27 September 2002

Teaching Online [Distance-Educator.com] Instructors: Teaching Online The aim of this site is to highlight some of the major issues you will need to consider before you can begin to teach online.    Teaching Online 10:33:50 PM

distance learning - use different research methods to understand it: Distance-Educator.com]Researchers: Research in Distance Education: A Status Report Farhad Saba, Ph. D. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning Abstract Since the 1950s and expansion of social science research, distance education has been studied in comparison to face-to-face or classroom instruction. Although researchers continue to conduct comparative studies, their usefulness in revealing more information has diminished over the years; invariably, they have returned a o signi cant di erence" result between various forms of instruction. In recent years, researchers have moved beyond atheoretical, experimental comparative studies and have introduced new methods, such as discourse analysis, and in-depth interview of learners. These new methods overcome many methodological and theoretical limitations of the physical science view of distance education. These studies have further revealed the complexity of distance education, indicating the many variables involved in the concept. Starting with the core issue of instructional interaction and grounded on the theory of transactional distance, a new strand of research using methods related to systems dynamics, hierarchy and complexity theories, promises a more comprehensive understanding. Read Article in PDF format 10:32:24 PM

useful for some e-learning thinking: Interview with Jonathan Levy: "Context is the holy grail for e-Learning" [Distance-Educator.com] 10:28:18 PM

want to get a bluffer's guide to KM?  Try this - KM is Dead, Long Live KM [Distance-Educator.com]   10:25:29 PM

could be useful Guidelines For Creating Accessible Online Learning Technologies [Distance-Educator.com] Designers: Guidelines For Creating Accessible Online Learning Technologies The SALT Project is a collaboration with the IMS Global Learning Consortium to make online learning resources accessible to people with disabilities by developing and promoting specifications and effective models that will help level the playing field for learners with disabilities. http://ncam.wgbh.org/salt 10:22:24 PM

This sounds interesting/important but I don't understand enough about the features of Authorware.... How to make e-learning interesting [elearningpost]    A lot of e-learning courses are just 'A-to-B-to-C and D' or 'Tell, tell, tell, tell.' Then there are a few questions thrown in at the end," he says. "It may be presented vibrantly but it's essentially a passive activity and they'll fall asleep. But having them explore and maybe guess wrongly . . . keeps them on the front of their chair." But interactive course development is hard to achieve using standard Web tools. HTML standards were designed to render documents, not end-user workflows. These can be done with programming systems such as Java or Visual Basic but that requires a lot of expensive hand-coding. Then there are specialised e-learning tools. Lubenski's tool of choice is Macromedia Authorware, a computer-based training package first released in 1987. Authorware supports e-learning applications run as stand-alone programs or as a Web browser plug-in player - without binding content to a page or form metaphor like other development tools. Authorware supports evolutionary approaches to e-learning development. Building a rapidly produced prototype out to a finished product is supposed to be faster, because Authorware does most of the plumbing chores automatically. At about $6400 a copy, you would hope so. "The thing it has over Visual Basic is it does more than forms," Lubenski says. "Its primitives are about interactivity, playing with the application and building it up. That's where the value is."   10:13:37 PM

catch up with the guru - new book out soon Interview with Howard Rheingold [elearningpost]   10:09:27 PM

Look at this video - responds to the tendency to think that technology will solve and forgetting that people, management, interpretation, process are critical for (in this case) learning in organisations. Putting the Management in Learning Management Systems [elearningpost]   10:02:41 PM

Comment: reasons given for the lag in take up of e-government were: preference for other channels, slow websites and cost of connectivity.  There's a long way to go with e-government! UK lags on e-government take-up [KableNET] The figures were presented on 26 September 2002 by Susannah Quick of Taylor Nelson Sofres, speaking at the e-champions network conference organised by the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA). She said the survey, which comprised interviews with 29,000 people across 28 countries in 2001, showed that just 11% of adult Britons had used government online services in the previous 12 months.     9:37:53 PM

© Copyright 2002 Marion Scott. Last update: 02/10/2002; 22:34:27.