Distance Education Tools Research Articles

Religious distance education goes online

AbstractThis chapter examines a variety of electronic distance education tools used by religious organizations.

Tecnologia educacional no contexto do ensino de histologia: pesquisa e desenvolvimento de um ambiente virtual de ensino e aprendizagem

Discutem-se as mudanças constatadas no ensino da Histologia, como a tecnologia tem sido empregada nos contextos de aprendizagem, os aspectos pedagógicos inerentes à utilização de recursos, tais como atlas digitais e microscópios virtuais, e apresenta-se pesquisa sobre o desenvolvimento de um ambiente virtual de ensino-aprendizagem de Histologia, que contou com a participação de alunos e professores em sua construção. Verificou-se que os ambientes virtuais e outros recursos didáticos baseados nas Tecnologias da Informação e da Comunicação (TICs) procuram atender à atual tendência de complementar a educação presencial com ferramentas de educação a distância, que podem ser utilizadas facultativamente no estudo extraclasse continuado. Concluiu-se que, embora as novas tecnologias possam contribuir para o ensino de Histologia, os materiais didáticos baseados em TICs devem se adequar às expectativas docentes e discentes e aos aspectos pedagógicos e ergonômicos, e precisam ser adotados pelos professores não como ferramentas isoladas, mas integrados às estratégias de ensino-aprendizagem.

When coming to campus is not an option: using web conferencing to deliver library instruction

PurposeOwing to the growing number of online and commuting students at the University of West Georgia, the Instructional Services department at Ingram Library experimented with offering online synchronous library instruction. This paper aims to describe how it approached this problem and the findings from the initial attempts.Design/methodology/approachThe authors wanted to provide library instruction to online graduate students at the university. They worked with the staff development department to develop a pilot program for an online library instruction course using WIMBA web‐conferencing software.FindingsIt was found that due to the limitations of technology, the authors had to reduce the amount of information they deliver in the same amount of time. It was also discovered that it is easy to be distracted by the technology and forget that clear communication with the users (students and faculty) are the key to any successful instruction program regardless of the delivery method.Originality/valueMost libraries offer face‐to‐face library instruction and rely on tutorials to reach their distance education and non‐traditional students. Few libraries are using distance education tools to teach information literacy skills. As librarians begin to explore this avenue, they need to re‐evaluate how and what they teach students to better leverage the technology while reaching the same information literacy objectives.

Web-ECoTEC: an optimization tool for the ECoTEC assessment methodology

Knowledge building results from exploration of and experiences with ones environment. According to Piaget, experiences can be physical, logical-mathematical and social. Of these, experiences that develop logical-mathematical knowledge are the most difficult to detect in computational tools for both distance and classroom education. In constructivist principles, the methodology called Cognitive Structure for Constructivist Educational Technologies – ECoTEC characterizes computational tools for education according to the types logical-mathematical thought structures that can be constructed by the users of the tools. Online availability of assessment tools widens access and can also facilitate user interpretation of results. To this end, the objective of this study was to develop an interactive tool to aid in automated data collection and calculation of metrics proposed by the ECoTEC methodology. The demonstration prototype, called Web-ECoTEC, is in the form of a website hosted on a Server at the Federal University of Uberlândia, Brazil. It consists of a set of pages on the World Wide Web (www) based on the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) with hypertext links. Web-ECoTEC aids response collection and generation of characterization results from the computational tools. Responses are easy to enter and the instrument quickly prepares assessment results in various formats for the user-evaluator. Real time results calculation facilitates interpretation and assists in the selection of computational tools used for building logical-mathematical thought

Technological tools for distance education

This paper introduces two tools which can be used in an English language teaching/learning environment: the Comment feature in Microsoft Word and Skype. The Comment feature allows teachers to make electronic comments on student writing. Skype is particularly useful in organising listening-speaking tutor sessions. As teachers are called upon to teach and develop distance education courses, they will need to use creativity and innovation. This paper outlines a variety of ways to integrate the Comment feature and Skype into a distance learning program. The final portion of this paper focuses on evaluative research currently in progress.

MICROFRANCHISING MICROLEARNING CENTERS: A SUSTAINABLE MODEL FOR EXPANDING THE RIGHT TO EDUCATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES?

While availability of information and access to it enables education in developing countries, information alone does not secure transmission of knowledge – especially to remote learners in low-tech, infrastructure-poor communities. For this reason, 21st century distance education tools require innovative mechanisms for reaching the hardest-to-reach learners. This paper explores a specific case study from Nepal as a means for illuminating the possibility for expanding the right to education in developing countries through an innovative approach: the microfranchising of microlearning centers.

