Resource guide for distance education

Lonnie Turbee

This page was created for the Central New York Futurists Society and may be seen in hyperlinked format at: http://www.dyvic.com/~lonnie/DLbkmks.html

Who, why, when, how?
Distance education delivery media

Web resources

Distance education providers

Discussion groups

Who gets educated at a distance?

Home-schooled kids
High school kids bored with the local offerings
Kids with special needs
College students, undergrads and grads
Busy professionals who can't take off for years to study at universities
People who prefer to or must stay at home: care-givers of all types, the differently abled, home office workers, etc.
People who travel a lot. They can keep studying as long as they have Internet access.

Why get educated at a distance?

The courses you want are far away and you can't leave where you are.
Any courses at geographically located educational institutions take place when you can't be there.
It's too expensive to relocate to and live at a specific geographic location.
You like learning via computer networks.
You like the flexible scheduling of distance ed.
It's as least as effective as classroom-based learning. See: Is Distance Learning any Good?

When can you take distance ed courses?

Just about any time you like. That's the beauty of it.

How do you take distance ed courses? How much does it cost?

Find the answers in the links below! If you have great distance ed links to send me, please email me.

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Distance education delivery media

Postal mail system

Traditional correspondence courses

Instructional audio

University of Idaho: Instructional audio
http://www.uidaho.edu/evo/dist6.html

Television

University of Idaho: Instructional Television:
http://www.uidaho.edu/evo/dist5.html

Videoconferencing

University of Idaho: Interactive Videoconferencing in Distance Education
http://www.uidaho.edu/evo/dist11.html

Proximity videoconferencing services provider
http://www.proximity.com/

Strengths and weaknesses of videoconferencing for distance education:
http://liswww.fste.ac.cowan.edu.au/distance/vidconferencing5.html

Email

Some email programs: Eudora, PINE, ELM, Juno, Hotmail, AOL, MS Exchange, etc.
Private email with teacher/tutor
Email discussion groups ("listservs" or "mailing lists")

World Wide Web

simple websites: static information
web systems: webforms, animation, sound files, video clips, e-commerce
web-based interactive communication (asynchronous): web boards
web-based interactive communication (synchronous): web chat, WOO (see chat environments)

University of Idaho: Distance Educatio and the WWW
http://www.uidaho.edu/evo/dist12.html

Internet Teaching Forum: example of simple web board
http://cgi.dreamscape.com/davy/board/

Chat environments

Web chat

WebChat Broadcasting System
http://pages.wbs.net/

IRC: Internet Relay Chat

mIRC home page: best IRC client program
http://www.mirc.com/

MOO: Multiple-user-domain, Object-Oriented (text-based virtual reality)

Educational MOO: Text-based Virtual Reality for Learning in Community (ERIC Digest)
http://ericir.syr.edu/ithome/digests/turbee.html

Virtual Reality in Education: Education and Moo, Mud, Mush
http://angus.interspeed.net/eduvr/

MOO and IRC: What’s the big difference to the language learner?
http://home.twcny.rr.com/lonnieturbee/mooyirc.html

WOO (web-interfaced MOO)

Gateways into DU: includes two web interfaces for accessing this MOO
http://www.du.org/dumoo/loginto.htm

Web Interaction Device: allows you to cruise around schMOOze University
(MOO for English language learning ) using only your web browser.
http://schmooze.hunter.cuny.edu:8000/JonW/Wid

Multi-media MUVEs (Multi-User Virtual Environments)

The Palace
http://www.thepalace.com/

Info on The Palace: http://www.communities.com/company/pr/articles/suntimes2.html
Scroll down to "Best Web site"

PuebloLindo: virtual interactive community for Spanish language learning
Note: PuebloLindo is no longer supported by Heinle & Heinle, nor is it available. But you can get an idea of what it did at this site:
http://home.twcny.rr.com/lonnieturbee/helpfile.htm

