ALDER — Annotated List of Distance Education Resources

Keith Eric Grant

Distance education isn't something new. PennState University dates their use of correspondence courses back to 1892. Since that time, many colleges and universities have offered courses with texts and instructional syllabi. Assignments were turned in, the assigned mentor graded and commented on them, and the local proctor, often a library or high school, provided oversight of tests.What has changed in the last decade is the diversity of media and interaction formats that are now available. The changes has come from multiple but interrelated factors: the growth of the internet as a public resource, development of new media formats and distribution techniques, pervasive use of email lists, bulletin boards, and wiki's for group interaction, and the growing availability of broadband internet connections. In combination, these obviate the need to spend time commuting and to pay the increasing costs of gasoline for purely didactic education. What has also changed are the student's themselves. The new generation (see article by Pierre Boulos and material by Marc Prensky and James Gee) are digital natives with significant cognitive differences from the student's of past generations.

Distance Education may also use all forms of technology, from print to the computer. This range will include radio, television, audio video conferencing, computer aided instruction, e-learning/on-line learning et al. (E-learning/online-learning are largely synonymous). A distinction is also made between open learning and distance learning. To clarify our thinking we can say that while 'open' education is the system in which the student is free to choose the time and place, but distance education is a teaching methodology used when the student and teacher are separated by time and place. Thus it follows that not all open-learning institutions use distance education and not all organisations that use distance education are open learning institutions. Indeed there are many cases in which students are in traditional classrooms, connected via a video-conferencing link to a teacher in a distant classroom. This method is typical in geographically dispersed institutions. Conversely, the term virtual university is sometimes used to describe an open-learning institution that uses the Internet to create an imaginary university environment, in which the students, faculty, and staff can communicate and share information at any time, regardless of location. — Wikipedia: Distance Education

Alford, Paul, and Amy Lawson, 2003: Distance Education Student Primer, Indiana University. — This document is intended to give students who are new to an online learning environment a brief introduction to issues and skills involved in becoming successful as an online learner.

American Journal of Distance Education — Michael G. Moore, ed., The Pennsylvania State University — AJDE is the internationally recognized journal of research and scholarship in the field of American distance education. Distance education describes teaching-learning relationships where the actors are geographically separated and communication between them is through technologies such as audio and video broadcasts, teleconferences and recordings; printed study guides; and multimedia systems. The principal technology of current research interest is the World Wide Web, and subfields of distance education therefore include on-line learning, e-learning, distributed learning, asynchronous learning and blended learning.

Baer, Walter S., 1998: Will the Internet Transform Higher Education? RAND/RP-685, Rand Corporation.

Boulos, Pierre, 2005: Reflections of a Digital Immigrant — How Educause 2005 Changed the Way I Think About Teaching, Reflections. — Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach. Digital natives (generation D) were raised on MTV, video games, IM (instant messaging), e-mail, the web, and cell phones. Theoretically, as digital natives, our students have developed cognitive thinking patterns different from previous generations. This poses an interesting challenge to professors and instructional designers who must develop learning materials appropriate to the cognitive learning patterns of digital natives.

California Distance Learning Project (CDLP) — The California Distance Learning Project (CDLP) goal is to help expand learner access to adult basic education services in California. The California Department of Education's Adult Education Office sponsors the Project. The California State University System manages and directs the project, and the Sacramento County Office of Education's Outreach and Technical Assistance Network (OTAN) is the subcontractor for all Internet and information distribution activities including Web site management.

Distance Education Clearinghouse — University of Wisconsin Extension — The Distance Education Clearinghouse is a comprehensive and widely recognized Web site bringing together distance education information from Wisconsin, national, and international sources. New information and resources are being added to the Distance Education Clearinghouse on a continual basis. The Clearinghouse is managed and maintained by the University of Wisconsin-Extension, in cooperation with its partners and other University of Wisconsin institutions.

Distance Education and Training Council (DETC) — The Council was founded in 1926 to promote sound educational standards and ethical business practices within the correspondence field. The independent seven-member Accrediting Commission of the DETC was established in 1955; shortly thereafter it gained the approval of the U.S. Department of Education as the "nationally recognized accrediting agency" under terms of Public Law. The Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) also recognizes the Accrediting Commission.

Distance-Educator.com's Daily News -- Technology, Teaching, News, Research

Gee, James Paul: 2004: What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN: 1-403-96538-2. Gee is a professor of learning sciences at the University of Wisconsin. Gee's book dovetails into the context of Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants presented by Marc Prensky. Also see Prensky's article on Do they Really Think Differently? (Prensky is listed below).

Harvard Business School: Working Knowledge — Moving Beyond the Classroom With Executive Education, December 16, 2002.

Johnson, Steven: 2005: Your Brain on Video Games: Could they actually be Good for You? Discover, 26 (07), July 2005. This is an article on James Gee's research on how video games affect cognition. Also see Gee's book.

Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) (UK) — The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) supports further and higher education by providing strategic guidance, advice and opportunities to use Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to support teaching, learning, research and administration. JISC is funded by all the UK post-16 and higher education funding councils.

Jossey-Bass Publications books on Technology & Higher Adult Eduction.

