EdTech'98: Mason and Dellit: Keynote - collaboration, cooperation and cultural change: EdNA's potential http://www.ascilite.org.au/aset-archives/confs/edtech98/pubs/articles/mason.html[3/11/2012 3:38:57 PM] Collaboration, cooperation and cultural change: EdNA's potential - Planning for progress, partnership and prophecy Jon Mason and Jillian Dellit Education.Au Limited Planning Once upon a time, back in 1994, a vision formed within a Commonwealth Department. As you know, visions come and visions go. Sometimes they endure and sometimes they're even associated with miracles. Of course, the same can also be said of Commonwealth Departments! The storyline that follows here is not really about a miracle but it is about an unprecedented series of events in the history of education in this country, a series of events which describe the emergence of an infrastructure and framework, national in scale, and geared toward fostering ongoing collaboration in its development. During the latter period of the Keating government a number of initiatives were implemented both antecedent to and as a consequence of the Creative Nation statement. These initiatives were aimed specifically at harnessing the enabling power of information technologies in Australia. The Cooperative Multimedia Centres were one such initiative, aimed at promoting broad industry support in the development of multimedia expertise and products, while EdNA, or Education Network Australia, was another, initiated as a process that would provide a means for the various education systems and sectors to gain value-added benefit from access to the Internet. A significant characteristic of EdNA is that the Task Force established to guide its development was not a 'top-down' initiative but was the result of representation from all education sectors as well as all States and Territories together with the Commonwealth. Recommendations originating from a variety of stakeholders at the time advocating cross-sectoral participation were seen as crucial in promoting the view that networking was not just an issue concerning connectivity. (Johns, et al, 1995: 38). Culturally, educational growth and reform in this country has been tied very closely to government agendas. The involvement of Federal and State governments in educational delivery inevitably leads in a federated system, to partial reforms, with lobbying checks and balances. Some of the big reforms that have taken place, such as those under Dawkins during the 1980s, only affected particular sectors. With the dawning of the so-called 'digital revolution', and specifically the dramatic growth in information technology utilisation in both education and the workplace, there are new prospects for educational reform. There are many terms being used to describe this milieu but probably the most descriptive is the emerging 'network society'. While EdNA is not explicitly representative of an educational reform it is nonetheless indicative of the kind of developments likely to proliferate in this next decade or so where 'networking' has new meaning to many more players. It is a manifestation of cultural change facilitated by communications and information technologies (CITs). Conventional (power) networks will no doubt endure but they will be challenged by the emergence of new networks made possible by CITs: the organisational pyramids that have been flattening in recent years are being transformed in this process by new architectures. It is now well recognised that the opportunities and threats accompanying the usage of CITs are unprecedented, and in educational settings pose transformative challenges for the established pedagogical and organisational cultures. (West, et al, 1998) Since its early gestation and initial planning phase EdNA has metamorphosed. Originally, it had been conceived primarily as a physical network to deliver educational products and services nationally while also aimed at containing the costs of interactive information networks. Emphasis was upon infrastructure development and connectivity, particularly for the schools and Vocational Education and Training (VET) communities. This was clearly a very logical place to start since AARNet, the Australian Academic and Research Network, was already well-established as the Internet gateway for Australian universities and