VOLUME 12, NUMBER 1, 1998
Guest Editorial
Connie Dillon and Daniel Granger
Articles (for abstracts,
click here)
Interpersonal Dynamics and Group Development in Computer Conferencing
Jeannette McDonald and Chère Campbell Gibson
Inter-institutional Collaboration and Team Teaching
Bee Gatliff and Frederick C. Wendel
Cost-effectiveness of Audio Teletraining for the U.S.
Army National Guard
Robert A. Wisher and Annette N. Priest
Grass Roots
FirstClass® Distance Education
Dennis G. Schall
Interview
Speaking Personally with David H. Jonassen
Chère Campbell Gibson
Book Review
Theory and Practice of Distance Education
by Bö Holmberg
Ian Mugridge
Media Review
The Educom/NLII Instructional Management Systems Project
Mark Resmer
GUEST EDITORIAL
Connie Dillon and Daniel Granger
The environment is changing rapidly and the field of distance education has evolved beyond "distances." We confront this change in the following pages, beginning with a personal quest beyond "distance."
For many years I have taught a traditional face-to-face class at a very traditional university using the quite traditional lecture and discussion strategies. For the past decade I did the lectures in class and the discussions online, just to demonstrate the capabilities of the emerging online technologies. I used the class time for lectures, case studies, and answering students' questions.
This was "the class."
Then I discovered presentation software. Wow! I redesigned all my lectures, 'jazzed' them up with clip art and graphics, added some sound and animation, and gave my lectures once again-in class.
And as I did this, I began to wonder what "the class" was for.
The World Wide Web was rapidly evolving, and I began thinking about putting the lecture material on the Web and using "the class" for discussion. Why should I use valuable class time to talk through lectures and constantly worry about going too fast or too slow. Discussion is a much better use of class time-of course. But I could put my lectures on the Web and still conduct "online" discussion. I was actually learning to like online discussions. If managed well, they seemed to be more thoughtful, more involving, and more deliberative.
So what was "the class" for?
I started thinking about my syllabus. I had read the literature and knew how important a study guide was to distance students. I thought, my syllabus could actually be a study guide. In fact, if I put it on the Web and used links, it could be better than a study guide. My syllabus could actually become a navigational tool that the students could use to access all the parts of the course, as they needed rather than as I decided.
And again I wondered what "the class" was for?
I also used videotapes as the basis for case study projects, but these were always a problem. It was hard to keep the information current; often pre-produced tapes did not have all the information I wanted, obtaining copyright was problematic, and students had trouble getting access to copies. Then I discovered that I really did not need full-motion and that I could use case studies that were available on the Web.
So then what was "the class" for?
And this is where we have come to in distance education. We have outdistanced the distance. Distance education today has exceeded the mere concerns of time and space and is forcing us to question some of our most basic approaches to teaching and learning.
"Technology enhanced learning," "distributed learning," and "networked learning" are just three of the labels currently being used for educational activities that broach the boundaries of the campus classroom. These all qualify in key aspects as distance education by the standard definition-that "distance education consists of all arrangements for providing instruction through print or electronic communications media to persons engaged in planned learning in a place and time different from that of the instructor or instructors" (Moore 1990, xv).
Distance education was originally developed for learners disadvantaged by geography or other circumstances, yet less and less do we now refer to the loneliness of the distance learner. Many of our efforts are bent toward creating virtual learning communities, recognizing as we do the value for all learners to be connected in networks, for work as well as for learning. Further, technologies such as audio and videotape, CD-ROM, and the communication and information resources of the Internet/World Wide Web now make information access and learning possible in ways that previously did not exist. More importantly, these new approaches and terms identify "learning" as the significant activity designator, heralding a new awareness that is slowly, perhaps inexorably, permeating higher education. Just as technology made "distance" irrelevant, distance education has made "the class" irrelevant.
