Distance Education

The authors make the distinction between effects with technology in which the learner enters into a partnership where the technology assumes part of the intellectual burden of processing information (calculator), and effects of technology and related transfer of skills. The former role of technology is what has been referred to by Pea (1993) as distributed cognition. The distributed model of cognition has its roots in the cultural-historical tradition and is reflected in the work of Luria (1979) and Vygotsky (1978). This view of the distribution of cognition from a cultural-historical perspective maintains that learning is not an individual process but is part of a larger activity which involves the teacher, pupil and cultural artifacts of the classroom. Knowledge does not reside with an individual alone but is distributed among the tools and artifacts of the culture. The technologies of today have created graphic interfaces which offer symbiotic and virtual environments distributed between human and machine.

One example of such a symbiotic environment is a computer conference network called The WELL. It is a"virtual community" where people meet, converse and socialize. This "digital watering hole for information-age hunters and gatherers" has developed into a unique social and communication phenomenon (Rheingold, 1993). It functions as cafe, beauty shop, town square, pub, lecture hall, library. In short it is network of communications in cyberspace; a true virtual community. The social and cultural ramifications of this type of community which functions in cognitive and social space rather than geographic space has vast implications for research in distance education.

These new learning environments are distance learning settings and they prompt researchers to ask further questions. How do these environments enhance cognitive activities? Which personal learning style factors are important to consider in designing interactive materials for effective instruction? Can we predict which program elements are likely to enhance student learning?

Course Design and Communications

A number of research studies have been conducted around the issues of designing course material for distance education. A brief review of the literature reveals that the most frequently expressed concern in courses designed for distance learners has to do with providing the learner with adequate feedback (Howard, 1987; McCleary & Eagan, 1989). Learner feedback is listed as one of the five most important considerations in course design and instruction, and it is identified by Howard as the most significant component in his model for effective course design.

Other major issues which relate to course design are effective instructional design, selection of appropriate media based on instructional needs, basic evaluation, and programmatic research. There appears to be little reported systematic research in this area because of the time and costs involved in conducting such large scale projects . McCleary and Egan (1989) examined course design and found that their second and third courses received higher ratings as a result of improving three elements of course design, one of which was feedback. In a review of the research, Dwyer (1991) proposes the use of instructional consistency/congruency paradigms when designing distance education materials in order to pair content of material with level of learners' ability. Others suggest models combining cognitive complexity, intellectual activity and forms of instruction for integrating the use of technology in course delivery.

Although consideration is given in the literature to elements of course design such as interactivity, student support, media selection, instructional design issues and feedback, little research has been reported other than evaluative studies. Few are generalizable to global situations. Although course design is a primary component of large scale international distance education programs, little attention has been paid to the underlying social and cultural assumptions within which such instruction is designed. Critical theorists have examined how teaching materials and classroom practices reflect social assumptions of validity, authority and empowerment. Although the thread of critical theory has woven its way through the fabric of the literature in education, nowhere is it more important to examine educational assumptions underlying course design than in distance education.

Courses designed for distance delivery often cost thousands of dollars to produce and reach hundreds of thousands of students. Not only are hidden curricula in the classroom well documented, there is a growing body of evidence in the literature which critically analyzes the impact of social norms on the production of educational media. In their book, Ellsworth and Whatley (1990) examine the ways in which particular historical and social perspectives combine to produce images in educational media which serve the interests of a particular social and historical interpretation of values. Distance learning materials are designed to rely heavily on visual materials to maintain student interest. Film, video and still photography should no longer be viewed as neutral carriers of information. In a seminal book of readings Hlynka and Belland (1991) explore critical inquiry in the field of Educational Technology as a third paradigm, equally as important as the qualitative and quantitative perspectives. This collection of essays encourages instructional designers to examine issues in educational media and technology using paradigms drawn from the humanities and social sciences; sociology and anthropology.

The examination of issues concerning the use of technology is especially important when designing courses for distance education. There are six factors that are particularly critical and need to be considered. In order to distinguish the characteristics of the communications technologies currently being used in distance education it is necessary to adopt a classification system, although any classification system may not remain current for very long with the constant development of new technologies.

Media and Course Design.

