Introduction to the OU (Fri Oct 7th)............. 10 pounds sterling

Case-Study workshop (Sat and Sun Oct 7th & 8th).. 65 pounds sterling (fee includes 2 lunches and Sat dinner)

Colloquium (Mon and Tues, Oct 9th & 10th)......... 85 pounds sterling (fee includes Conference Dinner on Monday)

Registration forms and details of local hotel accommodation (there is no on-campus accommodation) can be obtained from :

Robin Mason, CMCDE Conference Organiser,
Institute of Educational Technology,
Open University,
MILTON KEYNES MK76AA, United Kingdom

Telephone : (+44) 0908 653782 / 653137
Telex : 852061

JANET : rd_mason@uk.ac.ou.acsvax
EIES : 585, antoine
CoSy/Guelph : tkaye / rmason
PARTI/Oise : Robin Mason / Tony Kaye
Participe Prsent: Tony

In fact, one factor that separates the "good" teacher from the truly exceptional teacher is his/her ability to constantly remold the critical instructional points being presented to fit the situation at hand. The art here, is not so much changing the actual content being presented, but in capitalizing on the ever changing teacher/student dynamics to insure that critical instructional points are presented (and received) with maximum clarity.

While attainment of this goal is elusive under any circumstance, it becomes even more challenging in a distance delivery setting. There are a number of strategies, however, that the distance educator can use to build teacher/student linkages and improve instructional effectiveness. These include:

1. Get to know your students (and let them get to know you) early on in the course...or even in a pre-session before the instruction begins. Exchange photographs, mini-biographies, descriptions of backgrounds, personal interests and anything else that will help you and your students understand each other better as individuals.

2. Keep your instructional program flexible by offering a choice of delivery methods, time frames, and post-presentation activities to maximize student learning.

3. Emphasize early on that you and the students are in this together. This will require opportunities for group and individual input and feedback in an environment that encourages open communication.

4. When developing a distance delivered course, make sure that the "context" as well as the content is relevant to your students.

5. Be aware of and respect cultural differences in communication patterns.

6. If at all possible visit and teach class from each site one or more times during the course.

7. Provide opportunities and encourage students to use available technology to work among themselves. Consider joint presentations in which students from different geographic and/or cultural settings look at specific issues from their unique perspectives.

8. As teacher, strive to feel comfortable in the role of "skilled facilitator" as well as "content provider."

9. Whenever and wherever technology is used, technical problems will occur. Don't be embarrassed or defensive when this happens... Work to resolve the problem, then move on.

10. Even in your "lectures", make sure you build in plenty of opportunities for discussion and interaction.

Most importantly, don't feel obligated to recreate "traditional" instructional methods in a "non-traditional" distance education. Through effective planning, and constant feedback, both you and your students will enjoy the unique opportunities that distance education offers.

Planning a Successful Distance Education Strategy By

Greg Moore
ZFGDM@ALASKA
General Science Instructor
University of Alaska

Introduction

Chukchi College in Kotzebue serves a region of 36,000 square miles in northwest Alaska. There are ten villages and 6000 residents scattered across the service area. The population is 88% Inupiat Eskimo and bilingual in Inupiaq and English; the region is a cross-cultural setting.

Since 1982, Chukchi College has operated a distance education program which offers developmental and college courses in every village in the region. Though small, Chukchi College has graduated 32 Alaska Native students with the Associate of Arts degree, and has sent 26 of those graduates on to baccalaureate degree programs. Chukchi College has,at times, enrolled as many as 304 students at once from the region,representing 5% of the regional population. Chukchi College represents a successful distance education program.

This article is a tight synopsis of the actions which have led to a successful distance education program at Chukchi College. The article identifies three priority actions in planning necessary to a good distance education effort.

Priority One: The Planning Process

The most important factor for a distance education program is a planning process. The planning must be continuous, underlying all of the important actions of the program. The planning process forces participants to think about students, to self-evaluate, to organize ideas, and to deal with function-versus-cost issues.

At Chukchi College, the planning process was used to make decisions regarding technology, course offerings, course standards, program evaluation, administrative procedures, and distance education policy.

It won't surprise good managers to hear that distance education really has to do with people, not technology. Because distance education requires new sorts of effort from people, it tends to amplify relationships among people. If people are working together with a shared sense of purpose, the distance education program will perform well; participants may begin to see themselves as successful pioneers in a new approach to education.

In contrast, if the planning process has not been comprehensive, people may perceive the distance education program as an undesirable competitor with traditional forms of education, and may resent the new sorts of effort required. In the latter case, the teamwork which is essential to distance education may begin to break down. Managers can use these perceptions as an index to the success of their planning process.

The planning process should involve all the key personnel in the program. What was formerly a relationship between the teacher and the student in a traditional classroom is somewhat altered to a relationship with a teaching team in a distance education class. The teacher still takes the lead role, but the registrar, the administrative staff, the business office, the faculty secretary, and the librarian all need to understand that their role with distant students is more direct. The planning process helps personnel to understand that the different effort required for distance education is a function of student needs.

Managers may also find that distance education also tends to amplify interpersonal relationships in the institution. Teaching is a personal profession; good teachers give of themselves and feel their work closely. As a result, emotions can run high around important decisions. In addition, computing and telecommunications technology is very personal. People tend to form close, almost symbiotic relationships with their electronic tools and tend to form very definite opinions about their tools. Only the consensus bred of close communication and working together can transform high emotion into effective teamwork.

