Resources and Ideas for the Distance Educator
Technology,
e-learning, and education: Resources for educators - a resource for
technology integration -- http://www.adobe.com/devnet/education/articles/learning_resources.html
Ubiquitous
learning/computing and handheld devices – see Chris Dede’s
interesting proposal that provides some fundamental thinking about this -- http://www.provost.harvard.edu/it_fund/example_pdfs/handheld_devices_for_learning.pdf
3d imaging and
distance learning –
Mobile devices and
technology -- http://infosys.massey.ac.nz/~kinshuk/papers/asian_jrnl_de_2003.pdf
and http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Sep_05/article04.htm
Digital Natives –
Digital Immigrants – young people raised on the web, with mobile devices,
on video games, etc. and thought to have developed different cognitive; started
basically from Marc Prensky’s work -- http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/articles/digitalnatives/index.htm
Reusable learning objects (RLOs) – an interactive web resource based on a single learning objective that can be applied within multiple learning contexts – see Polsani’s interesting piece on the use and abuse of RLOs at http://jodi.tamu.edu/Articles/v03/i04/Polsani/
Web 2.0 – sort of
a “modernizing” of the “original” Web that began to emerge with discussions and
observations of how the Web has been developing in the past five years -- http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html
Mobile learning –
various efforts to learn or promote learning via a variety of handheld devices
such as iPods, Microsoft’s Zune, etc. – aimed at
younger people mainly -- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2940936.stm
Information overload
and text interpretation – text interpretation tools are becoming available
but it remains a big challenge -- http://cslu.cse.ogi.edu/HLTsurvey/ch7node5.html
Instructional design
issues and resources for distance learning – the
Quality issues in
distance learning and understanding relationships to face to face learning
-- http://www.wcet.info/resources/research/
Distance education
learner/teacher satisfaction and motivation – there is lots of research;
here is some of the best resources -- http://www.westga.edu/~distance/jmain11.html
; http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/jaln/v3n2/index.asp
; and http://www.itcnetwork.org/reports.htm
Learning
effectiveness/assessment -- http://www.sloan-c.org/effective/SortByLearningE.asp
; http://www.netnet.org/instructors/design/assessment.htm
and using learning contracts -- http://home.twcny.rr.com/hiemstra/tlchap8.html
Cost benefit analysis
- cost effectiveness issues and demonstrating the economic value of distance
learning investments have long been a topic of interest – here are a few
resources that give some guidance: http://www.ed.psu.edu/ACSDE/cost_benefit_analysis.pdf
; http://www.hezel.com/strategies/spring2002/cost_effective.htm
; and http://www1.worldbank.org/disted/Management/Benefits/cost-03.html
Learning
theory/research and distance education – various resources exist that
provide insight specific research results, links, or guidelines: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl
; http://seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/~mcisaac/disted/final98/finallj.html
; and http://www.educationatlas.com/distance-learning-research.html
Distance education
teacher training and preparation – here are some sources to initiate some
thinking on this topic: http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/summer42/bower42.html
; http://www.aaup.org/Issues/DistanceEd/Archives/speccmt/deguide.htm
; http://www.ihets.org/archive/progserv_arc/education_arc/distance_arc/guiding_principles_arc/
; and http://itc.utk.edu/~jklittle/pensacola/
Working with hard to
reach or learners on the margin through distance education – see the
resources suggested through the American Distance Education Consortium and a
companion National Science Foundation supported project: http://www.adec.edu/about.html and http://www.adec.edu/nsf/index.html
On-line course design
and effectiveness consideration – numerous resources have already been
described above; however, the Sloan-C organization provides several very
specific workshop possibilities: http://www.sloan-c.org/workshop/index.asp
Participation,
retention, and student dropouts – important issues that concern distance
educators – here are some potential resources: http://www.ed.psu.edu/acsde/deos/deosnews/deosnews13_5.pdf
; http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/winter84/nash84.htm
; http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring71/mccracken71.html
; http://www.cete.org/acve/docgen.asp?tbl=pab&ID=108
; and http://kn.open.ac.uk/public/index.cfm?wpid=1886
Promoting critical
thinking skills and abilities – learner attributes desired by distance
education teachers – here are some related resources: http://www.trainingplace.com/loq/strategies.htm
; http://itdl.org/Journal/Jun_05/article02.htm
; http://www.usdla.org/html/journal/NOV02_Issue/article03.html
; http://cade.athabascau.ca/vol13.2/bullen.html
; and http://www.usdla.org/html/journal/MAY01_Issue/article02.html
Finding ways to
maintain learning integrity in distance education is a constant concern – delimiting student cheating, plagiarism,
and dishonesty are part of this concern – here are some resources that may
initiate some thinking on the topic: http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring51/heberling51.html
; http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/summer72/rowe72.html
; http://www.towson.edu/~sara/plagiarism.htm
; http://chronicle.com/colloquylive/2001/07/cheat/
; http://integrity.unc.edu/resources.html
; and http://www.ccsf.edu/Library/plag.html
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If you have some ideas, suggestions, questions, or related resource tips related to the topics shown above, or if you would just would like to converse with me, feel free to send an electronic message.