Pros and Cons of Internet2 Videoconferencing as a New Generation Distance Education Tool

Internet2 is one of the newer ways of videoconferencing in American universities. Over 200 universities in the United States collaborate with each other through these high-quality Internet lines. K-12 schools and libraries nationwide have also started taking advantage of this fiber optic, high-capacity speedy network. However, the term Internet2 still remains obscure to many. This paper addresses pros and cons of using Internet2 as a means of videoconferencing.

Creating a Distance Education Tool-Set for Course Based Business Information Instruction

SUMMARY Shaped by new technologies, demand, and a growing base within higher education, distance education programs have expanded and evolved over the past decade. Professors have incorporated distance education tools into their instructional skill-sets and librarians must do the same in order to remain relevant and practicable to the growing numbers of distance learning students. Over the past year, I have created and maintained a system of tools focused on instructing distance education students enrolled in the College of Business and Public Administration at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. These tools include a Web based research tutorial, Web based course guides, and classroom instruction in videoconference format. This paper will provide practical strategies for creating and maintaining a complementary distance education tool-set with a focus on course based business information instruction.

Transnational Advocacy, Global Civil Society? Emerging Evidence from the Field of Education

L'objectif des auteurs de cet article est double. Il s'agit d'une part de presenter une etude exploratoire sur les tendances actuelles temoignant de l'emergence d'un nouvel activisme non gouvernemental dans le champ de l'education et d'autre part de dresser un cadre analytique afin d'evaluer l'importance de cet activisme, en elaborant des concepts bases sur les recherches ayant porte sur les nouveaux mouvements sociaux et les debats theoriques actuels a propos de la societe civile mondiale.

Transnational Advocacy, Global Civil Society? Emerging Evidence from the Field of Education

Transnational Advocacy, Global Civil Society? Emerging Evidence from the Field of Education

Connecting art images and bibliographic data: creating a tool for distance education through collaboration

About the only way a small non-profit art museum and its library can hope to create and disseminate information about both its art and bibliographic collections is through collaboration and co-operation. The Akron Art Museum, the University of Akron Libraries, and OhioLink (the state-wide library and multimedia consortium) joined forces to compile the necessary records, images and software to connect information in the museum library’s catalogue to image files, and other biographic and bibliographic databases. Selected portions of the newly created resources are refashioned and merged with web-based lesson plans for use within the museum itself, out in the greater metropolitan area, and wherever Internet-based web resources can reach.

Internet-based model of distance education

The history of distance education began over a hundred years ago. During the Industrial Revolution, technological developments in areas such as transportation and communications led to major advances in the delivery of distance education. Recent developments with Internet technology, such as electronic mail, newsgroups, chat lines and the World Wide Web, have created another revolution in the capacity to deliver high-quality, cost-effective distance education. In order to take full advantage of using Internet-based tools in human resource development (HRD) initiatives such as training and development, there is a need for a clear model that defines the range and types of Internet-based tools available. In this paper Shale and Garrison's model of distance education developed in the late 1980s is updated and critiqued for the late 1990s through the addition of Internet-based distance education tools. If properly understood and implemented, these Internet-based tools can lead to instruction that is highly interactive and learner-centered. The Internet-based model of distance education developed in this paper recognizes that instructional design and delivery influence the way in which content and communication are designed, delivered and received. Finally, the implications of the model for the field of distance education are discussed.

Family Life Pathfinders on the New Electronic Frontier

Consider what it must have been like to be a family life practitioner in 1450. You might have been a monk who served as a scribe and had radical ideas about teaching the poor. Or you might have been a landowner who treated his vassals and their families with kindness. As you hoped, dreamed, and toiled, little did you know that gentle winds of technological change were beginning to stir. Before long those winds would sweep away the educational world order and breathe new life into the lives of every human being who wished to learn. In 1450, Johannes Gutenberg was in Mainz, Germany building a printing press based on his new invention of movable type. Technology and Educational Change Consider how the educational establishment must have reacted when the first printing press appeared. masses will never be interested in books! will never have enough money to buy them. masses will never be able to learn to read! who labored for long hours in dim light copying books by hand may have bemoaned the loss of the artisan's touch in the life of readers. Those lifeless books are only a fad, may have been a topic of conversation among the monks in more than one hilltop abbey. Like the pony express riders, steamship captains, telegraph operators, and furnace coal salesmen that would follow them, these learned men could not wish the technological genie back into the bottle. Like children crying over sand castles being swept away by the tide, most were unable to understand and adapt to the challenges created by radically new circumstances. The Gutenberg Press made mass produced low-cost books and universal education a part of the new reality. The world would be changed forever. We are now in the midst of a new technological revolution in learning, one that is no less dramatic than the one ushered in by Gutenberg's invention. The Internet and its offspring, the World Wide Web, are now sending tremors throughout the global educational establishment. The Internet has turned every owner of a computer, a modem, and a telephone line into a publisher, a radio station, and, in the near future, a TV studio (Strangelove, 1994). University and government administrators know there will be great power given to those who can sail these new technological winds. But this power will be granted only to those with the imagination and an intuitive understanding of how to harness such energy. Incorporating the new technology into our work as parents or family life educators can be effective only if we understand the capabilities and unique strengths of these new distance education tools. If we fail to step back and imagine how our work can be fundamentally transformed, we are at best doomed to shoehorn traditional techniques into the new medium, much like using a video to record slide shows. The first Web-based courses were little more than traditional correspondence courses transported to the Web. The first Web-based publications were printed material scanned or retyped and displayed on the Web with little regard for what the medium could bring to the material. These instructional experiences were unimaginative, stale, and opportunistic. They utterly failed to take advantage of the Web's capabilities. The new technology challenges us to create an original vision of how we think about learning and how we work as practitioners. Organizations that adapt quickly and change their operational paradigms will prosper. organizations that fail to learn such lessons will fall into decline and eventually be discarded to some historical dustbin. Family life educators care deeply about the transformative power of knowledge. Knowledge and its application can change lives engaged in a learning enterprise. The World Wide Web provides us with an extremely powerful tool we can use to inform families. Understanding the cultural conditions that influence and are influenced by this technology is necessary if we hope to use that tool effectively. …

