
and Poitiers: this ranges from field consultancy in French and educational
technology to preliminary support for a major AIDS project.
-In the United States, our present home base is the AWTY International
School in Houston where we organize training sessions with an Ed.
Tech orientation for language teachers.
Johnson: Tell us about your involvement in Ed. Tech professional
associations such as AECT and FIGNA.
Marchessou: This
is a fairly superficial survey of our main overseas activities which
represent over 50% of OAVUPO's turnover and help finance our graduate
degree course in educational technology. On a personal basis, I
am trying to maintain an acceptable degree of involvement in such
professional Ed. Tech associations as AECT in the US, and ATENA
in France or more recently ABT in Brazil.
I wish there were more Europeans active in AECT for scientific
as well as for operational reasons. There is now a great deal of
inter-European project networking in Ed-Tech but I am afraid the
level of joint research with the US has nothing to do with what
I can observe on a daily basis within my own university between
medical departments, chemistry or physics labs with their counterparts
in America.
The Intl. Division of AECT and such publications as ET. R and
D can and do help abridge the gap. I wish there were more initiatives
but this would raise the issue of funding or joint operations. We
should perhaps explore such positive avenues as World Bank distance
ed. projects, put some pressure on our respective politicians, examine
if the National Foundations in the US and the various European agencies
could launch some parallel proposals etc...
NB: This article first appeared on a web site
hosted by the California State University, Fresno web site, 1998.
The original link is found at:
http://bogota.soehd.csufresno.edu/news98/MARCHESSOU.html
