Volume #3, Issue #2
Volume #3, Issue #2
Date: December 1989
Editor:
Jason Ohler, Director
Educational Technology Program
University of Alaska Southeast
ONLINE JOURNAL OF DISTANCE EDUCATION AND COMMUNICATION
In the industrial age, we go to school. In the information age, school can come to us. This is the message implicit in the media and movement of distance education.
Volume #3, Issue #2
December 1989
Editor: Jason Ohler
Educational Technology Program DirectorTechnical Coordinator: Paul J. Coffin
University of Alaska Southeast
11120 Glacier Highway
Juneau, Alaska 99801
Phone: 907-789-4538, 4417
BITNET USERID: JFJBO@ALASKA
716 Taschereau
Ste-Therese, Quebec J7E 4E1
Phone: 514-430-0995
BITNET USERID: JXPJC@ALASKA
WELCOME TO THE THIRD SEASON OF THE ONLINE JOURNAL OF DISTANCE EDUCATION AND COMMUNICATION
FROM THE EDITOR:
Many of the Online readers have entered the "holiday season" in their respective areas of the world. It is customary during this period in many cultures to exchange greetings using print media and postal delivery system. Please accept our alternative:
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SEASONS GREETINGS From the Online Journal Staff
This will be the last issue until sometime in February. The editor, believing de-technologization to be good for the soul, will be on holidays in Florida until the first week in January.
WE ARE ALWAYS INTERESTED IN CONSIDERING YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS.
Bear in mind that the electronic journal suffers from "uncompromising sequentiality"- readers can not skip past articles that don't interest them the way they can in a paper-based journal. Until our technology allows "browsing," our only alternative is to make articles brief and to provide the authors' IDs so they can be contacted directly by readers for more detailed information. This approach cuts down on the network resources needed to distribute the Online Journal and allows for greater reader interactivity, while reducing the amount of unwanted information readers are forced to scroll through.
Therefore, please limit articles to 4 screens (2 pages) maximum if it's possible. If you can, also please indent one tab space on the left and keep the right margin at 70. I look forward to hearing from you.
This issue at a glance:
ITEM #1 GETTING CREDIT WHERE ITS DUE- NEW WAYS FOR HIGHER EDUCATION TO
ACCOMODATE DISABILITY
From Disabled USA 1984/2 Edition of the President's Committee on
Employment of Persons With Disabilities Spring 1984
Handicapped adults are missing out on a good deal of off
campus education, a learning arrangement that is becoming
increasingly popular in the adult education field. A learning
institution so decentralized that education occurs in any number
of convenient locations- sometimes even the students home- is
attracting large numbers of mothers of young children who want
to go into the work force. Also interested are employed persons
who, with more education, will command better wages and enhance
their standard of living, but who find daily attendance at a central
learning point impossible to schedule. Handicapped adults, too can
tap into off campus learning and become more self-sufficient.
I am a student in a n on-traditional "without walls"
university- Empire State College of the State University of New
York. I am working on my bachelor's degree in Human and Community
Services, and the diploma I receive will be the same one (but with
my college's name on it) given to all State University of New York
students. Nor will it be different from a diploma from any other
college approved by the New York State Board of Regents.
Nonetheless, Empire State's approach to education (which is
by the way accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges
and Universities) differs greatly from most other State University
campuses. It is the most flexible and least restrictive of any I have
ever heard, allowing me to earn credit, in three different ways;
prior learning experience, learning contract, and prior transcript
credit.
PRIOR LEARNING IS A WONDERFUL THING
The philosophy of grading college credit for life experience
is based on the fact that adults often learn at the college level
in certain life activities. To get credit, a student at Empire State
must write up his or her prior learning experience in a degree essay.
It sounds simple? Actually, it was taxing and indeed the most
difficult part of my college credit. Evaluation on essay, moreover,
is done by a qualified person selected by the college, who the college
trusts to maintain quality and high standards.
My college has a booklet on how to write degree essays. (It is
available to the print handicapped through Recording for the Blind)
in addition, other publications are helpful. The Educational Testing
Service at Princeton, New Jersey, has a series of books called the
"have skills Books". In them very task specific "I Can" lists
outline the skills intimately associated with functioning as a
homemaker, a volunteer, and different salaried positions, including
administrator/manager, cook, group leader, and teacher/trainer.
These skills indicate learning done in "task form" that
could be college creditable if written up in a degree essay. Some
people interested in "without walls" learning will be particularly
interested to know that another useful booklet at Educational Testing
Service is called "How to Get College Credit for What You Learned
as a Homemaker and Volunteer"
Within the State University of New York people are generally
familiar with degree essays. Outside the state university there are
a few places that are familiar with institutions which give college
credit for prior learning experiences. One is the Council for the
Advancement of Experiential Learning. Two other sources of information
are Dr. Tumms, of Edinbourough, Pennsylvania and Education Information
Information Center (ERIC) at Ohio State University at in Columbus,
Ohio. ERIC in particular has a wealth of knowledge in prior learning
experience in its many fine publications.
