VOLUME 6, NUMBER 1, 1992
Editorial
A Letter from Crystalline Lake
Michael G. Moore
Articles (for
abstracts, click here)
Values at a Distance: Paradox and Promise
Henry C. Johnson, Jr.
Policy Issues in Statewide Delivery of University
Programs by Telecommunications
Donald J. Olcott, Jr.
Postmortem on a Distance Education Course:
Successes and Failures
Robert G. Holmberg and Trilochan S. Bakshi
Amateurs, Tough Guys, and a Dubious Pursuit:
Crime and Correspondence Study in Popular Culture
Von V. Pittman
Grass Roots
Problems in Introducing Distance Education into Northern Ontario Secondary
Schools
Rory McGreal and Bernard Simand
Interview
Speaking Personally with Frank B. Withrow
Connie Dillon
Software Review
DistanceLearn: Software for the Future
Charles E. Feasley and Calvin E. Jordan
Book Review
Research in Distance Education 1
Edited by Terry Evans
David Murphy
EDITORIAL
A Letter from Crystalline Lake
Michael G. Moore
The biggest problem I struggle with in editing The American Journal of Distance Education is finding the right balance of articles to meet the interests of our varied readership. A particular difficulty is deciding the appropriateness of articles of a "useful" as contrasted with "academic" nature. Of course as an academic I can't accept that what is theoretical, scholarly, or pure research is not useful in the long run, but being also a practitioner of distance education I understand the impatience of readers who are looking for information and ideas that will help in solving today's problems today. Therefore I try to select articles that will provide food for thought for the theoretically and philosophically inclined, but also to publish research that is sufficiently close to practice to be transferrable to the many different teaching and training environments that our readers work in.
Feedback is not easy to obtain in journal publishing; therefore, when I heard from Gil Little about how he and his friends in Ontario were using AJDE I was excited and touched. It told me that we are helping at least one group of frontline teachers do their jobs better. What could be more rewarding? Thank you, Gil, for your letter. I think all our readers will enjoy your story and, therefore, I am giving you the rest of my allocated space.
A Letter from Gil Little
Our secondary school is one of five in Grey County some ninety miles north
of Toronto. It is an agricultural area with one urban center, Owen Sound,
located on Georgian Bay. The secondary school teachers number three hundred
and thirty-six and in 1983 they went on strike over several issues. It
was a particularly bitter dispute lasting several months. When it was
over, both sides—the Grey County Board of Education and the teachers'
federation—sought to regain public support for education.
As a teacher, administrator, head of the history department at Grey Highlands Secondary School in Flesherton, and associate teacher for the Ministry of Education, I had been working with the Ministry in teaching history by correspondence courses. I suggested in the final post-strike contract that we include a pilot study of the value of distance education being done in two of our secondary schools.
As part of this two-year study, we would have teachers monitor our students participating in distance education courses. Our completion rate moved from 20 to over 70 percent and correspondence instruction was expanded to all secondary schools in the county two years later.
At this point, I realized that although many teachers had some experience in distance education, we needed much more information on this mode of instruction. I contacted the Independent Learning Center (ILC) for help. Michael Seary, an old friend, sent me a periodical that had AJDE advertised in it. It sounded ideal for my purposes. We would have liked to attend conferences and courses in the principles, nuances, and practices of distance education, but this was impossible because our county has not a big tax base. My budget for professional development of my five key people was one hundred and eighty dollars. Fortunately, two of our group had summer cottages "far from the maddening crowd" of metropolitan Toronto. When I received the first volume of AJDE, I could see the articles would be of great value to my people. Thus began a twice-a-year retreat which would coincide with the opening up of one of the fellows' cottages in the spring and the closing up of my cottage in the fall.
We decided we would use AJDE for our professional development at each retreat. We combine business with the pleasures of fishing, gourmet dining (pasties would be great), watching wild fowl, etc.
We assigned articles in AJDE to various members of the group to present to all of us. It is not unusual for debate and heated discussion to ensue. Comments like "Strain's ideas would never work in Grey County," with the rebuttal: "Don't be so damned sure," mingle with a call from a loon on the lake.
All of our retreats have the theme of the star. The star is distance education, and at each retreat we concentrate on facets of it. The 1989 retreat, for example, emphasized the development of distance education teaching practices and the development of contacts in the field of study. The star may seem a mundane symbol, but we believe it is a good one. We even borrowed and wrote new lines for the old Bing Crosby song "Would You Like to Swing on a Star?" Ours went "Would you like to teach on a star? See students earn credits from afar?" etc., etc.
Later retreats included the same elements—AJDE articles, networking, local applications, and gourmet meals produced by two members of our group. We now include, as well, methods of advocating distance education and have developed an assembly of "non-retreat," distance-education-in-school-and-county, members of the group.
In our area we have to sell distance education, thus at the retreats we practice adversarial advocacy-role playing how to convince a board trustee, a druggist, a farmer, that his tax dollar spent on distance education in the schools is a solid educational investment.
When the retreat is over, with its debates and comments-"These guys are speaking to university teachers and not to us"; "maybe Shale's stuff does work," all sparked by journal articles-we go back to our classrooms and to distance teaching. We go back a little more broadened, a little more knowledgeable, but, most important, realizing there is so much more we have to learn about distance education.
Till Next Time,
Gil Little
Afterword from Michael
Moore
I would like to do more to facilitate wider use of AJDE in continuing
education and training situations, whether as delightfully informal as
Gil's or in more structured settings. One thing we can do is to make multiple
copies of AJDE available for training purposes at favorable rates.
