Transcript A History of Distance Learning

A History of Distance Learning
Correspondence education,
the earliest version of distance education,
was developed in the mid-nineteenth century
in Europe and the United States.
In 1840, an English educator, Sir Isaac Pitman,
taught shorthand by mail.
In the United States during the nineteenth
century, there were several opportunities in
adult education prior to the advent of
university extension beyond campuses.
In 1873, Anna Ticknor established a society that
presented educational opportunities to women to
study at home. Communication, teaching and
learning all took place using printed materials sent
through the mail.
10K over 24-year period.
In 1883, the first official recognition of correspondence
education took place. Chautauqua College of Liberal
Arts in New York granted degrees to students who
successfully completed academic work through
correspondence education and summer workshops.
Until 1910, the medium of mail was the dominant
delivery system, but new technologies, such as the
lantern slide and motion picture, emerged to provide
additional, visually-based options for
correspondence study.
In 1915, following a call by academicians to
research the effectiveness of correspondence
education vs. traditional education, the National
University Extension Association was formed.
The most promising new technology that
emerged between 1918 and 1946 was
instructional radio.
The federal government granted over 202 radio
broadcasting licenses to colleges, universities and
school boards. The technology failed to
attract a large audience.
Research and Assessment
New research conducted on correspondence study
during the early 1950's facilitated growth of this
medium's knowledge base.
1956 – Gale Childs studied the application of TV instruction
in combination with correspondence study. Concludes that
TV instruction is an instrument for transmitting
instruction, not a method in itself.
Research and Assessment
The success of the University of Wisconsin's
Correspondence Study Unit also fostered acceptance of
correspondence education.
In 1958, a UWCU report stated that the correspondence unit:
• Offers nearly 450 courses in nearly 150 areas of learning
• Teaches 12,000 active students annually
• Gives personal instruction on more than 80,000 assignments
• Works with the Foreign Service Institute to teach Immigration
• Law & Visa Operation to foreign service officers and the U.S.
• Armed Forces Institute to teach 200 correspondence courses
In the 1960’s & 1970’s – Escalating costs of
traditional education, mobile population, growth of
career-oriented activities lead to renewed interest in DE.
• 1963 – Instructional TV Fixed Service (ITSF) reserves
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selected transmission frequencies for educational
instruction.
1967 – Corporation of Public Broadcasting.
1969 – The British Open University established as a degreegranting institution. Utilizes TV courses as well as
correspondence methods. (200K)
1970 – Coastline Community College begins distributing
telecourses, becoming the first “virtual college” in
the US.
1971 – New Your State’s Empire State College opens. First
open university in US, utilized DE.
1971 – First emails are sent.
1978 – First computer Bulletin Board Systems
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, cable
and satellite television came into use.
Women fueled much
of the growth. 67% of
participants.
•Changes in the women’s position
within the family
•Political & social changes
•Tech. Changes in the work place
•Economic necessity
•Job market & new job
opportunities
Technology and the Internet
The advent of the Internet and digital applications in
the 1990’s, combined with changing demographics
of the distance education learner, added a whole
new dimension to distance education.
These new technologies bring educational
opportunity to the non-traditional student,
and the lure of economic prosperity to
higher educational institutions.
The Rise of the Tele-course
Most agree the first true educational television
program was Sunrise Semester, based in
Chicago. From 1959 into the early Sixties,
Sunrise Semester featured a single broadcaster,
a teacher, standing before a class with a camera
shooting over the heads of the students.
Yet the effort was not economically sustainable.
Here we come to the central question for
educational media. Lacking government
backing, how can educational media
ventures pay their own way?
A two-year task force (1970-1972) to design the television course
of the future, by Coast Community College vice chancellor, Dr.
Bernard Luskin defined a telecourse as
Definition of DE
a complete course of study, not adjunct curricula like
a single movie, filmstrip, slide show, audiotape, or vinyl
record. Students are separated from the teacher, standing or
sitting before a camera in a classroom
or studio somewhere else, in real time or not.
Money Must be Made
Luskin applied a relatively simple business model that still
has value. Colleges and universities using the telecourse
would pay a licensee fee to the telecourse distributor, which
paid telecourse producers, copyright to be negotiated.
Using this model, Coastline Community College, arranged for
classes with top instructors to be broadcast by public
television station KOCE to colleges, universities and libraries
in Orange County. Having no physical campus, Coastline
was the first "virtual college."