Responses to a First Time Use of Internet Inservice Training by Agricultural Extension Agents

The Internet is a powerful tool for distance education. When used for extension inservice training, it provides the benefits of lower training costs due to lack of travel requirements and the ability for agents and specialists over a large geographic region to exchange information and ideas. The Internet was used exclusively for a regional county extension agent inservice training titled iCurrent Issues in Cotton Fertility Management.i The first objective was to determine if Internet distance learning could effectively be used to teach a technical agricultural topic for extension agent training over a wide geographic region. The second objective was to determine the acceptance level for learning via the Internet by first-time users of asynchronous instruction. The inservice training material for the 3-wk session was posted on the World Wide Web. Eight university specialists from North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama and over 50 extension agents from the same states engaged in Internet discussions focusing on the Web material and personal experiences. Responses to a posttraining questionnaire from agents who had never previously participated in an Internet training revealed that they were strongly receptive to this form of training. The questionnaire also clearly showed that the Internet can be an effective way to implement an inservice training within the U.S. Cooperative Extension Service.

Assessing Quality Issues in Interactive Video Teleconferencing‐based Graduate Level Engineering Courses

AbstractThe continuing education of engineering professionals has been an important objective of the University of Pittsburgh's Manufacturing Systems Engineering Program (MSEP) since its inception in 1987. Making relevant graduate‐level programs accessible to the population of engineering professionals separated from traditional university communities has been the object of much effort for more than three decades. The distance education tool of interactive video teleconferencing over the public telephone network has recently become a viable method for extending the university environment to these remote students.This paper considers the context and analysis of student reactions and attitudes toward MSEP graduate‐level courses delivered to the University's regional campus at Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Since the fall of 1994, MSEP has offered these courses using off‐the‐shelf interactive video teleconferencing systems over the public switched digital network. Issues that may affect the perceived quality of these programs (e.g., in the areas of audio communication quality, instructional strategies, course materials distribution, and course offerings) are identified and discussed.

Integrating the Internet and the World Wide Web into the Business Classroom: A Synthesis

Many public universities are facing severe constraints on the resources allocated to them by state governments. At the same time, persisting demands are placed on faculty to deliver an increasing number of courses and other educational services to citizens at remote corners of the state. One way to solve this paradoxical problem could be to use the Internet technology for instruction. This article summarizes classroom experiments by business faculty using the Internet for instructional purposes and as a distance education tool. Eight methods of using Internet in business classes are described, and the possible impact of Internet use in business education and its limitations are analyzed.

Training science teachers with fully-interactive, distance education technology

Our experience with interactive distance education for science teachers has been both exciting and rewarding. This class has convinced us that activity-based science method classes can be presented with this technology. Working with distance education equipment requires the creative combination of long-established teaching techniques with novel procedures required by the technology. Although the technology does involve inevitable limitations and compromises, it sharpens some teaching skills and provides an opportunity for teachers to learn and do more science. As available tools for distance education become even more sophisticated, delivery techniques will have to be altered continually. Doubtlessly, technological developments will continue to be increasingly site friendly. In the future, one can anticipate forms of distance education that will enable communication with an infinite number of remote sites, thus establishing the definitive electronic science classroom.

The Techniques of Teletraining—New Enhancements

In this era of technology-based training and education, audio and video teletraining has become an effective tool for Distance Education. This article describes the potential benefits of teletraining, needs assessment for teletraining decisions, and the teletraining design techniques to deliver complex training systems and educational programs to enhance distance learning in remote education/training sites in a cost-effective manner.