Learning done in the armed forces services is also creditable
at Empire State College, as are certain certificates of professional
accomplishment, such as Emergency Medical Technician, paralegal, and
paraprofessional teacher. (On this topic, the Council for the
Advancement of Experiential Learning has a good publication, called
"Using Licenses and Certificates as Evidence of College-Level
Learning" and priced at $3.00.)
CREDIT THROUGH CONTRACT LEARNING
Besides granting credit for prior learning experience,
my college has several very interesting ways for students to attend
classes. For instance, I can register at any campus course for
any college that would accept me. For one semester, I took a course
at the New School for Social Research that required a supervised
internship in human service. This meant I applied what I learned
as I learned it.
Part of my motivation was to show that I could go to a
campus with my visual handicap, function there, and simultaneously
acquire skills for college credit under supervision. However the
rigors of going to a second campus for another course I took would
have been physically too exhausting for me.
So I made use of another form of contract learning. At my
request, Empire State searched for and retained a qualified person
to tutor me and only me in counseling theory. My tutor turned out to
be an individual with a master's degree in rehabilitation counseling,
and he taught me the theories of counselling - over the telephone.
Of course much of the course involved course assignments and
background reading. My tutor agreed to accept my coursework in a taped
form on audio cassette, and when it was time for an examination, he
came to my home. (This latter accommodation was his own decision; he
was not required to do this, nor was he re-imbursed for travel
time and transit costs.) The entire arrangement was one-on-one in a
mutually agreed upon time and under contract. In the course, I
sucessfully learned role playing, counseling theories, and their
practice, and then applied some of the concepts of role playing
and counseling in my human service internship. So voila! a
custom tailored learning contract.
And this is the norm, not the exception, at a university
"without walls" like Empire State, where there are no pre-designed
classrooms. The classroom can be anywhere a person can learn.
Empire State College also has a program called the Center for
Distance Learning. By means of a conference call telephone hookup
a course instructor creates a college level "class" for students
who cannot all physically collect in one location. (Think of single
parents who work days and must remain home during the evenings.)
In New York City, LaGuardia Community College and also Queens
College have similar technological capabilities.
At Long Island University I understand a student in the
field of special education is working on her masters degree by
using her work proctoring exams for the other students to
fulfil her required work-study tasks. What a fine co-operative
network! In sum, cross registration, special tutoring, distant
learning, and independent study permit a person to earn college
credit in a variety of ways. And internships are particularly
encouraged by Empire State as they prove a person can apply
knowledge.
CREDIT THROUGH TRANSCRIPT LEARNING
The third way a student earns credit at my college is by
transcript learning. There are several kinds. The clearest example
is where a person attended another college in the past and passed
courses there. An official record of passing those classes
translates into credits at Empire State College.
With the College Level Examination program, a student
earns college credit by means of passing scores on tests. There
are many testing sites throughout the country.
NOT A COMPLETE BED OF ROSES
In an educational system "without walls", there are
generally many avenues to the same goal. But there are limits
to the flexibility of off campus learning, and not all forms
of non-traditional forms of education are creditable. One way to
find out in advance which are and which are not is to write
to the U.S. Department of Education, or the American Council on
Education. I suggest also the book HOW TO BEAT THE HIGH COST
OF A COLLEGE EDUCATION by DR. Albert W. Munzert. He lists many
ways to obtain a non-traditional education, and most all of them
are creditable.
My college career hasn't been a total paradise. At Empire
State I have encountered some problems, mostly because a
university without walls is also without conveniences and
supports taken for granted at more traditional systems. For
example, I had trouble co-ordinating the purchase and
transcription of my college textbooks. There was no dean of
handicapped students or office of handicapped student services
to assist me. I also had to do everything myself in order to
find and secure readers.
Another major problem I had- and one I imagine other
disabled persons would likely encounter- was that my
rehabilitation counselor refused to sponsor me in an off
campus program. For one thing, the counselor felt there was
very little accountability for prior learning experience.
Furthermore it was difficult to make an individual written
rehabilitation contract when it is uncertain in advance
how much credit will be awarded for prior learning experience.
To this day, my vocational rehabilitation agency
does not sponsor me. Unlike the flexibility of my education
program, my rehabilitation program is very rigid- I must be
able to travel independently as well as have good communication
skills before they will consider assisting me pursue a
college degree. But when I first started my college education,
I was just beginning to learn mobility techniques and braille.
I did much more at my home, went out with sighted guides, and
made copious use of tape recorders. But those arrangements
did not meet the standards of the agency and I was labeled
"not independently functional".