Several classification models have been developed to describe the technologies used in distance education (Barker, Frisbie, & Patrick, 1989; Bates, 1991; Johansen, Martin, Mittman, & Saffo, 1991). In a recent attempt to classify the media used in distance education, Bates (1993) notes that there should be two distinctions. The first is that it is important to make a distinction between "media" and "technology." Media are the forms of communication associated with particular ways of representing knowledge. Therefore, each medium has its own unique way of presenting knowledge, and organizing it which is reflected in particular formats or styles of presentation. Bates (1993) notes that in distance education, the most important four media are: text, audio, television, and computing. Each medium, however, can usually be carried by more than one technology. For example, the audio medium can be carried by audiocassettes, radio, and telephone, while the television medium can be carried by broadcasting, videocassettes, videodiscs, cable, satellite, fiber optics, ITFS and microwave. Therefore, a variety of different technologies may be used to deliver one medium. The second distinction is the one between primarily one-way and primarily two-way technologies. One way technologies such as radio and broadcast television, do not provide opportunities for interaction, while two-way technologies such as videoconferencing or interactive television, allow for interaction between learners and instructors and among learners themselves.

For the purpose of this chapter, we would like to expand on a definition adopted by Willen (1988) who noted that where distance teaching and learning is concerned, three characteristics have proved critical to the optimization of the study situation: a) the ability of the medium to reach all learners, or provide access, b) the flexibility of the medium; and c) the two-way communication capability of the medium. We feel that it is necessary to expand these three characteristics to include three others: the symbolic characteristics of the medium, the social presence conveyed by the medium, and the human-machine interface for a particular technology. Whatever classification system is used to describe the technologies, we feel that six important characteristics need to be kept in mind in the adoption and use of these technologies for distance education:

Delivery and access --the way in which the technology distributes the learning material to distance learners and the location to which it is distributed: homes, places of work, or local study centers. Student access to technologies in order to participate in the learning process is an important consideration.
Control -- the extent to which the learner has control over the medium (the extent to which the medium provides flexibility in allowing the students to use it at a time and place and in a manner which suits them best). For example, the advantage of using videocassettes over broadcast television is that students can exercise "control" over the programming by using the stop, rewind, replay, and fast forward features to proceed at their own pace. Videocassettes are also a very flexible medium allowing students to use the cassettes at a time that is suitable to them.
Interaction--the degree to which the technology permits interaction (two-way communication) between the teacher and the student, and among students. Technologies utilized for distance education can be classified as one-way transmission, or two-way interactive technologies. One-way transmission media include printed texts and materials, radio programs, open broadcast or cablecast television programs, audiocassettes and videocassettes. Technologies that permit two-way interaction can be classified as either synchronous (real time communication) or asynchronous (time-delayed communication) systems. Audio teleconferencing, audiographics teleconferencing, video teleconferencing, interactive television, and real-time computer chatting when two or more computers are linked so that participants can talk to each other at the same time, are synchronous technologies that permit real time two-way communication. Computer-Mediated Communications (CMC) including electronic mail (e- mail), bulletin boards and computer conferencing when used in a time-delayed fashion are asynchronous technologies that permit two-way communication.
Symbolic (or audio-visual) characteristics of the medium. Salomon (1979) distinguishes between three kinds of symbol systems: iconic, digital and analog. Iconic systems use pictorial representation; digital systems convey meaning by written language, musical notation, and mathematical symbols; and analog systems are made up of continuous elements which nevertheless have reorganized meaning and forms, such as voice quality, performed music, and dance. Television, forexample, uses all three coding systems to convey a message. Salomon (1979) observes that it is the symbol system that a medium embodies rather than its other characteristics that my relate more directly to cognition and learning. "A code can activate a skill, it can short-circuit it, or it can overtly supplant it" (Salomon, 1979 p.134).
The social presence created by the medium. Telecommunication systems, even two-way video and audio systems that permit the transmission of facial expressions and gestures, create social climates which are very different from the traditional classroom. Short et.al. (1976) define social presence as the "degree of salience of the other person in the interaction and the consequent salience of the interpersonal relationships..." (p. 65). This means the degree to which a person is perceived as a "real person" in mediated communication. They define social presence as a quality of the medium itself and hypothesize that communications media vary in their degree of social presence, and that these variations are important in determining the way individuals interact. The capacity of the medium to transmit information about facial expression, direction of looking, posture, dress and non-verbal vocal cues, all contribute to the degree of social presence of a communications medium. Two concepts associated with social presence are "intimacy;" and "immediacy." Short et. al. (1976) suggest that the social presence of the communications medium contributes to the level of intimacy which depends on factors such as physical distance, eye contact, smiling and personal topics of conversation. They observe that the use of television rather than audio-only communication makes for greater intimacy, other things being equal. Immediacy is a measure of the psychological distance which a communicator puts between himself or herself and the object of his/her communication. A person can convey immediacy or non-immediacy non-verbally (physical proximity, formality of dress, and facial expression) as well as verbally. Therefore, social presence can be conveyed both by the medium (video can convey a higher degree of social presence than audio, ) and by the people who are involved in using the medium for interaction (instructors who humanize the classroom climate may convey a higher degree of social presence than those who do not.) A recent study (Gunawardena, Campbell Gibson, Cochenour, Dean, Dillon, Hessmiller, et al., 1994) examines the concept of social presence in distance education and analyzes student perceptions of two media: audiographics and computer conferencing.
Human-machine interface for a particular technology that takes into consideration how the equipment interfaces with the end users. The learner must interact with the interface or the technological medium in order to interact with the content, instructor, and other learners. This may include an activity such as pushing the press-to-talk bar on some microphones, or learning to use a graphics tablet to communicate graphically in an audio-graphics system. With the rapid growth of new telecommunications technologies, ergonomics or the design of human-machine interfaces has become an important area of research and development within the broader area of research related to human factors. The kinds of interfaces the technology employs has implications for the kind of training or orientation that both teachers and students must receive in order to be competent users of the medium.