NetMeeting: text chat, Internet telephony, shared applications, shared whiteboard
http://www.microsoft.com/netmeeting/

FireTalk: New as of September, 1999. Very good quality i-phone, text chat, easily-created rooms, and - get this: rooms that form at any website.
http://www.firetalk.com

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Web resources

NCATTC's Instructional Technology & Distance Ed WWW Resources (excellent site!)
http://www.ncattc.org/it.htm

TAFE SA - How can I study online? (From Australia)
http://www.tafe.sa.edu.au/top/how.htm

Human Resources Development Canada: Guide for Distance Learners
http://olt-bta.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/learning/guides.html

Distance Education at a Glance
http://www.uidaho.edu/evo/distglan.html

get educated! adult education & distance learner's resource center
http://www.geteducated.com/

DISTANCE EDUCATION JOURNAL
http://www.usq.edu.au/dec/decjourn/demain.htm

PBS Adult Learning Service Online
http://www.pbs.org/learn/als/

International University Consortium - Distance Ed
http://www.umuc.edu/iuc/iuc.html

Distance Education Report
http://distance-educator.com/

Distance Learning Resources
http://www.lib.montana.edu/~alivy/dist.html

The Wellspring - An Online Community of Distance Educators
http://wellspring.isinj.com/

Distance Learning Resources and Links (may be a bit dated)
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/%7Ecfche/distance.html

2020 Visions for the Future of Education: excellent paper by my favorite futurist, David Thornburg
http://www.tcpd.org/handouts/thornburg/2020visions.html

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Distance education providers

SmartPlanet
Low-cost and free courses courses covering computers, finance, hobbies, and more.
http://www.smartplanet.com/sp_home.asp

University of Wisconsin: Distance Education Clearinghouse
http://www.uwex.edu/disted/

Western Governors University
http://www.wgu.edu/wgu/about/index.html

New Hampshire College Distance Education Home Page
http://www.dist-ed.nhc.edu/

University of Idaho Engineering Outreach
Complete Distance-delivered Degree Programs
http://www.uidaho.edu/evo/newhtml/eomain.htm

Asynchronous Learning Networks
http://www.aln.org/

The Open University (decades of distance education)
http://www.open.ac.uk/

Parkland College Distance Education and Virtual Learning
http://online.parkland.cc.il.us/ramage/

The Globewide Network Academy
http://uu-gna.mit.edu:8001/uu-gna/

Language Connect Institute - Spanish distance language learning
http://www.languageconnect.com/Institute/index.htm

International Thomson Publishing: World Class Learning
http://www.worldclasslearning.com/learning/index.htm

Real Education
http://www.realeducation.com/

Sentius Corp.: Free software that makes it easy to create online teaching material
http://www.sentius.com

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Discussion groups

DEOSNEWS - The Distance Education Online Symposium
http://www.lsoft.com/scripts/wl.exe?SL1=DEOSNEWS&H=LISTS.PSU.EDU

The PHPTR Distance Learning mailing list
http://www.lsoft.com/scripts/wl.exe?SL1=PTR-DISTANCE_LEARNING&H=PRENHALL.COM

EDU-ONLINE -- The Discussion Group of Online Distance Education
http://www.learnskills.com/edu-online/

The Wellspring - An Online Community of Distance Educators
http://wellspring.isinj.com/
Subscribe to their monthly e-newsletter at this site or join their threaded discussion forum.

NETEACH-L discussion forum for online ESL/EFL teachers
http://www.ilc.cuhk.edu.hk/english/neteach/main.html

NETEACH-L MOO Sessions Info
http://spot.colorado.edu/~youngerg/moodates.html

DU Educational Technology Services, Inc.: educational MOO services
http://moo.du.org/

FUTURES-L futurists discussion forum: "futures forum with hotlinks to coffee shoppe"
http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/sawd/Futures/sub.html

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This page created for the Central New York Futurists Society by:
Lonnie Turbee

Last updated: December 1, 2000