HISTORIC EVENT

Three Key Figures of Distance Education Together for the First Time

The three founding fathers of modern distance education, Michael G. Moore, Otto Peters and Borje Holmberg participated in the 4th workshop of the European Distance Education Network. EDEN made possible this extraordinary event that resulted in the crown jewel of the workshop on Research into Online Distance Education and E-learning: Making the Difference, held in 25-28 OCTOBER, 2006 in Barcelona-Castelldefels, Spain.

Dr. Moore, professor at the Pennsylvania State University, founder and editor of The American Journal of Distance Education, author of The Handbook of Distance Education and USDLA Hall of Fame, developed Transactional Distance Theory. He is the most cited author in the field.

Dr. Otto Peters, Emeritus professor of the German distance education institution "FernUniversitat" and awarded for his lifetime contributions to Distance Education by the International Council of Open Learning and Distance Education. Dr. Peters received four honorary doctor's degrees (Open University, England, Deakin University, Australia, University of New York, N.Y., and Open University of Hong Kong), and one of his major contributions to the field is the development of the Industrial Theory of Distance Education.

Dr. Borje Holmberg, also from FernUniversitat developed the Theory of Guided Didactic Conversation.

Exclusive interviews will be published soon in this blog. In the meantime, you can visit

http://www.eden-online.org/eden.php

Other distinguished distance educators, such as Dr. Tony Bates, Dr. Alan Tait, and Dr. Stephen Downes participated in the EDEN Workshop.

It's time for digital campuses, says panel

The Hindu. October 18, 2006

Original Web Site:

http://www.hindu.com/2006/10/19/stories/2006101910440100.htm

BANGALORE:

Identifying digital campuses as the way ahead to meet the challenges posed by the "age of networked intelligence," the Oversight Committee on Implementation of the New Reservation Policy in Higher Educational Institutions has shown a model to emulate: the national project for technology-enhanced learning (NP-TEL), being implemented jointly by the seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science (IISc.).

Funded by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development, the programme is geared to enhance the quality of engineering education by developing over 300 curriculum-based video and web courses. These courses are available to engineering students across the country. The NP-TEL courses are offered under Civil, Computer Science, Electrical, Electronics and Communication and Mechanical engineering streams. NP-TEL was launched on September 3.

In its final report, the Oversight Committee said the campuses had to be prepared with computing and communications infrastructure, ready for use by a "Net generation" of "plugged-in and digital savvy" students.

Interactive learning with computers, the report said, had literally changed the learning paradigm "from linear to hypermedia learning, from instruction to construction and discovery, teacher-centric to student-centric learning processes, from `while in school' to lifelong learning, `one size fits all' learning to customised learning, school as torture to school as fun and from teacher as transmitter to teacher as facilitator." The Oversight Committee report said there was a need for a "mindset change" and the laptop computer had to be seen as an entry device to get connected to the knowledge world in cyberspace. "Every student and every teacher should be given such a device on an ownership basis and the process should be facilitated by bank loans," the panel said.

Education mission

With Information and Communication Technology (ICT) emerging as a key tool for distance education, the report referred to the HRD Ministry's initiative to set up an ICT-enabled National Mission for Education in the distance mode.

IISc., Bangalore, along with all the IITs and some reputed universities are now busy with this project. Six anchor groups have been formed to address certain critical challenges to provide learning opportunities to every Indian using ICT. The anchor groups are focussing on standardisation and formatting of content, pedagogical research, development of very low-cost, low power-consuming access device, IPR issues, digital literacy and virtual labs. To cater for the "Net generation," the report emphasised the need for state-of-the-art information technology-enabled infrastructure. The idea was to connect students to the knowledge world in cyberspace and encourage them to become netizens and members of global cyber families. This, the report said, would help them embark on their own self-exploratory voyages and to enhance their self-learning skills.

Gyan Vahini project

The committee referred to the centrally planned and coordinated "Gyan Vahini" project to establish a "Knowledge Network" linking all major Central institutions. This network, connected by a fibre-optic cable backbone catering to 1 Gbps to 10 Gbps information traffic and with a 30 Tera-byte storage data centre, could be the backbone for countrywide classrooms with lectures retained in "store forward" mode and made available on demand.

Knowledge, Learning & Teaching

This is Diane's Blog
Knowledge, Learning & Teaching

JISCmail - Mailing Lists

JISCmail - Mailing Lists

Knowledge Media Laboratory and the Carnegie Foundation

http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/programs/index.asp?key=38

The link above takes cybernauts to important resources for distance educators

UI will Establish a Global Campus in 2007

The News-Gazette.com: Ready to launch: UI moving forward with Global Campus initiative

By Christine Des Garennes

Sunday, August 6, 2006

The University of Illinois plans to build a fourth campus. A virtual campus.

Last month, top UI administrators submitted to UI President B. Joseph White a 54-page report outlining plans to launch Global Campus, the UI's multimillion-dollar online education initiative.

The university already offers online education – about 6,900 students enrolled in online courses in 2005 – but the vision for Global Campus is much more grand. It's a top university priority, White said. It's also proposed to be a for-profit enterprise. During the next five, 10 and 20 years the UI will enroll tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of students from Illinois, around the country and the world in online degree programs, White said.

"This is huge," said UI Trustee Bob Vickrey, who is part of the Global Campus Steering Team. "This is probably the largest undertaking the university has looked at in a lifetime. It has the potential for really becoming something."

In the next several months, administrators will continue to develop the Global Campus business plan, assemble financial resources, design the curriculum, recruit faculty and put the software in place. Faculty from all three campuses in Urbana-Champaign, Chicago and Springfield will hold forums on the subject.
ccording to the July report, Global Campus would begin operations in January 2007, and the first students would be enrolled in January 2008. The name Global Campus is a placeholder and likely to change, White said.

The price tag for the initiative is estimated at $15 million to $30 million over the next three years.

White, who has talked with private donors and foundations about funding, said he has received positive responses from people, especially when he explains how online higher education can allow many more students to earn UI degrees. These are students who might not have been able to enroll at one of the UI campuses on a full-time basis due to financial, family responsibility or other issues.

Why launch a Global Campus? Not enough Americans e

Heavy Internet users lead different lifestyle than non-users, says StatsCan

OTTAWA (CP) - There's a new study that says heavy Internet users lead a considerably different lifestyle than people who do not surf the web.

...Read More...

The Father of Systems Thinking

Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy is regarded as the founding father of systems thinking. He was born in Vienna, Austria on September 19, 1901 and died in New York City on June 12, 1972. Some of his publications in English language include:

Bertalanffy, L. von (1932). Modern theory of development. New York:
Harper.

Bertalanffy, L. von (1950). An outline of general system theory, British
Journal for the Philosophy of Science (1) : 139-164

Bertalanffy, L. von (1951). General system theory A new approach to
unity of science (Symposium), Human Biology, Dec 1951, ( 23): 303-361

Bertalanffy, L. von (1968). General system theory: Foundations,
development, applications, New York: George Braziller.

Bertalanffy, L. von(1968). The organismic psychology and systems
theory, Worcester.

GlensMADLaT

GlensMADLaT

Educause

An important resource to explore the importance of information technology in higher education is
http://www.educause.edu/

Educause also manages an institutional blog available at:

http://connect.educause.edu/

FGU Winter Session

Bloggers can type their personal reflections in this space, with the same attributes of a Word Processor