Imitation is the highest form of flattery
Dallas Community College started producing pre-packaged telecourses on video tape for export to other colleges. Their vision
called for students choosing from a menu of instructional
material that they could view any time, "video on demand"
in preference over "appointment TV.“
They evolved a policy of producing tele-courses that could hold
up year after year, now called an "evergreen" title because
the material stays fresh
through many seasons.
“Tele-courses” Evolve and Grow
The California model spread across the country, repeated
during the Eighties in Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma, and
Florida.
PBS settled on being a provider by satellite of adjunct
educational content, single programs and series like
Bill Nye: The Science Guy, which local PBS stations
can buy outright or license
to air at specified times for
use by local schools and
colleges.
Today, about 240 consortiums of public and
private educational and creative enterprises
in the U.S. are producing tele-courses,
licensed by about a thousand colleges and
universities using the material as a regular
part of their degree programs.
Advent of Educational Pay TV
“More Money”
"Pay TV" services have
gained a large market share by delivering
educational content. Two world champions
in educational TV content production are
Jones International and
Discovery Communications.
Jones International
Glenn Jones bought his first Colorado cable TV
system in 1967 using $400 borrowed against his
Volkswagen. He’s built a global cable casting
empire by organizing public limited partnerships
to raise more than $1 billion in capital to acquire
of local cable systems.
In 1987, Jones launched Mind Extension University,
M/EU, a cable channel carrying varied educational
programming, much of it for participating colleges
and universities.
In 1997, M/EU was re-branded as Knowledge TV for
carriage in the US and Europe as a source of
programs for college students and adult home
learners who want to extend their minds. Jones
seems to be putting all his eggs
into the Knowledge TV basket.
A rival pay TV service is The Discovery Channel,
founded in 1985. Discovery based its business case on
deftly targeting the highest common denominator among
subscribers. Think advertising.
This effort broke ground by proving that ideas are
profitable if backed by sound business principles.
Discovery reached seven million U.S. households in its
very first year of operations. Its audience has grown to
over 60 million cable and satellite viewers worldwide.
Discovery recently launched derivative programming
services with The Learning Channel.
Cable in the Classroom
Cable companies provide content that teachers can
record and replay, royalty free, to educate students
from kindergarten through high school where
“Cable in the Classroom” reaches more than
90 percent of the public primary and secondary
schools in the United States.
Interactive Distance
Learning
The biggest barrier to the success of educational
media has been the difficulties of students
interacting effectively with instructors,
an ability inherent in the live classroom.
Answering this need in the early days,
Coast College set a precedent in the Seventies by
buying 15 answering machines
to record students' messages.
In the early Nineties, U.S. universities started
giving students access to the Internet.
The use of e-mail became so common
among students and instructors that
voicemail was demoted to secondary status.
The explosive growth of the Internet, in fact,
has changed the essential character of delivering
educational content to remote students. The terms
"distance learning" and "telematics" were coined
to describe the process.
The Internet is becoming the medium of
choice for educators, since it provides all
the elements vital for distance learning:
Immediate online access to:
• Vast libraries of research materials.
• On-demand delivery of video, text, & graphics.
•Real-time interaction among instructors & students.
As speed improves,
more information will be
delivered over the Internet
Video Arts (co-founded by Monty Python veteran
John Cleese) has created a multimedia division
producing CD-ROMs, & moving into "selflearning" packages for delivery over the Internet.
Whether the target markets is educational institutions,
organizations, or the growing audience of folks at
home committed to lifelong learning,
the educational media business will keep growing.
Knowledge is power in any society,
but in the new knowledge economy,
ignorance is bondage
We live in an increasingly interdependent,
information-based, knowledge-driven economy.
Those who can use the new media to learn whatever
they want and need, are the best prepared to take
advantage of the media systems emerging
over the next few decades.
Those lacking deep media literacy may be left behind
What Comes Next?
The best way to develop markets for
educational media products is
to do the groundwork now
to develop a large base of educated people
who want and need educational content.
Individuals and companies that invest
in the educational media marketplace today
will be the best positioned tomorrow
DETAG’S ROLL?
Distance Education will take many forms in the Future
DETAG is in a position:
• to support the division & its members
• to lead and to encourage them
• to provide vision & excitement
Use of Technology must become second nature for
Students & Staff as we move into the 21st Century
DETAG Should
Consider Ways to Effectively Market
DE and Technology to the Division
Many departments furnish “SERVICE”
more than “EDUCATION”
Might we promote e-Service ?
Information in this presentation was gathered
from the following websites:
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http://www.pbs.org/als/dlweek/history/1960.htm
http://www.seniornet.org/edu/art/history.html
http://www.media-visions.com/ed-distlrn1.html
http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring01/deClair/history.html