EDAH 5403
Course Info.

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Objectives

I began using the Internet to teach this course in 1990. If you can recall the early 90s, you will remember that there was no World Wide Web, dot com had not entered our lexicon, spam was something you ate for lunch, and flaming was something you did to a steak, not a person.

At the time, I did not know whether "Internet teaching" would be a passing fancy or with us for good. For me the question has been answered. What do you think?

Now I'm asking a new question. What does the Internet mean for education...and for society as a whole?

When I first began using the WWW to teach this course, I saw so many possibilities... the ability to connect to students regardless of time or place, the ability to link students instantaneously to critical resources, more time to spend on feedback instead of "lecturing". I found these possibilities exciting and I designed this course with these things in mind. But I didn't anticipate the problems. I didn't think about concerns of privacy, intrusiveness, impermanence, information overload, and technological dependency.

Throughout the ages, technological innovations have been a powerful force for change. Whether that change has proven good or ill is not a function of technology, but rather a function of the choices society makes.The fundamental danger of technology today lies not in its existence, but in our choices. And I believe that it is you, our future educators, who have a pivotal role to play. For it is through education that society learns to use our tools.

But today our dilemna lies in the pervasiveness of technology. It is "everywhere" and effects "everything". Technologists do not under education and likewise, educators do not understand technology. In order to use technology well, we first must understand how it works. This contention is based upon the prophetic work of Marshal McLuhan's who argued that the "media is the message". McLuhan believed that technology changes our perceptions of truth and justice...our very perceptions of who we are. He believed that we must first understand the media in order to understand the messages it brings.

This then is the problem that I hope this course begins to address.

Course Purpose

The first purpose of this course is to teach you how telecommunications technologies work and how they are applied in education. The first part of the course is devoted to technology and its attributes. What are its capabilities; what are its limits? The second part of the class covers the design of distance learning systems.

The second purpose of this course is to give you experience using telecommunications in education, so that you can begin to answer this question for yourself "what does the Internet mean for education, and for society as a whole?"

This course is not just about the Internet, it is about all forms of telecommunications. However, with continuing advances in digital and wireless technologies, I think we will find that the Internet and telecommunications will soon become one and the same.

This course is designed as a survey course, with the purpose of introducing you to the use of instructional telecommunications in education.  As such, the course will explore the issues surrounding the use of instructional telecommunications rather than a specialized study of specific aspects of the field.

Course Objectives

Upon successful completion of this course the you will be able to:

• Identify and describe each of the major telecommunications technologies
• Demonstrate use of computer communications in a learning setting
• Analyze the educational attributes of each of the major telecommunications technologies and apply these to the design of distance learning formats
• Describe the predominate models used to deliver educational programming using telecommunications technology
• Describe the characteristics of the distance learner
• Identify appropriate learner support systems
• Describe the basic principles for designing instruction for telecommunications delivery
• Discuss the issues related to faculty support and distance education
• Discuss the issues related to telecommunications policy at the institutional, state and federal levels
• Demonstrate a familiarity with the research in the field of distance learning
• Analyze and critique an instructional telecommunications system

The Units:

Each unit consists of required activities and readings. In addition the unit provides some optional readings that are designed for students who feel they need more additional background. Finally the units provide helpful weblinks that are designed to allow advanced studetns explore topics in greater detail.
Finally, you may participate in the weekly on-line discussions.