Yet given the opportunities at Empire State, I
function very well. Moreover, I felt that my educational
activity there helped me avoid some of the restlessness of
waiting and not doing anything measurably productive, which
usually accompanies the more lengthy rehabilitation process.
Activity, especially of a progressive kind such as learning,
is particularly rewarding.
And I am not the only handicapped person taking
advantage of opportunities for non-traditional education.
There are a few others in the State of New York. I found
out, for instance, that the Union of Experimenting Colleges
and Universities, there is a mobility impaired student
working on a doctorate. Also an alumnus of Empire State
College is working on a doctorate, through Goddard College
in human services, and is also trying to set up a polio
hotline.
The only homebound vocational program I found for
physically handicapped persons is a project on Long Island
(and in Chicago) called Project Lift. This project aims to
encourage disabled persons to learn computer technology
and to set up computer assisted businesses at home to do
bookkeeping, inventory control, medical record management,
and other data processing tasks.
Finally, there are home study courses through the
National Home Study Council and the Hadley School for the
Blind offers a non-traditional, off campus, college level
program for qualified blind students.
One solid aspect of nontraditional education is the
ability to learn how to learn in a self-directed, self-motivated
fashion. For me, it provided the right degree of flexibility
and rigidness at the right time. And all of the learning is
individual. And all the learning is individual, similar to the
individual education programs of special education in primary
and secondary school.
One other good aspect of non-traditional learning is
the price. Because there are no halls of ivy to pay for, it
is very inexpensive. Those edifices are expensive. I feel the day
will come when non-traditional education will be very much
"de rigor". As education changes with our lifestyle, I feel
the disabled community will benefit along with the rest of
society from the individual approach to education. I can
almost feel it in the wind.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON NON-TRADITIONAL EDUCATION
The American Council of Education- 1 Dupont Circle, NW,
Washington, DC, distributes "Guide to External Degree
Programs in the USA" by Eugene Sullivan, published by
MacMillan Publishing Company in New York
Council for the Advancement of Experiential Learning
10598 Marble Faun Court, Columbia, Maryland 21044; has
a vast publication list and can explain how people earn
prior learning credit.
Project Lift, Inc.- 137 Russek Drive, Staten Island,
New York 10312; write to the attention of Donna Walters
Cozberg,
Empire State SUNY- 2 Union Avenue Saratoga Springs, NY
12248; the telephone number is (518) 587 2100
Union of Experimenting Colleges and Universities-
the Provident Bank Building, Suite 1016, 7th and Vine St.
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202; the telephone is 1 800
543 0366.
Vermont College of Norwich University (formerly Goddard)
Goddard Graduate program of Vermont College,
Montpelier, Vermont 05602.
ITEM #2 PHONE LINKS FOR THE DISABLED
[respond to:cmcl2!dasys1!tzippy%harvard@harvunxw.BITNET]
The Rio Salado Community College Homebound Project is a pilot program in
Phoenix, Ariz. which is expected to become a national project in the
not-so-distant future, according to the program's director, Helen
Sprawls.
It offers an opportunity for handicapped homebound people to take
college classes in a live, interactive "classroom setting" through the
use of an audio teleconferencing system--the Sundial Network.
The program, begun in 1984, has served hundreds of handicapped students
who have been bridged together. The homebound program is available to
anyone who has access to a telephone. Headsets are available for those
who cannot hold onto a telephone.
The telephone lines between students and teachers are linked through a
bridging device that can join up to 20 telephone lines for simultaneous,
interactive instruction. In addition, the bridge can break down those 20
lines into smaller groups for discussions and then reconnect them with
an instructor.
Carolyn Jackson, at 51, took her final college exams while in intensive
care after suffering her second heart attack due to a connective tissue
disease. Her instructors didn't even know that she was in the hospital
let alone the IC Unit.
"I believe in offering help but not complete support," Carolyn said.
"Full potential cannot be obtained unless self-esteem is high. I have
earned 16 college credits and I am a straight A student."
She said she received her "death notice" from doctors seven years ago.
She admits being in "24-hour-a-day pain" but very much alive.
Carolyn continues to contact other handicapped people to enroll in
college classes while studying to become a computer operator--a job she
says she will be able to do right at home.
The Homebound Project also offers classes for homebound careers--those
who must care for severely disabled people and cannot leave them alone.
Anabel Mattson, 48, is a homebound carer. She has two severely
handicapped foster children and says she has been "stimulated" by the
program. And Elizabeth
Lampron, 65, is a student who cares for her husband recovering from a
stroke. She says she can "immediately leave class by just putting down
the phone" if her husband needs immediate attention.