And just in time, because this awareness has been occasioned by increasing learning needs in an information society, by greater conceptual understanding of teaching and learning effectiveness, and by the enabling capacities of information technologies. (A fourth element, exacerbating the first three, is the growing interest in education for profit.) The emergence of these first factors-need, understanding, and capacity-has occasioned a palpable shift in higher education. The growth of virtual universities, "laptop universities," "Centers for Teaching and Learning," and, yes, interest in distance learning to serve new populations of "lifelong learners" are institutional efforts to respond to this shift.
In this issue we examine the new meaning of distance education.
I am not a teacher of "things," I am an "orchestrator" of ideas. My university is not a physical plant with classrooms and trees, but a "hub" of resources no longer constrained by time and place. My students are no longer "my" students, but we are all students together.
And once "class" loses its meaning, so do we lose the meaning of credit hour production (CHP). The CHP-the fundamental unit of production in higher education-is no longer relevant. And once shed, perhaps we become free to redefine the meaning of productivity in education and explore new ways of using our resources to do our job better. In this issue we examine the new "networked" learning environment, the new economics of educational delivery, the implications of collaborative teaching, and some of the practical tools for working in this environment.
McDonald and Gibson's article on group dynamics in computer-mediated conferencing (CMC) lays the groundwork for understanding the potential of interaction in a networked learning environment. Using a group dynamics model created for face-to-face interactions, the McDonald and Gibson study suggests a similar group development in CMC, concluding with a rich array of variations to be tested and studied as we explore the learning potential of this environment. McDonald and Gibson rightly warn us against hasty generalizations from this work, recognizing that there are many unstudied variables. Yet we could benefit further from deliberate self-consciousness about these learning activities on the parts of both students and instructors, who may identify key factors which simply were not evident in more conventional interactions.
The shift to alternative modes of teaching and learning is rightly described as a migration, with innovators and early adopters breaking trail for those who advance more slowly. Within most institutions there is little real inducement to do other than what has always been done. Gatliff and Wendel's article on team teaching at a distance is one instance of an innovative approach with rich potential. The layers of institutional and support issues and difficulties they describe, however, apply equally to every innovation. For many institutions, any kind of distance education evokes these obstacles, in too many cases strangling pioneering efforts with bureaucracy. Chère Gibson's interview with constructivist David Jonassen addresses a more subtle, yet more substantive change: that from an objective notion of knowledge to a socially constructed one. Teaching and learning activities that use a constructivist approach-problem-based and case-based learning, peer learning and team skills, simulations, and micro-worlds-are powerfully supported by technologies commonly used in distance education. The change required here, for students, for institutions, and especially for faculty, is profoundly conceptual as well as behavioral. As Gatliff and Wendel note of their innovative approach, this "is not for the faint-of-heart."
One of the obstacles the administrative faint-of-heart often raise is that of cost: "We can't afford to do that." On the other hand, one of the arguments made in support of distance education is that it provides access to new students and new revenues. The British Open University won the support of Margaret Thatcher because it was demonstrably more cost-effective than conventional colleges and universities. As we experience the convergence of distance and classroom modes through the common use of technologies, we find institutions struggling with the costs of equipment, infrastructure, faculty training, and student access. Many institutions are committing resources to technology enhanced learning in the belief that they must do so in order to stay competitive with their peer institutions. Wisher and Priest's article on the cost-effectiveness of audio teletraining is a welcome counterpoint in its insistence on both learning-effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. Acknowledging that there are other more expensive ways to accomplish this training, they make a case for the learning-effectiveness of audio teletraining in comparison to face-to-face instruction before turning to its cost-effectiveness. The article further provides a model for similar studies using other technologies. Wisher and Priest make the point, as do McDonald and Gibson, that one should understand the task at hand and choose the best tool for it.
The discussion of FirstClass® is a case in point. As we move into the networked environment, where communication is not only critical to everything we do but can be done in a variety of ways, new "tools," generally called "groupware," are being rapidly developed for communication and interaction. These provide the opportunity for asynchronous interaction within a controlled environment of a number of participants. They permit both full-group and sub-group interactions as well as private messaging. Students can work in virtual teams, reporting results to the full group. "Chat rooms" and "lounges" can also be set up. Early developments such as Participate and Caucus were text-based only and often awkward to use. Recent developments such as FirstClass® use a graphical interface and permit document sharing. Within the past eighteen months a number of Web-based course development tools have emerged, permitting not only communication modes, but interactive course components, Web links, and online testing capabilities. These tools are designed to assist faculty in putting their course materials on the Web where they can be used by any enrolled student with access to the Web.
