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Description | Goals | Objectives | Texts | Grading | File Naming
Course Description

EDTEC 550 Introduction to Distance Education will introduce you to primary concepts, media technologies, and instructional strategies of distance education. Furthermore, the course will present an overview of social issues, historical perspectives, and current trends in the formation of the field and its present dramatic growth.

Technology Requirements
Some students will take this course at a distance through the College of Extended Studies. These students must have access to the following technologies for the successful completion of this course at a distance:

  • A personal computer with at least 800 MHz speed, 250 Mb RAM, 40 GB hard drive, and audio board and a 56 Kb modem.
  • A Microphone.
  • A video camera compatible to the computer used for the course.
  • Internet Explorer web browser (latest version) or Firefox.
  • Flash Player.
  • Access to the Internet without the interference of an enterprise firewall.

Goals

This course will prepare you to become conversant in the terminology of the field of distance education, and use its primary concepts, instructional and learning design strategies, and technologies in their appropriate contexts. Historically, distance education has been a response to social needs. As such, you will also become familiar with historical, economic, and social antecedents to the current dramatic growth of distance education in the US, and elsewhere in the world.

Objectives

This course will enable you to

  • Use terminology of the field of distance education in its appropriate context
  • Explain defining concepts of the field of distance education
  • Select appropriate instructional strategies for distance teaching and learning
  • Select appropriate technologies for distance teaching and learning
  • Use course authoring tools
  • Use videoconferencing tools, and systems
  • Select appropriate learning management systems
  • Use online evaluation and data collection tools
  • Present an overview of the history of distance education
  • Discuss current social issues, and trends affecting distance education.

Texts

The textbook for this course is:
Moore, M. G. & Kearsley, G. (2005). Distance education: A systems view (2nd Ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson, Wadsworth.

Online Resources

Readings for this course are assigned from distance-educator.com a site that was originally established by the course instructor to provide resources for students in the EDTEC department about distance education. Since then it has grown to a major international resource for thousands of subscribers in the US and around the world.

Distance-Educator.com also offers a free subscription to its Newsletter. The field is changing literally every day. There is a tremendous amount of new information about distance education published by a variety of sources. The course instructor collects published information from a variety of sources and presents it in the Daily News Digest. To take full advantage of this course, you should subscribe to the Newsletter.

Recommended Books

To complete this course, each student has to write a research paper and present it orally to the class as well. For this research paper you can choose any number of books recommended here, which would be relevant to your research paper, and other learning interests.

Berge, Z., L., & Clark, T. (2005). Virtual schools: Planning for success. NY: Teachers College, Columbia University.

Berge, Z. L. (2001). (Ed.). Sustaining distance training: Integrating learning technologies into the fabric of the enterprise. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Dabbagh, N. & Bannan-Ritland, B. (2005). Online learning: Concepts, strategies, and applications. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, Merill, Prentice Hall.

DuCharme-Hansen, B. A., & Dupin-Bryant, P. A. (2004). Web-based distance education for adults. Malabar, FL: Krieger Publishing company.

Kearsley, G. (Ed.).(2005). Online learning. Personal reflections on the transformation of education. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Education Technology Publications.

Khan, B. (Ed.). (2001). Web-based training. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications.

Ko, S., Rosen, S. (2001). Teaching online: A practical guide.
Boston , MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Mills, R., Tait, A. (Eds.). (1996). Supporting the learner in open and distance learning. London, UK: Ptiman Publishing.

Moore, M. G. & Anderson, W. G., (Eds.) (2003). Handbook of distance education Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Rosenberg, M. J. (2001). e-Learning: Strategies for delivering knowledge in the digital age. NY: McGraw-Hill.

Shoemaker, C. C. J. (1998). Leadership in continuing and distance education in higher education. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., and Zvacek. (2000). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundation of distance education. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Waterhouse, S. (2005). The power of eLearning: The essential guide for teaching in the digital age. Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

Additional Books on Distance Education
Grading
In order to acknowledge achievements and monitor student progress, the Department needs a realistic and meaningful system for grading performance. The University and the professional community expect the Department to maintain standards that reflect its reputation as one of the foremost programs of its type in the country.


According to the University's Graduate Bulletin

  • A means outstanding achievement; available for only the highest accomplishment;
  • B means praiseworthy performance; definitely above average;
  • C means average, awarded for satisfactory performance.

In general, professors in the department award "A" grades to acknowledge achievements that go beyond specified course requirements and criteria. By its very nature, this type of performance cannot always be spelled out clearly in advance. A's are reserved for special efforts that exceed expectations, that demonstrate exceptional creativity, boldness, commitment, involvement, ingenuity, or elegance.

Letter Grades

    A = 93-100
    A- = 90-92
    B+ = 87-89
    B = 83-86
    B- = 80-82
    C+ = 77-79
    C = 73-76
    C - = 70-72

Incomplete Policy- Given the real time nature of the many activities of this course receiving an incomplete grade is not a realistic option.

 
File Naming
Email to instructor Every time you send an email you must complete the subject line using the following naming technique.

EDTEC 550:

For example: EDTEC 550: Ritchie Review, and critique of an online course. Following this technique will ensure that your message will be sorted correctly, and read by the instructor promptly.

If you had to attach a file to the email always use the naming technique of: YourLastName_550_ProjectTitle

For example: Ritchie_550_ResearchPaper

It is important that you identify all correspondences with faculty with your last name.