"If you don't use your mind you might as well be dead," says 46-year-old
Judy Matta, who was diagnosed with scleroderma, a terminal disease that
hardens organs and skin to the point they no longer function. "I could
become a vegetable. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to limit
myself," the homebound student insists.
Ann, a 52-year-old student with an impaired voice resulting from a
stroke said she regained her self-confidence being able to speak at her
own pace on the system. Another individual with a physical appearance
problem states, "I'm so excited, I suddenly feel so alive. I now have
something to get up for." Michael Reeung, a 25-year-old quadriplegic,
said the classes offer comradery of students through technology.
"The Homebound Project equalizes educational opportunities for severely
disabled-homebound people. Through studio teleconferencing, students are
able to participate in a classroom environment," says Helen Sprawls.
"For many of our students, this is a first-step to re-entering the
outside world."
ACCENT, Winter 1988.
From Accent on LIving Magazine.... and Handicapped Users Database
of Compuserve.
by Tzipporah Benavraham
cmcl2!dasys1!tzippy%harvard@harvunxw.BITNET
by Mal Bernstein
| Kurt Jaeger | Massimo Labbrozzi |
| Schozacher Strasze 40 | ITER, Facolta' di Ingegneria |
| D-7000 Stuttgart 40 | Universita' di Bologna |
| Tel. +49 711 8701309 24h a day | Viale Risorgimento 2 |
| EMail: pi%complx@nadia.UUCP | 40100 Bologna |
A detailed list of participants is available.
ITEM #5 NEW HORIZONS IN COMPUTER/VIDEODISC EDUCATION: The Use of Hypermedia
to Create "The Yup'ik Eskimo Computer"
DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT
New Horizons in Computer/Videodisc Education: The Use of Hypermedia to
Create "The Yup'ik Eskimo Computer
by Barry Sponder & Dennis Schall, Education Department
ABSTRACT: At the University of Alaska Fairbanks Kuskokwim Campus,
students and faculty have developed a multi-media instructional
database program to help collect and disseminate information about
the language, art, and culture of the Yup'ik Eskimo people. The
Yugtarvik Museum project, undertaken during the spring 1989
semester, is designed to increase the opportunities for both Alaska
Natives and non-Natives to learn about Yup'ik culture and Alaska
Native crafts. Using the Hypercard program on a Macintosh Plus
computer, and a videodisc designed by Kuskokwim Campus faculty,
the contents of the Bethel Eskimo Museum were photographed and
placed into an interactive computer/videodisc program designed to
encourage viewers to access information about museum's displays.
Community residents and Yup'ik Eskimo college students have been
contributing information to the computer program, and working on
the project has become a powerful preservice training experience
for many future Native and non-Native teachers. Additionally, the
program has been made available for use in public schools
throughout the state to enable Alaska Native school children to add
to the database and to use the system as self-motivating learning
tool.
THE CONTEXT: The University of Alaska Fairbanks is comprised of
several campuses throughout the state of Alaska, with the largest of
these located in Fairbanks, and several smaller campuses and rural
education centers scattered throughout the state. The sobering
reality of making college courses available to a geographical region
which is larger than the state of Texas, and is beset with climatic
extremes, forces the university to rely heavily upon
telecommunications technology to accomplish its mission.
Located in Bethel, the University of Alaska Fairbanks Kuskokwim
Campus (UAF-KUC) provides post-secondary education programs for the
residents of Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, a region of over 60,000 square
miles in southwestern Alaska. With 18,000 Yup'ik Eskimos, out of a
total population of 20,000, the area has the largest concentration of
Alaska Natives in the state. The Kuskokwim Campus is well-known
for its attention to inter-ethnic communication and provides cross
-cultural teacher training for many regional school districts. The
campus is also known for a strong developmental studies emphasis
and for its expertise in delivering distance education courses to
rural areas of the state. Additionally UAF-KUC serves as a model for
the use of educational technology for southwestern Alaskan school
districts.
THE CHALLENGE: A recurring theme in rural Alaska has been the
encroachment of western society on the indigenous Native cultures.
(Scollon, 1980; Collier Jr., 1973; Barnhardt and Tonsmeire, 1987).
The educational system of rural Alaska has been particularly
dominated by western culture for the past century. The typical
curriculum often reflects the traditional cannon of subject areas
that you would find in any school setting regardless of context. This
subject-oriented approach tends to teach fragments of knowledge
which are often not related to real-life situations in rural Eskimo
communities.
The subject-oriented curriculum continues to be challenged by many
faculty, public school teachers, and native community members
(Collier Jr., 1973; Scollon, 1980). As George Olanna points out, "The
curriculum of a rural Alaskan school should be related to the local
community and the local environment. The community should be a
resource (Barnhardt and Tonsmeire, 1987)." A widespread concern
for cultural preservation has also led to a strong commitment and
willingness on the part of many Alaskan educators to be innovative
in improving the relevance and quality of postsecondary education.
