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PODIUM
The Lines Are Drawn
Elizabeth Perrin, Ph.D.
Editor, USDLA Journal
When I joined the Distance Learning arena in 1980, computers within education were essentially text based. It would be more than a decade before computer learning and networks were popularized by graphic user interfaces and the World Wide Web.
In 1980, Distance Learning was a child of video. Experimental use of broadcast television began in the late 1940s, followed in the late fifties by cable, videotape, ITFS broadcast, and satellite. By 1980, there were five ways in which television was used:
1) Open broadcast using commercial television.
2) Cable, often owned or leased by schools and college districts that expanded availability of teachers and curriculum.
3) Videotape of origination classrooms (one inch for a quality master and half inch for students). This could be duplicated, mailed or couriered. It was watched by students in widely dispersed supervised classrooms: e.g. "The Mighty Seven" advanced engineering students received Ph.D. level courses from Stanford at the University of Iowa and interacted with the instructor by phone, fax, or mail.
4) Video via Satellite: Courses delivered live from ongoing campus classes with interaction via phone, talk back transmission or fax, e.g. Graduate Engineering degree courses from a number of Universities beamed live from on-campus classrooms or by video tape of the class and transmitted through the NTU consortium to thousands of students, interaction by phone, fax or post and
5) Terrestrial Microwave - Instructional Television Fixed Service (ITFS). Line-of-sight - low-power transmitters carried real time classes to receive sites within 30 to 40 miles of the originating school or campus. With ingenious engineering using repeater transmitters and ITFS frequencies, signals could be extended to cover more than 100 miles from the origination campus in an omni-directional pattern. Access was further extended through connection to cable television systems. Stanford took charge of Silicon Valley engineering and computer science development via ITFS; USC, with four originating Distance Learning classrooms, oversaw the development of MS level engineering expertise within Los Angeles, Orange County, various defense industries in the San Fernando Valley and elsewhere in Southern California. CSU,Chico managed to parlay both ITFS courses and Satellite courses from one end of California to the other and beyond. Similar activities occurred in 'Silicon Valley East', the industrial corridors around the University of Maryland and MIT. Tager, in Texas, supported a vibrant live video exchange among six or seven Universities.
Acceptance of Distance Learning
There were considerable problems as academic institutions struggled to accommodate needs of increasing numbers of increasingly diverse students. New patterns of education emerged based on new and sometimes inadequately understood technologies. At first the Academy ignored the fledgling technology. As more students participated, the controversies that began in the 'Video Age' truly ran the gamete from absurdity and bitter attacks to deep, sustainable conviction as to the value of the Distance Learning education experience. Initially, on the absurd side, were arbitrary positions taken by accreditation agencies that proclaimed universities could not offer academic credit to Distance Learning students at receive classrooms beyond a hundred miles (or often less) from the originating campus. This was compounded by the mandate that every student pick up materials on campus and present a physical presence, if not to the professor, at least to the registrar. Distance Learning students were charged student activity and health fees not pertinent to the off campus students.
Within the community colleges, havoc rained. Since funding for community colleges is based on a form of ADA as in K-12, there had to be some way of obtaining a student's physical presence on campus a number of times during the academic school period, whether semester or quarter. Halls were set aside on campus, usually on a Saturday, to accommodate a physical presence in accordance with the funding prescription.
Universities, as a whole, adjusted their policies with more resilience than did the community colleges. Initially, there was discussion within state universities that Distance Learning students should only obtain " certificate" or "continuing education" credit for classes received off campus. ́Academic Credit" was reserved for on-campus students. This promoted poor fiscal policies and legal consequences and was never really implemented except by private universities. In private universities it was often possible to turn the "certificate" course units into "academic" units suitable for a degree by making an additional payment.
On the very valid concern side was the insistence of national accrediting agencies that Distance Learning students have equal access to library and other resource materials. This was accomplished by establishment of excellent local library sharing, inter-library loans, fax and more recently, Internet support systems.
As the number of Distance Learning students continued to rise, academic ranks began to divide even further. Issues focused on quality of Distance Learning, (not raised, for example, in the Stanford, USC, University of Maryland, NTU and other degree programs) came violently to the fore. Faculty and student concerns included: Problems of cheating by under-supervised students, plagiarism, copyright, student socialization, sustaining interaction, learning styles, technology costs, professor competence with technology, ability of both professors and students to communicate effectively within parameters of new technologies, development of course design teams, and finally, for online learning, collaborative redesign of content for delivery in a medium that excluded any physical presence by the professor (whether on video tape, similar visual media or broadcast of a live class to remote sites).
Management Information Systems
Changes were needed in Admissions and Records. At no small cost, complex tracking systems were established, fee structures reassessed, student record management systems broadened to include Distance Learning students as well as on-campus students. These track large numbers of students taking classes both on-campus and off- campus. Some campuses proposed plans to limit the number of Distance Learning classes accepted within an academic degree program.
One of the most serious issues to be resolved (acerbated by Distance Learning Technologies and wide availability of classes) was transfer and acceptance of classes from one academic discipline to the same academic discipline at another college. The unwillingness of schools to accept transfer of classes from comparable institutions rested not so much on question of the quality and merit of those classes taken at other institutions, but on the loss of revenue experienced within each academic department since department income collates most directly to the number of required-for-degree courses taken by students serviced by the academic department. College and University funding structures established in the mid 1900s were even more stressed when funding for Distance Learning was foisted upon an already economically pressured and struggling academic community.
New Opportunities for Learning
The next to last issue considered here is the incredibly rich learning opportunities now available to students from a myriad of sources, including incorporation of classes from other institutions into the degree programs of primarily "on-campus" students as well as into programs of primarily "off-campus" students. There are few mechanisms set up on campus to provide guidance and support for students who have the ability and desire to craft an individual education program from the abundance of resources now accessible through technology.
Finally, our understanding of the theory and praxis of teaching and learning must be re-examined in light of the unique learning experiences made possible by a number of technologies. Far more often than is acceptable, we hear that the transition has been made from the sage on the stage to the guide on the side - and then we progress inanely from the guide on the side to the mentor in the center. From broad experience, it is safe to say that actual academic practice occurs somewhere between sage on the stage and guide on the side, although much closer to the former than to the latter. Does any of this have much to do with the teaching learning configurations and our broad, interactive learning experiences that are supported by our technologies? Not much. We are now beginning to rediscover the value of peer-to-peer exchange. We have moved slightly away from the minutia of discussing and proving beyond shadow of a doubt the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. In some cases, we have progressed to Aristotelian clarity where an irresolvable group discussion about the number of teeth in a hen's month was unexpected solved by the member who went out into Aristotle's yard, grasped a chicken, pried open it's month and pronounced to the assembly - "The answer is none!"
Within the last seven to ten years, the education chessboard has morphed multi-dimensionally, only one or two chess pieces look even vaguely familiar and we have not yet created a set of viable and flexible guidelines for the successful implementation of hybrid multi-technology based teaching and learning that characterize this millennium.
Computer-based Technologies and the Internet have created a new world for teaching and learning. Knowledge, education, and a broad skill base are critical for us all. Those of us within education have responsibility to move forward to the best of our own abilities, based on lessons from the past, and build profound and new academic structures for the present and the future.