By Stephen Downes
May 24, 2004
Roles of the Students and Teachers in
Distance Education
The May issue of the International Journal of Instructional
Technology and Distance Learning is out. This item from
the journal is a survey paper, summarizing thinking about
the roles of tecahers and students in distance learning. By
Aytekin İşman, Fahme Dabaj, Zehra Altinay and
Fahriye Altınay, International Journal of
Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, May 24,
2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Understanding Why Students Select Online
Courses: Criteria they Use in Making that
Selection
Why do students choose the online
courses they choose? This fairly large survey hosted on GradSchools.com through its home page
lists two sets of factors. First, visitors said the most
important criteria in choosing a program was reputation,
followed by cost and interactivity. And second, visitors
said the deciding factor in taking an online rather than
traditional course was convenience, followed by
affordability. Hm. Great content isn't there at all. By
Mark Shay and Jennifer Rees, International Journal of
Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, May 24,
2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
University Aims for 2-tier
System
The oncoming university crisis takes
another step forward: "A proposal put forward would have
the state gaining two new public universities and would set
up a regional university system in which tuitions could be
lower, classes would be smaller and the faculty's main job
would be to teach, not do research." Via University
Business. By Judd Slivka, The Arizona Republic, May 23,
2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Bersin & Associates Announces First
Subscription-based Research Service...
I
question their claim to be the 'first' this or that, and at
the same time wonder how many years it would take me to
produce 7000 pages of research (without using an automated
research report writer, that is). By Press Release,
Business Wire, May 24, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
All Links (By Chapter)
Via
elearnspace (which was unjustly left out) comes this nice
set of links from Learning Peak's page for Making Sense
of Online Learning by Patti Shank. I like the way these
are organized; the easier items are listed first and the
more complex stuff comes later. By Patti Shank, Learning
Peak, May, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
My Brilliant Failure: Wikis In
Classrooms
Though the article's message is clear
- "To really use a wiki, the participants need to be in
control of the content- you have to give it over fully" - I
wish I understood just how the exercise turned into a
failure. This is what she did: "it's as if I had installed
a blog, but only for myself to publish to the class, and
allowed them to only make comments." And because he was
left out of the article (not that the author had any
obligation to cite him), Matt Barton and his "extensive work with
using wikis in the classroom". Via elearnspace. By
heather@drupal.org, Kairosnews, May 21, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
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