The University of Alaska Fairbanks offers a rural-based teacher
training program that has been graduating Native Alaskan teachers
for over a decade (Lipka, 1985).
A growing trend in postsecondary education is the use of
commercially prepared telecourses for both on-campus and off
-campus instruction, permitting a rough standardization of
curriculum (Luskin, 1983). While this practice has certain
advantages, minority students in these classes may be at a
disadvantage because of various cross-cultural differences with the
majority culture, unless there is a conscious attempt to adapt
materials to specific minority audiences (Goulet and Spronk, 1988;
Nelson, 1988). Because of these limitations, rural UAF institutions
serving indigenous people have been making a determined effort to
adapt instructional technology to fit their audience, rather than
trying to shape the audience to fit the instructional material.
Instructional Technology At University of Alaska Fairbanks
Kuskokwim Campus: The Kuskokwim Campus (KUC) has a long history of
developing and using instructional technology. The campus has been
offering distance education courses to rural communities on a wide scale
since 1981, covering fields such as Education, History, Business, Alaska
Native Languages, Psychology, Mathematics, English and Developmental
Studies. The Kuskokwim Campus was the first institution in Alaska to
deliver distance education courses in Yup'ik orthography. Regional
school districts look towards KUC for assistance in the distance
delivery of specialized courses to villages with small student
populations.
KUC has an excellent computer network which combines Macintosh
and IBM-compatible machines to offer on-campus students up-to
-date computer courses. Many computers are being programmed to
provide locally-relevant individualized instruction, primarily on the
Macintosh, and some are linked to videodisc machines that present
additional audiovisual materials. Locally developed science courses
utilizing videodisc support have proven particularly effective for
Yup'ik Eskimo students.
The Kuskokwim campus also provides leadership in the use
educational technology throughout its service region. School
districts, regional businesses, and governmental agencies often send
employees to Bethel to be trained in various computer-related jobs,
either on the Macintosh or IBM-compatible machines. Kuskokwim
campus faculty and staff are also active in helping local school
districts to develop appropriate distance education systems.
Technology and Traditional Yup'ik Culture: Not far from
the Kuskokwim Campus is the Bethel Yugtarvik Museum, which
possesses a nationally recognized collection of Alaskan Native
artifacts, drawn exclusively from the Yukon-Kuskokwim region. The
Yugtarvik museum functions as both a preserver of indigenous
culture, and as a disseminator of information about traditional
Alaskan Native crafts. The museum's contents are augmented by a
large collection of slides and film depicting the traditional life
-styles of southwestern Alaska .
For the past year, Kuskokwim Campus faculty, with experience in
videodisc and computer instruction, have been working on a project
designed to employ computer technology for the presentation of
traditional Alaskan culture through the use of the collection and
facilities of the Bethel Yugtarvik Museum. Using a Macintosh
computer as a visual database, the contents of the Yugtarvik museum
have been photographed and scanned into a computer program
designed to encourage museum visitors to access information about
the crafts and artifacts on display. The information has been
arranged in an attractive presentation format using the Apple
Hypercard application, with the majority of the programming being
done by college students and residents of the Yukon-Kuskokwim
Delta. A videodisc containing pictures of the museum's exhibits,
footage of Eskimo elders demonstrating traditional craft skills, and
geographical information about Alaska Native villages was
developed for use with the Hypercard program. Since the contents of
the museum represent part of the collective wisdom and heritage of
the Yup'ik Eskimo people, the opportunities for learning about
traditional Yup'ik culture are enormous. While community residents,
college students, and museum personnel helped to design the
presentation and collect the relevant data, the university provided
the equipment and the technical expertise to supervise the project.
The campus-community relationship became a partnership serving
the dominant culture of the region.
An initial Macintosh database was completed in May, 1989, and the
program has undergone pilot testing at the Kuskokwim Campus and
the Yugtarvik Regional Museum. Additional storage space on the
computer has been set aside for community residents to continue
contributing to the presentation, making the exhibit an on-going
information gathering tool. The interactive program is available for
school districts to use or adapt to fit the needs of their academic
and cultural programs. In this way the University of Alaska is
providing leadership in the use of instructional technology for
Native American students and minority populations throughout the
state.
FUTURE PROJECTS: The museum project team was recently award
ed a U.S. D.O.E. grant to develop a similar interactive program for
teaching science courses to Alaska Native college students. The 18
-month project will concentrate in the design and development of an
Alaska-specific course which will provide locally-relevant
examples for universal scientific concepts, in addition to including
culturally-specific science concepts from Yup'ik culture. The
program is also being designed for use at the k-12 level, and it is
hoped that this project can serve to demonstrate the availability of
technological solutions to some of the problems of Alaskan
education. The team members are also working with regional school
district personnel during most phases of this project to help them
develop the expertise to pursue similar projects on their own.
