With the CSWE Distance Education Summit planned for Tuesday, October 30 at the San Francisco APM, it seemed appropriate to use this issue of the Technology Corner to explore web sites related to Distance Education.

The Wikipedia defines distance education as “a field of education that focuses on the pedagogy/andragogy, technology, and instructional systems design that are effectively incorporated in delivering education to students who are not physically ‘on site’ to receive their education. Instead, teachers and students may communicate asynchronously (at times of their own choosing) by exchanging printed or electronic media, or through technology that allows them to communicate in real time (synchronously). Distance education courses that require a physical on-site presence for any reason including the taking of examinations is considered to be a hybrid or blended course or program.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Distance_education&action=edit, accessed 5/21/07)

In fact, today, a broad range of different options exist through which distance education can be delivered.  Originally limited to correspondence courses, distance education offerings today utilize a variety of media, ranging from interactive television to web-based instruction.  There are a number of online resources available to assist the novice in learning about distance education.  A few of these resources will be listed here:

American Distance Education Consortium (ADEC) – This organization, which has a web site at http://www.adec.edu/, is an organization of over 65 state universities and land grant colleges working to promote high quality distance education programs that can be offered to students at a reasonable price.  This organization seeks to develop multi-institutional curricula as well as to develop criteria for review of distance education programs.

Blackboard – This well known distance learning system offers all of the technological tools required to teach an online course.  Located on the web at http://www.blackboard.com/us/index.Bb, Blackboard offers products designed for both academic and corporate learning.  Support for faculty teaching with Blackboard will be found at https://behind.blackboard.com/s/faculty/.  After years of competing with rival WebCT, Blackboard has now acquired the WebCT learning system.  Information about the Blackboard/WebCT merger can be found at http://www.webct.com/

Distance Education Clearinghouse – The University of Wisconsin Extension operated this web site at http://www.uwex.edu/disted/  The site offers the viewer access to definitions, glossaries, links to other sites, research and statistical information, and evaluation and assessment information about distance education.

Information Technology – The Chronicle of Higher Education operates a site at http://chronicle.com/infotech/, which includes articles, news, blogs, and a forum on distance education.

Resources for Online Learning - This site, operated by the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Maryland University College, contains articles and links to resources about online learning.  Located at http://www.umuc.edu/distance/odell/ctla/resources_and.html, one page on this site provides links to journals relevant to distance education (http://www.umuc.edu/distance/odell/ctla/resources_jour.html)

Sakai Project – To offer an alternative to commercial distance learning systems, the Sakai Project was developed with funding from the Mellon Foundation.  The Sakai Project offers a free or “open source” course management system.  Sakai was developed with the cooperation of several institutions which had already developed their own course management systems (Indiana University’s Oncourse CL, MIT’s Stellar, Stanford University’s Coursework, University of Michigan’s Coursetool, UPortal, and the Open Knowledge Initiative).  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakai_Project, accessed 5/21/07)

Sakai operates a web site at http://www.sakaiproject.org/

Virtual Center for Online Learning Research – This site, operated at http://www.ncolr.org/, is the home of the Journal of Interactive Online Learning.  The journal focuses on both research and best practices for online learning.  Founded under a grant to the University of Idaho and the University of Alabama, this center now involves a number of other universities as well.  Access to full text articles from the Journal of Interactive Online Learning can be found at http://www.ncolr.org/jiol/issues/