The article in this issue focuses on the use of FirstClass® to serve students in rural Alaska. Here the issues and limitations are clear: students are remote and isolated and the infrastructure is minimal (one student, lacking electricity, used a battery-powered computer to logon). Faculty and student development, installation, technical support, and cost are all significant factors. But what is also clear, a point that gets lost in some of the glitzier learning technology displays, is that this is just a tool. Critical to this or any successful learning experience is the investment of human effort on the part of both students and faculty.
Teaching and learning in the new environment, at whatever distance, using new tools to support new approaches, means the "unbundling" of teaching and learning into many component parts. Each of these components-information presentation and delivery, schedules and timelines, learning activities, engagement and interaction, ongoing evaluation and testing, available additional resources and expertise-can take many forms and use many strategies, thus permitting a customizing of learning opportunities previously not possible. But how these are accomplished through faculty and institutional efforts and how they are made available cost-effectively to students are concerns facing all educators. The American Journal of Distance Education will continue to address these concerns in future issues.
Reference
Moore, M. G., ed. 1990. Contemporary issues in American distance education.
New York & London: Pergamon Press.
Interpersonal Dynamics and Group
Development in Computer Conferencing
Jeanette McDonald and Chere Campbell Gibson
Computer conferencing, a delivery mode in distance education, is taking place more and more. New horizons are opened up because of computer conferencing's ability to have "many-to-many communication capabilities". Yet these very technologies that mediate communication will result in social environments unlike on-campus classrooms, having an effect on how groups interact and the dynamics of the group.
The purpose of the study by McDonald and Gibson "was to describe the patterns of interpersonal interactions relating to group development in asynchronous computer conferencing….Finally, there is the underlying question of whether a predictable pattern of communication exists online and can be discovered due to the complexity of the interactions." Since this study spotlighted the social interaction of those participating in the development of the group, the author Schutz' (1983) model of group development "based on interpersonal needs was chosen to provide a frame of reference with which to examine group dynamics and development in the context of computer conferencing."
Content analysis was used since computer conferencing, "with the automatic archiving of course transcripts" render a perfect situation for the use of content analysis. The data was made up of computer transcripts initiated from the course of communication involving the three different student units. There were over 2,200 separate messages with the possibility of over 6,600 speech segments. The authors felt that individual messages were too unwieldy and complex to be coded as a single unit, and so a speech segment was selected as the unit of measure for this study.
"This study found that a collection
of individuals communicating through asynchronous computer conferencing
could, in fact, successfully deal with and resolve interpersonal issues
as they formed into cohesive, functioning groups."
Cost-effectiveness of Audio Teletraining
for the U.S. Army National Guard
Robert A. Wisher and Annette N. Priest
This paper reports on the use of audio teletraining technology used in the instruction of Army National Guard soldiers from a cost-effectiveness analysis. Wisher and Priest note that with the availability of distance education programs the question of cost effectiveness plays a main role in implementing decisions. At issue were costs such as travel and lodging. As is often the case in business or military, these costs could be avoided by the training being offered through distance education. The second way that cost was kept low involved the use of the less-expensive technology of audio teletraining for the unit Clerk Course.
The Unit Clerk Course is a three-week course which required soldiers to travel to the Professional Education Center (PEC); a distance learning offering permitted this course to be delivered by audio teletraining. "Participants were n = 225 solders serving as trainees from Army National Guard units nationwide. Of these, n = 107 participated in the resident classroom version of the Unit Clerk Course, and n = 118 participated in the audio teletraining version." The same four instructors taught the resident instruction and distance courses. Both groups were assigned the same workbooks and job aids, and were given the same tests.
The results of this study indicated the annual cost savings would probably come to approximately $292,000. It also indicated higher test results for the distance learners, 93% of whom reached criterion compared with 85% of the residence group.