Additionally, the team is working with another Kuskokwim faculty
person who is designing a Hypercard database on Yup'ik culture for
use in University courses and in cross-cultural training programs.
The database is a compilation of many aspects of the Yup'ik
lifestyle, and both the museum videodisc and the science videodisc
will be available for use with this Hypercard program.
CONCLUSION: The Yugtarvik museum project undertaken by faculty
and students at the University of Alaska Kuskokwim campus is one
example of the use of computer technology to address relevant
curriculum for indigenous peoples; It can serve as a model for future
University-community cooperation. The focus of the Yugtarvik
Project is to integrate subject matter with the experience of
students and the community. Students become actively involved in
the process of inquiring, organizing, categorizing and communicating
through cataloguing museum collections on a computer database. In
this type of curriculum the students are the "doers" who are in
charge of their own learning. This process-oriented curriculum
"recasts content as a means, rather than an end" and opens new
horizons for culturally sensitive curriculum (Barnhardt and
Tonsmeire,1987).
For more information contact:
REFERENCES:
Barnhardt, R., and Tonsmeire, K. eds. (1987). Lessons Taught, Lessons
Learned: Teachers' Reflections on Schooling in Rural Alaska. Alaska
Staff Development Network Publication.
Collier, John, Jr. (1973) Alaskan Eskimo Education: A Film Analysis of
Cultural Confrontation in the Schools. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston:
New York.
Goulet and Spronk (1988) Partnership with aboriginal peoples: Some
implications for distance educators. In Stewart, D. and Daniel, J.S.
eds. Developing Distance Education. ICDE: Varanmo, Sweden
Gjelten, Tom (1978) Schooling in Isolated Communities. Maine: North
Haven Project. Kleinfeld, J., McDiarmid, R., and Hagstrom, D. (1985).
Alaska's Small Rural High Schools. University of Alaska, Center for
Cross-Cultural Studies.
Lipka, J. (1985) The Development of Native Alaskan Teachers. Paper
presented to the 13th World Conference, International Council for
Distance Education. Melbourne, Australia, Aug. 13-20, 1985.
Luskin, B.J. (1983). Telecourses: Twenty myths and twenty-one
realities. Community and Junior College Journal. Vol. 53, #8. pp. 32-
41.
Nelson, P. (1988) Making Distance Education More Effective: The
Alaskan Context. In Stewart, D. and Daniel, J.S. eds. Developing
Distance Education. ICDE: Varanmo, Sweden.
Purdy, L.N., ed. (1983) Reaching New Students Through New Technologies.
Costa Mesa, CA: The Coast Community College District
Scollon, R. (1980). Human Knowledge and the Institution's Knowledge:
Communication in Patterns and Retention in a Public University. Final
Report on National Institute of Education Grant no. G-80-0185.
October 1, 1980-December 31, 1981.
ITEM #6 REQUEST AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
6-1 From DUSKNOX@IDBSU
I am the manager of personal computers at Boise State University. I am
by training, however, a European historian, and still get to teach one
history course a semester. I have recently become interested in using
telecommunications as a supplement to the classroom and even as a
replacement for the classroom. I have joined this list in hopes of
sharing ideas and gaining information about distance education.
Skip Knox, Boise State University, DUSKNOX@IDBSU
Ellis 'Skip' Knox, Ph.D.
6-2 From TLRGAGA@TELUQ.UQuebec.CA
Re: Congres la distance apprivoise La Tele-universite organise
pour le mois de mai 1990 le prochain congres de l'Association canadienne
pour l'enseignement a distance. Serait-il possible de faire paraitre
dans votre journal le communique ci-dessous. J'aimerais qu'il soit
indique dans ce communique que le congres sera bilingue (francais et
anglais). Voici le communique:
Reaching out : visions for a new decade.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Persons working in distance education area are invited to present
applications, research and theory papers. The conference themes are:
This is a bi-lingual conference. You are invited to present your papers,
before January 8th,1990, to
6-3 From: ELHR@SNYCENVM
Subject: Practitioner Research Program
The National Center on Adult Learning announces a call for practitioner
research proposals. The mission of the Center is to improve the theory,
research and practice of adult learning. In 1989-90, the Center will
support several research fellowships (up to $5000 US) for proposals on
LINKING ASSESSMENT WITH LEARNING. The research efforts of the Center are
problem-focused and practitioner centered, providing solutions to
problems encountered by faculty, administration and staff in the
delivery of educational programs for adults. The DEADLINE for submitting
proposals is JAN. 15, 1990. For information and guidelines, contact:
ITEM #7 WORLD 2000- THE MOSCOW <-> JUNEAU CONNECTION - Going Online with the
Soviet Union
For years I had wanted to do it: connect Juneau, Alaska to the Soviet
Union in an education project that used telecommunications to help
focus on the unity and limitations of the earth. Finally last summer,
my colleagues and I developed a vision for such a project that led to a
proposal, the core of which follows:
- World 2000 -
ABSTRACT: The world faces a number of serious health issues that are
global in nature and which can only be solved by efforts which are
cooperative in design and international in scope. To be part of such an
effort, students need cooperative working skills, an understanding of
health as a personal and collective concern, a positive appreciation of
cultural diversity, and the technological skills to facilitate
international cooperation. This project develops all four while
offering students a fundamentally transformational experience: to work
with Soviet youth in understanding and designing the future they will
jointly inherit. In addition, this project helps develop a relatively
low cost model for international student cooperation that can be widely
applied in a number of subject areas at a number of grade levels.