Moore, Michael G., 2001: Distance Education in the United States: the State of the Art, Series of lectures on the educational use of ICT and virtual education (6th june 2001).

Moore, Michael G. and Greg Kearsley, 2004: Distance Education : A Systems View, 2nd ed., Wadsworth Publishing, ISBN: 0-534-50688-7.

Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration (OJDLA) — University of West Georgia. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration is a peer-reviewed electronic journal offered free each quarter over the World Wide Web. The Journal welcomes manuscripts based on original work of practitioners and researchers with specific focus or implications for the management of distance education programs. This will be added to Education and Distance Learning Resources 2004-05 Internet MiniGuide.

PennState World Campus — Online Distance Education Resources — PennState World Campus offers more than 50 online degree and certificate programs. Since 1892, when it founded one of the nation's first correspondence study programs, Penn State has been a pioneer in distance education. With the launch of the World Campus in 1998, the 25th campus of Penn State, the University reaffirmed its commitment to providing educational access to learners around the world. The World Campus uses multiple technologies to make some of Penn State's most highly regarded graduate, undergraduate, and continuing professional education programs available anytime, anywhere through the World Wide Web, computer interfacing, and other media. Today, the World Campus offers more than 50 degree and certificate programs through distance and online education.

Marc Prensky

Marc Prensky has abundant material on how growing up, from the start, in a digital age has affected neurological development and cognitive styles of thinking.

Prensky, Marc: Writing Page

Prensky, Marc: 2001: Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, From On the Horizon (NCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5, October 2001).

Prensky, Marc: 2002: Do they Really Think Differently? From On the Horizon (NCB University Press, Vo 6, December 2001)

Sargeant, Joan M., 2005: Medical education for rural areas: Opportunities and challenges for information and communications technologies. J Postgrad Med, 51:301-307. <>

Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) — A consortium of institutions and organizations committed to quality online education. Sloan-C provides a number of reports, statistics, and resources.

Distance Education Environments

U.S. Department of Education — National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)

U.S. Department of Education — Office of Vocational & Adult Education (OVAE)

 

United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) — USDLA serves the needs of the distance learning community by providing advocacy, information, networking and opportunity.

USDLA Journal, Thomas J. Kriger, 2001: A Virtual Revolution:Trends in the Expansion of Distance Education.

Virtual Center for Online Learning Research — The Virtual Center for Online Learning Research (VCOLR) is a consortium of partners focusing on the research and development of best practices in online education, particularly higher education. VCOLR is most directly concerned with the delivery of improvement of online education coursework over the Internet, and determining which practices may be involved in increasing the effectiveness of online learning. Initially funded with a congressional grant under the name National Center for Online Learning Research (NCOLR), the center was jointly housed at the University of Idaho and the University of Alabama. The Journal of Interactive Online Learning (JIOL) was launched in 2002 and has since attracted contributions from a growing number of international scholars. In 2006, NCOLR was renamed VCOLR in order reflect the growing participation from the national and international community.

Wikipedia: Distance Education — Distance education, or distance learning, is a field of education that focuses on the pedagogy/andragogy, technology, and instructional systems design that is effectively incorporated in delivering education to students who are not physically "on site" to receive their education. Instead, teachers and students may communicate asynchronously (at times of their own choosing) by exchanging printed or electronic media, or through technology that allows them to communicate in real time (synchronously). Distance education courses that require a physical on-site presence for any reason including the taking of examinations is considered to be a hybrid or blended course or program.

Hybrid Programs — Papers and Examples

Teaching a discipline that requires kinesthetic training does not preclude use of distance education for the didactic components or for planning and reviewing the actual kinesthetic training.

Enhancement of Classroom Instruction in Music — Several of the technologies and software which we have been using for the ILN [Integrated Learning Network] are easily used to enhance traditionally-taught courses. As I was going through the seminar, students in each of my classes were curious as to what kinds of technologies we were using. When I first posted my Web Page, I gave them the URL, and told them that they could check to see what I was going to do for the "Introduction to the Arts" course. The response from students in applied lessons, performance ensembles, and survey of music were the same: How do I get connected? What are you going to put on the Web for us? How can we browse the Web? Where can we go on the Web to find out more about music? What CD-ROM programs will you design for us? If we are interested in listening to more music or more types of music, where do we go? Where can we read more? What is a MIDI lab, and how do I get to use it? — Katherine Ramos Baker, Lewis-Clark State College

FAA Academy Distance Learning — The FAA Academy uses a multi-disciplined approach to distance learning.

Galyan, Deborah, 1999: Nurse Education, Hyperlearning, and the Virtual Clinic, Research & Creative Activity April 1999 Volume XXII Number 1, , Indiana University.

Leonard, DA, and BJ DeLacey, 2002: Designing Hybrid OnLine/In-Class Learning Programs for Adults, Harvard Business School.

Reasons, SG, K. Valadares, and M Slavkin, 2005: Questioning the Hybrid Model: Student Outocmes in Different Course Formats, Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks (Sloan-C), 9 (1), 83-94.

The Global Distance Learning Channel

 

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Last modified: 01 July 2007