 | Journal of Instructional Science and Technology ISSN: 1324-0781 Editors-in-Chief: Olugbemiro JEGEDE (jegede@ouhk.edu.hk) and Som NAIDU(s.naidu@meu.unimelb.edu.au) |
Volume 2 No 1, May 1997
- - - Article 1 - - -
by
W. R. Klemm, D.V.M., Ph.D.
Professor, Texas A&M University
Takeshi Utsumi, Ph.D.
President, Global University in the U.S.A.
Return to Contents PageThe promise of electronic distance education will not be realized until we overcome thewidespread lack of accessibility to electronic communication technology. Even when thetechnology is accessible, many people, particularly in less developed countries, cannotafford it. To address these pressing needs on a global scale, a group of concernededucators met in January, 1995 at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, to form theConsortium for Affordable and Accessible Distance Education (CAADE). CAADE's vision is aflexible high-performance electronic communications infrastructure that can be tailored tointegrate technologies for mass delivery of instructional materials with those forfacilitating student-to-teacher and student-to-student interactions.
Strategies must vary from country to country, depending on culture, economy, andinfrastructure. CAADE's research and development efforts help to identify the appropriatemix of satellites, telephone, wireless, and cable and computer-based communication. CAADEprojects aim to demonstrate distributed electronic communication technologies that can beconfigured to 1) provide mass instruction with pre-packaged materials that coexist withand complement highly individualized instruction, 2) combine wireless and wirelinetechnologies into an integrated system at reasonable cost at almost any site, and 3)promote experiential and collaborative learning.
Short-term goals are to demonstrate single, integrated distance education systems thathave the following features:
Humankind is taking the next step in social and economic evolution -- that of a globalinformation society and economy. Information is already becoming the foundation of wealth.Neither nations nor cultures can thrive if they fail to keep abreast of the rapid advancesin modern agricultural production and management, environmental protection, manufacturingtechnology, medicine, and economic and political infrastructure. Beyond materialwell-being, we would hope that increasing interaction of distinctive cultural traditionswill progressively enrich mutual understanding, tolerance, cooperative enterprise, andpeace.
Into this emerging global information environment steps the Consortium for Affordableand Accessible Distance Education (CAADE). Today's "have nots" do not haveaffordable or accessible opportunities to participate. Even in advanced countries, manydisadvantaged areas are being left behind in the information revolution. Does it matter?Yes, this new telecommunication age could revolutionize national culture and eveneconomies. For example, people in small towns and villages around the world may find itpossible to work from their home base, rather than migrate to the already overcrowded andpolluted cities.
Interactive, multimedia electronic distance education (EDE) is recognized as the mostpromising way to deliver information to widely distributed populations. EDE is in greatdemand in rural and remote areas of the U.S., states of the former Soviet Union, and inless developed countries.
CAADE is a consortium of educational institutions, national and internationalgovernment and quasi-government agencies, foundations, and private profit and non-profitcorporations. Its members represent prominent organizations and institutions.
What makes CAADE unique is that it is a broad-based, world-wide consortium that focuseson the power and potential of telecommunications technologies to make education accessibleand affordable. Our group is interested in combining mass and individualized technologiesto make them inexpensive and accessible anywhere around the world.
CAADE's mission is to promote development and implementation of emerging communicationtechnologies to increase access to educational opportunity and to do so in ways that willreduce cost and improve productivity and effectiveness, wherever people are who must relyon distance education.
We predict that these new global electronic technologies will significantly change theway people are educated and trained. Electronic distance education (EDE) will complementand supplement face-to-face classroom-based education, assist in reducing educationalcosts, and make education more accessible to a wider audience.
To address telecommunications needs of underserved learners, CAADE will develop anddemonstrate high-performance electronic communications systems that combine the power ofcomputers via telephone, local-area networks, low-to-medium speed terrestrial Internet andwireless telecommunications and digital satellites. This integrated approach to EDE usesmore than one delivery and distribution platform, integrating mass delivery ofinstructional materials via satellite or Internet with innovative low-cost options forterrestrial feedback and interaction using Internet, telephone lines, and wirelesstelecommunications. The result will be increased access to richer learning environmentswhile enhancing interactivity and sharing of information among teachers and students.
CAADE will emphasize the collaborative use of computer capabilities (e.g., virtualseminars, laboratories, application/simulation programs) by geographically dispersedstudents and colleagues. We hope to identify and develop promising technologies thatenrich pedagogy, technologies that can be used in ways to promote critical thinkingskills, problem solving, collaborative experience, and collegiality in the learningcommunity.
Technology now allows instruction to emanate from the teacher's desktop computer.Low-cost interactive desktop televideo systems for the PCs operating on the Internet orvia telephone lines are becoming available commercially (Currid, 1995). These videoproducts come as easy-to-install kits, but costs can be prohibitive.