PROJECT SUMMARY: A ninth-grade Juneau-Douglas High School health
teacher and her Soviet equivalent will plan a half year health
curriculum which stresses global health and cooperative living as
health issues of primary consideration to be carried out during our
1989-90 school year. Using computer telecommunications (electronic mail
and computer conferencing), the teachers and their students will
communicate on a regular basis during the course of the health class to
develop their collective vision of the status of the world's health in
the Year 2000. A report will be produced which details the health
curriculum. It will also include joint student research which describes
how to deal with the global health problems we face, the prospects for
the world if the problems are overcome, and what awaits the world if
they are not. Some form of the document will be made widely available
to the public. It is our hope that this project is the beginning of an
on-going relationship which can be sustained beyond this year's
project, a decision that will made following project evaluation.
[end of proposal excerpt]
Last October the dream materialized. From October 6th to October 15th,
Juneau high school principal Kathy Odegaard, health teacher Nancy
Seamount, and myself worked at Public High School #1201 in Moscow,
aligning curriculum on environmental health and establishing a computer
link between the two schools. The hospitality with which we were
received, the intense interest on everyone's part to develop a plan and
work out the details, the gracious facilitation on the part of the
Foundation for Social Innovation (who coordinated the Soviet end of the
project), the excitement and sheer joy as we worked with the students,
are still vivid as I write about it 2 months later. By the time we
left Moscow, a crew of telecommunicators (teachers and students) had
been trained that was already exchanging messages with people back in
Juneau. Since our trip, CNN has aired a piece about World 2000 (which
was also seen all over the Soviet Union), and a film crew visited
School #1201 in order to prepare another piece for national media in
both countries. World 2000 is on its way.
There is so much to report about my visit to Moscow that as I pull on
one strand of it, a rich tapestry of experience begins helplessly to
unravel. However, I am lead to write this week's DISTANCE EDitorial
because of one particularly disturbing fact that emerged from the
process of going online with the Soviet Union: The United States is
currently blocking the Soviet Union's membership in BITNET and its
affiliates.
ITEM
#8 DISTANCE EDitorial - A Letter to President Bush
While in Moscow, Mr. Sovostin (described to me as "second in command of
higher education in the Soviet Union") took me to see the Vice-Rector
of Moscow State University for the purpose of explaining "networking,"
and, inevitably, the world of BITNET. Afterwards, Vice-Rector Dobrenkov
produced a letter for me to take home stating his desire for Moscow
State University to be part of BITNET and asking me to pursue the
matter on his behalf. On my return, I contacted Jim Conklin at EDUCOM
who informed me that he had queried the Dept. of Commerce about a
Soviet BITNET connection six months earlier and learned that it
violated Dept. of Commerce regulations. My understanding is that the
Dept. of Commerce is worried about Soviet access to super computers
which can be reached via Internet.
Once again, I found myself face to face with the fact that
communication between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. was being thwarted by our
government, not theirs. It prompted the following letter to the
President of the United States:
November 27,1989
Dear President Bush:
While in Moscow, USSR in October, I was asked to meet with an official
from the Soviet Ministry of Higher Education and Vice-Rector of Moscow
University regarding connecting the Soviet Union to educational
computer networks in the United States. We all agreed that there was
already strong support from the international academic community for
such a development as an obvious next step in glasnost and the
educational and cultural exchanges which our governments are
encouraging. At their behest, I am now exploring how to establish such
a connection.
It has been brought to my attention that a recent attempt to connect
the Soviet Union to one of the most popular academic networks in the
United States, BITNET, was blocked by the Dept. of Commerce. This
decision appears to be based upon the fear that through BITNET, Soviets
may have access to super computers.