These copies could be distributed for preparatory study by participants
in advance of a training event, or used as the focus for discussion at
the event. Also, if numbers permit, we can prepare a special selection
of readings, tailor made for a particular organization or program. We
can organize sessions at a seminar or workshop based on Journal
articles, or even organize a whole training event around Journal
materials, bringing in the authors to discuss and elaborate on their written
work.
I hope readers who are looking for new and relatively inexpensive ways of conducting training about distance education will contact our office to discuss the possibilities.
Values at a Distance: Paradox and Promise
Henry C. Johnson, Jr.
Education is both for and about values. It is for
values to the extent that it is a process that can change not only our
knowledge, but also our being. It is about values in that the subject
matter of education is the totality of human experience, drawn from our
common past, and focused in terms of purpose. To achieve these purposes,
higher education has traditionally constructed a special community of
scholars and students. Education at a distance may appear to lack this
sense of community, which once, but no longer, characterizes higher education.
However, modern life may be creating new forms of community unimaginable
even a few decades ago. Distance Education can, if it chooses, both reconstruct
community and bridge education to the world "outside" in a way
more profound than conventional education. Yet its educational promise
can be realized only if it commits itself to genuinely educational (that
is to say, moral and ethical) purposes as its foundation. Distance education
will do no educational service if it does not bridge; but it will do no
good if it is only a bridge without an educational (and hence moral) commitment.
Until educators treat their own work in a morally reflective way, they
will be unable to guide students to become reflective. If vision and commitment
characterize both educators and the new style academic community for which
they are responsible, educators will be able to turn the new techniques
and technologies of distance education to the task of fulfilling the moral
and ethical work that distinguishes education from mere information and
training.
Policy Issues in Statewide Delivery of University
Programs by Telecommunications
Donald J. Olcott, Jr.
The development of statewide telecommunications networks
has expanded the capacity of colleges and universities to deliver extended
academic programs to off-campus learners. Through systematic planning
and design, telecommunications media can increase learner access by facilitating
interinstitutional program delivery that emphasizes resource sharing,
interinstitutional articulation, integration of alternative instructional
delivery systems, and maintaining academic standards and support services
commensurate with campus-based degree programs. The author argues that
institutions participating in a particular system must effectively resolve
major policy issues to increase student access through the use of telecommunications.
These issues include program prioritization, program curricular review
and approval, academic residency, establishment of fee structures, interinstitutional
articulation, and accreditation review. Moreover, the author suggests
that universities retain a high level of policy-making autonomy at the
institutional level. Institutional leverage in the external policy-making
arena is dependent on the resolution of policy issues at the institutional
level. In summary, statewide planning initiatives must recognize that
system effectiveness is affected by the interdependent needs of all members.
Implementing a statewide network that is responsive to the educational
needs of off-campus learners should guide system planning, programming,
and delivery of extended degree programs.
Postmortem on a Distance Education Course:
Successes and Failures
Robert G. Holmberg and Trilochan S. Bakshi
This paper outlines the successes and failures of
Athabasca University's first course--an ecology course delivered at a
distance. It does not discuss course content but rather covers typical
problems of home- study courses and offers some solutions. A team approach
was used to develop the course in-house. The course materials totaled
an equivalent of over 3,000 printed pages. Student support was provided
by tutors via mail and telephone. Between 1973 and 1987, the course attracted
over 1,400 adult students from across Canada. During the creation and
revisions of the course, many problems were encountered in authorship,
instructional design, visual design, editing, copyright, printing, audiotapes,
tutoring, and student evaluation. The conclusions and recommendations
in this article may help other distance educators to decide not only what
to do, but also what not to do.
Amateurs, Tough Guys, and a Dubious Pursuit:
Crime and Correspondence Study in Popular Culture
Von V. Pittman
Many large, respected American universities operate
correspondence study programs. Both the American military and the better
proprietary schools enroll millions of students a year in sound, practical
courses of instruction. Correspondence study represents a solid, established
medium of education. Yet the public's image of this method, at least as
reflected in popular film and literature, is that of the worst of the
early proprietary institutions. Such schools have long been portrayed
as entrepreneurial ventures featuring flashy, misleading advertising,
extravagant promises of wealth and success for their graduates, and frequent
legal scandals. The amateur sleuth who had trained through a correspondence
course has long been a comedy cliche. Through time the correspondence
school has become a metaphor for seediness, marginality, and incompetence.
The proposition that correspondence study might represent an effective
educational medium receives virtually no credence in the media of popular
culture. According to the administrators of collegiate programs, the image
of superficiality and even criminality reflected in these media has retarded
the growth of correspondence study as a legitimate instructional format
within postsecondary institutions. Even today, "crime and correspondence
study continue to have a special, sleazy relationship."
Problems in Introducing Distance Education
into Northern Ontario Secondary Schools
Rory McGreal and Bernard Simand
Contact North, a provincially funded distance education
delivery network, is presently undertaking a major expansion by introducing
audiographic teleconferencing equipment into Northern Ontario secondary
schools. Organizational problems have been encountered both in implementing
this particular initiative and in promoting the more general use of distance
education by the schools. The primary need of the small, isolated schools
of Northern Ontario is for the delivery of upper-level credit courses,
particularly those needed for entry into university. Other needs are based
on the special demands of the French-speaking schools and the Native bands.
In order to find the most effective means of meeting these needs, a number
of distance education delivery models have been examined. These include
a cooperative model, a fee-for-service model, and some centralized models
based on the experiences of programs in Louisiana, Newfoundland, and Alberta.
A model based on the unique conditions of Northern Ontario is proposed.
