A New Strategy for Teaching Plant Propagation by Distance Education

Abstract

ADDITIONAL INDEX WORDS. agricultural education, active learning, Web technology The development of strategies to reach students who are placebound because of job, family, or community responsibilities is an important mission for land-grant colleges. Many land-grant universities have established distance learning systems (Murphy, 1996), and it is generally agreed that educational programming for place-bound students provides a needed scholastic opportunity for students, while strengthening undergraduate enrollment in agriculture (Tignor and Wilson, 1999). University of Florida (UF) currently has 11 videoconferencing network sites throughout the state where various courses in agriculture are offered. Delivery methods for distance education courses include interactive videoconferencing, narrative PowerPoint (RealPresenter; RealNetworks, Inc., Seattle), World Wide Web, and Web course tools (WebCT; WebCT Inc, Lynnfi eld, Mass). The onset of interactive video has created an opportunity to merge the on-site and off-site classes into one united class and to improve the effectiveness of educational programming. Russell (1999) compiled a large bibliography of research demonstrating that there is not a signifi cant difference between standard and distance education learning. However, noted disadvantages of