I urge you to reconsider this policy, as it is not based upon a correct
understanding of the situation. Only an extremely small portion of the
network has super computing capabilities. The vast majority of BITNET
simply functions as an electronic messaging service for thousands of
academicians to share ideas. The current policy essentially states that
because of the minute fraction of the network that might be subject to
abuse, we shall exclude the Soviets from all of the network, and thwart
all contact between thousands of Soviet and American universities. This
is the electronic equivalent of banning all Soviet visitors from the
United States because one might pose a security risk. In addition, the
policy doesn't take into account that where the potential for abuse
exists, there are a number of security measures that, while not
perfect, can certainly be used to reduce the potential for abuse
greatly.
I urge you to reconsider this policy at such an opportune moment in
history. Networking exerts a powerful, positive influence on the
developments in the USSR and Eastern Europe. It is a living, dynamic
testimony to everything the Eastern Bloc is striving for: freedom of
information and freedom to gather and exchange knowledge. We should be
their mentors as they strive for such democratic goals. It is up to the
United States to demonstrate leadership in tearing down the electronic
walls that the U.S. currently imposes on the international educational
community.
Sincerely,
Jason Ohler
cc: Sen. Ted Stevens
ITEM #9 ABOUT THE JOURNAL
WHAT IS THE ONLINE JOURNAL OF DISTANCE EDUCATION
AND COMMUNICATION ?
[What follows is an excerpt from the first issue of the Journal.]
This first issue will be primarily concerned with the Journal
itself. Once we provide an idea of the Journal's identity and
direction, we hope you will contribute to this rapidly growing
field of education and communication.
THE MEDIUM
We want short contributions, 4 screens maximum. Rather
than trying to compete with a paper-based magazine which does a much
better job of presenting long articles, we want contributions that
present overview information. Based upon information gleaned in
contributions, readers can directly contact the author for
more details.
THE MESSAGE
The issues that the Journal is concerned with fall into
four basic content areas:
The Journal is interested in distance education as the
organized method of reaching geographically disadvantaged
learners, whether K-12, post secondary, or general enrichment
students. Areas of interest include:
The Journal recognizes that education encompasses a broad area
of experience and that distance education includes distance
communications that fall outside the domain of formal learning.
The Journal welcomes contributions that deal with serving people
at a distance who aren't necessarily associated with a learning
institution. The Journal welcomes information about, for
examples:
Once the distance education infrastructure is solidly in
place, local learners will want to tap into it, because they
simply prefer learning in a decentralized setting or because
they want to expand their learning opportunities and resources
beyond those immediately available to them. This phenomenon,
which we call 'bringing distance education home,' will grow in
the coming years and we look forward to hearing from people
about telecommunications in education, as a tool or a content
area.
The Journal is interested in projects concerned with
overcoming cultural barriers through the use of electronic
communication. The Journal particularly looks forward to
contributions concerning:
To subscribe to The Online Journal of Distance Education and
Communication, send the following command to LISTSERV@UWAVM :
All contributions should be sent to JADIST@ALASKA
Any other questions about DISTED can be sent to:
Disclaimer: The above were the opinions of the individual contributors
and in no way reflect the views of the University of Alaska.
End of the Online Journal of Distance Education & Communication
respond to: Barry Sponder, LFBMS@ALASKA
University of
Alaska Fairbanks
Kuskokwim Campus
Pat Nelson, Education Department
University of Alaska, Fairbanks
Ted Simmons, Lower Kuskokwim School District
Barry Sponder or Dennis Schall
University of Alaska Fairbanks, Kuskokwim Campus,br>
P.O. Box 368, Bethel, Ak. 99559
(907) 543-4584
Historian, Data Center Associate
Boise State University
1910 University Drive
Boise, Idaho 83725
(208) 385-1315<
INTERNET: DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU
BITNET: DUSKNOX@IDBSU
Canadian Association for Distance Education
(CADE)
CONFERENCE 1990
Chateau Frontenac, Quebec, May 8-11
Jeannine Laurent, coordonnatrice
Congres de
l'ACED
Tele-universite, 26435
Hochelaga, 7e etage, C.P. 10700
Sainte-
Foy (Quebec), G1V 4V9
Dr. Timothy Lehmann, Practitioner Research Program
National Center on
Adult Learning,br> Empire State College
1 Union Ave.
Saratoga Springs, NY
12866 USA or call 518/587-2100, ext. 287.
by the editor
A Proposal for the Development of a
Joint US-USSR Health and Telecommunications Project
for High School Students
by the editor
Director, Educational Technology Program
University of Alaska SE
Phone: 1-907-789-4538
Sen. Frank Murkowski
Rep. Don Young
Dr. Jim Conklin, EDUCOM
Various members of the university computing community
Particularly Between the US and the USSR
SUB DISTED your_full_name
Jason B. Ohler, Editor
JFJBO@ALASKA
or
Paul J. Coffin
JSPJC@ALASKA