The planning process should prioritize the needs of students, keeping this focus in balance with concerns for technology and administrative needs. The primary purpose of distance education is to teach human beings, not to brandish the latest technology, nor to make the registrar's life easy. Whoever coordinates or chairs the planning process should perceive themselves to be an advocate for students. The best distance education planning processes continually assess and re- assess the needs of students.

The planning process should include the needs of teachers. It has been our experience that the commodity needed most by teachers is time. The best teachers tend to fill their time with tasks designed to benefit students. Imagine the reaction of a busy teacher suddenly confronted with learning an unfamiliar technology for an unspecified purpose and which will fundamentally change the teacher's relationship with the students. The teachers are the experts on tools needed in the classroom, and are the ultimate pragmatists on what is worth their time and what is not. Teachers should be involved in the planning process.

The planning process should contain a continual review of computing and telecommunications technology, with the purpose of identifying technology appropriate to the needs of the students and the teachers. Most distance education programs have at least one "wizard"; a person especially skilled in technology and with boundless enthusiasm for its possibilities. "Wizards" live in the future. While wizards sometimes have difficulty coming down to earth, they often can be lured with an invitation to describe new advances, or better, to demonstrate the latest equipment. Truthfully, there is a lot of excitement and innovation in the microelectronics industry, and those attitudes can happily infect a distance education program.

Finally, most distance education planning processes discover the need for good applied engineering advice. The planning program should have access to computing and telecommunications engineering advice as needed. The experience at Chukchi College was that engineers were not needed on a continual basis in planning, but were definitely required in any important decisions regarding technology.

Priority Two: A Distance Education Policy

It is important for the manager of a distance education program to ask that the planning process generate long-term goals for the institution, which may be expressed in the form of a distance education policy.

The planning process for distance education will, of necessity, be occupied with short term goals -

• what courses to offer
• what procedures to follow in registration
• what standards to use for courses
• what technology to use in delivering the class, and so on.

Naturally there will be a flurry of activity in planning prior to a semester, and lull in planning as classes actually get underway. Every institution has its cycle of activities. Within this cycle, there occurs a point where the manager can ask for a reflective planning effort; an effort which looks back on what has been done in the short term and assesses what worked and what did not work.

The manager should be aiming to build institutional knowledge based on experience. In short, the planning process should result in a distance education policy.

A distance education policy is a statement of values about students, the uses of technology, and what the institution hopes to accomplish. Rather than a policy in the restrictive sense, a constructive distance education policy is a positive statement about the underlying themes in a program which lead to good education. A good distance education policy is almost like a business card; a tight statement about the institution which can be easily communicated.

Good policy has several beneficial effects. First, it tends to draw participants in the program together and to generate a mutual, working respect for each other. Good policy is open to innovation and creativity, and may even identify those themes as desirable. Good policy recognizes that sometimes, standards are necessary, but that the purpose of standards is to improve function rather than to exercise control over people. It has been the experience at Chukchi College that good education policy can move people toward excellence in education.

A good distance education policy also has the effect of attracting the support of communities and industry. A positive statement of values can generate a sense of partnership between the institution and service communities, and a better understanding of the costs of distance education. That sort of positive relationship is not lost upon the microelectronics and education industries, especially where their public service roles can find an expression.

Priority Three: Doing Distance Delivery

There is no substitute for simply going out and doing distance delivery. While planning and policy are definitely important, neither need be completely articulated before initiating a distance teaching effort. If this advice seems in contradiction to the planning and policy which has already been described, it is only to remind the reader that there is no substitute for good judgement. Some institutions which should be doing distance delivery seem to study and talk the matter to death, and never get started. It is not possible to know everything about distance education before starting out; the field is too new, and, in any case, other institutions do not know your students and your service region. Whoever is managing the distance delivery effort needs to exercise judgement in simply getting started.

As a suggestion, one good place to start is to have teachers themselves participate as students in distance education classes. The mysteries of alien technologies are suddenly revealed when a person has to use the technology to earn a grade. The participants will gain a better appreciation of the kind of program support necessary to mount a successful distance education class, and can communicate those necessities to their own institutions.

APPENDIX-ABOUT THE JOURNAL
by the editor

WHAT IS THE ONLINE JOURNAL OF DISTANCE EDUCATION
AND COMMUNICATION ?

[What follows is an excerpt from the first issue of the Journal. Feel free to send suggestions to the editor.]

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:

Content Area #1- Distance Education

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:

• delivery technologies,
• pedagogy,
• cross cultural issues implicit in wide area education delivery,
• distance education projects that you are involved with,
• announcements and workshops, or programs of study,
• anything else regarding the theory and practice of distance education.

Content Area #2- Distance Communications

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:

• public radio and television efforts to promote cultural awareness,
• governmental efforts to inform a distant public about social issues,
• or the many training programs run by private business to upgrade employee skills.

Content Area #3- Telecommunications in Education

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.

Content Area #4- Cross Cultural Communication Efforts
Particularly Between the US and the USSR

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:

• efforts to improve electronic communication between the USSR and the US
• international electronic conferences
• cultural domination through the inappropriate use of media
• the use of telecommunications to promote understanding of the human condition

To subscribe to The Online Journal of Distance Education and Communication, send the following command to LISTSERV@UWAVM :

SUB DISTED your_full_name

All contributions should be sent to JADIST@ALASKA

Any other questions about DISTED can be sent to:

Jason B. Ohler, Editor
JFJBO@ALASKA
or
Paul J. Coffin
JXPJC@ALASKA

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