When selecting technologies for a distance learning program, or when designing instruction for distance learning, these six factors need to be kept in mind. They are not entities in and of themselves but interact with each other to make up the total environment in which a specific medium operates. The diagram below indicates this interaction.

The evolution of geographic space into cyberspace has profound implications for communication, instruction and the design of the instructional message.

Course Design and the International Market.

Issues which examine course design in distance education cross geographic boundaries. Courses which are produced in North America are exported across the world. There is a widespread belief that Western technologies, particularly the computer, are culturally neutral and can be used to modernize traditional societies. When distance education programs are delivered to developing countries, cultural differences are often dealt with by simply translating the existing software, or by writing new software in the local language. What remains is still instruction based on a set of cultural assumptions emphasizing the view that Western technology and science represent the most advanced stage in cultural evolution. This rationalist, secularist and individualist philosophy remains at the tacit level and suggests that, for any country, true modernization relies on the scientific method and the adoption of culture-free technology. The imported technology boasts capabilities based on assumptions which are frequently in direct opposition to traditions and social practices in the local culture.

Critical theorists, and others, have engaged in the debate over obvious discrepancies between the ideal Western view of life and the reality of deteriorating social fabric, loss of traditional values, high crime and drug rates and other visible social ills. The Western view of modernization and progress have not been universally accepted as ideal. However by embracing new communication technologies, non-Western countries are buying into a new set of cultural assumptions. The danger is that this may occur at the cost of their own indigenous traditions.

UNESCO has argued that when urban, individualistic, images of life are part of the cultural agendas of Western media, people in developing countries will aspire to these to be modern. The long term effects of technological innovations on cultural traditions have not yet been well documented. It may be, that in racing to embrace modernism and technological innovations, social and traditional patterns of life will be altered to the extent that local traditions may be irrevocably changed. The cultural values of individualism, secularism, and feminism are not all recognized as desirable in other cultures which place higher values on religion, group efforts and well defined gender roles (McIsaac, 1993). Course materials designed with a particular cultural bias embedded in the instruction may have a negative effect on learning.

Moral issues surrounding loss of local culture can result from wholesale importation of foreign values. At the minimum, educators engaged in technology transfer should analyze local social customs and consider those customs, whenever possible. Such social conventions as extended hospitality, differing perceptions of time and the perceived importance of the technology project can all affect the credibility of the program and, ultimately, its success (McIsaac & Koymen, 1988).

Course designers should first determine the underlying assumptions conveyed by the educational message being designed. Designers should consider the social and political setting in which the lessons will be used. They should determine whether the instructional design model has implicit cultural and social bias. And finally tacit messages and hidden agendas should be examined and eliminated wherever possible so that course materials do not reflect particular ideological points of view. Distance education research in course design should include programs of social research which explore the effects of technological innovations on cultural traditions.

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