Click here to see a summary of more than 45 televideo systems
Using such systems is best done over high-speed lines of the Internet. However,Internet service is not readily available in underdevelop areas of the world. Wheretelephones are used, these videoconferencing systems operate most effectively over digital(ISDN) lines, which are not only expensive (often $100 or more per month plus severalhundred dollars for installation), but also are not readily available, even in majorcities of developed countries.
In addition to a system for instructional delivery, EDE students should have access toa "virtual campus." Like students on the "real" campus, distancestudents need not only opportunities to interact with teachers and to learn symbioticallyfrom peers, but they also need libraries, lounges for socialization, and counselingcenters.
The new electronic distance education technologies make it possible toimplement delivering instruction on a large, world-wide scale. Multimedia EDE is becominga practical reality. Also, CAADE is committed to improving what happens "at the otherend" of the delivery pipeline, the "learner end," which is at the heart oflearning.
Fig. 1. Traditional EDE efforts often put the emphasis on electronic delivery systemsfor slickly packaged instructional material. Distance education has two components,teaching and learning. What happens at the other end of the instructional deliverypipeline, i.e., the learning, is greatly influenced by how much interactions students havewith the instructor and with each other.
One dominant distance education model involves lesson delivery as one-way videobroadcasts, with a return telephone path for questions and feedback. While live telephonecall-ins from students at remote sites is better than no teacher-student interaction, itgreatly restricts the number of students that can give feedback during any given class.There is often no convenient way for students to send questions to the instructor, toshare ideas among themselves after the scheduled broadcast time or to access otherrelevant information. Any follow-on learning activities encouraging students to workcollaboratively are difficult to manage. What is needed is an affordable, highlyinteractive, well-integrated and easy-to-use approach to closing the loop between massdelivered and highly personalized communication and learning.
EDE instructional delivery systems have typically operated in a same-time, same-placeway. Televideo lectures, we believe, can now be supplemented by follow-on learningactivities. Creating collaborative learning opportunities is especially crucial, becausedistance-education students are often relatively isolated and do not have the same chancesto interact with professor and peers as in traditional classrooms.
To promote interactivity among students and teachers and to leverage teacher effort bypromoting collaborative learning among students, the CAADE effort will incorporateinstructional delivery via collaboration software. An increasingly popular EDE strategy isthe use of collaboration software to allow students and faculty to interact eithersynchronously or asynchronously (Acker, 1995). There is growing awareness that computerconferencing is also an ideal environment for facilitating small-group collaborativelearning (also variously called "team learning," "cooperativelearning") (Klemm, 1995). This requires conferencing software that creates acollaborative environment for constructivist learning, i.e., students work together toconstruct their own knowledge and information to help each other learn and understand. Inshort, they do more than just chat electronically. They produce academic deliverables.
CAADE must be flexible to achieve its goals. Each underserved area or nation has itsown unique communication infrastructure, and the economic incentives and capability forinvesting in communication technology will vary. Technologies that may be too expensivetoday, may not be tomorrow. We may interface "low-tech" teaching technologies inunderserved areas with "hi-tech" technologies originating from advancedsocieties. And so, CAADE is always open to considering a wide range of technologies,although the focus will be on identifying workable solutions at prices that theunderserved can afford.
CAADE has not made a commitment to any single technology. Indeed, the philosophy is touse whatever mix of technologies is appropriate for a given situation. However, Fig. 2shows one example of how satellite, internet, telephone, and radio technologies can becombined in a flexible, hybrid communication system that accommodates the full spectrumfrom instructional delivery to feedback to collaborative learning.
Fig. 2. Instructional delivery begins with an instructor usingShareView to transmit teaching materials via satellite and telephone lines to multipleschools. Alternatively, instructional delivery can be achieved via CU-SeeMe or other suchsoftware via the Internet. At the receiving schools, a digital projector can display theinstruction in real time in a traditional classroom.
One or more of the schools may have a LAN and file server to accommodate studentasynchronous conferences and post-instructional learning activities via the collaborationsoftware, FORUM. Each LAN's server has a connection to the Internet, so that instructionalmaterials and references that are at various Web sites can be hyper-linked into localconferences. Each LAN can be accessed via modem or packet radio. Other schools may haveonly a single file-server PC that acts as host for FORUM conferencing via modem or packetradio.
The CAADE program design and delivery capacity is wide and deep. The individuals andorganizations involved have extensive resources (people, archives, curriculum, previouslyproduced programs, technology) that enable design, development, and delivery of EDE for:K-12 (including advanced placement and specialized offerings), vocational/technical needs,community college programs, certificate programs, short courses and workshops, workplaceeducation, informal educational enrichment, higher education academic credit courses, andissue-based offerings appropriate to a global future.
The participating institutions operate from the following set of assumptions:
We believe that electronic distance education can - and must - be made accessible andaffordable in rural and undeveloped parts of the world. Our consortium is committed totesting a variety of hybrid technologies that are suited for specific needs and conditionsin underserved user communities. We believe that we are pursuing options that will providecomplete, integrated educational systems for underserved communities at costs low enoughto encourage implementation.
How the lead author can be contacted
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