I love blogging, and particularly enjoy hearing from readers. Sometimes it’s comments, sometimes the offering a guest post, and sometimes a note concerning a resource in which I (and, by extension, my readers) might be interested. Continue reading
Tag Archives: distance education
So you want to undertake research in ODL? Start with PREST!
Whenever I’m asked how to get started with research in open and distance learning, I have a one-word answer: PREST. Practitioner Research and Evaluation Skills Training (PREST) is a comprehensive set of resources produced by the Commonwealth of Learning and the International Research Foundation in Open Learning, and it is simply the best there is. Continue reading
Guest post*: New players in distance education
Distance learning has come a long way since the days of postal correspondence courses. The greatest changes have occurred within the past five years as advances in technology and the prevalence of the Internet have opened the door to new modes of online teaching, learning and educational collaboration. Continue reading
Oh no, not another QA book!
A while back Tat Meng Wong and Insung Jung asked me to help out with the final stages of a book they were editing along with Tian Belawati: Quality Assurance in Distance Education and e-Learning: Challenges and Solutions from Asia. I happily obliged and forgot all about it until last week heard a knock at the door and there was the FedEx man with a parcel containing my copy of said book. Continue reading
Guest post*: Flexibility in learning options with distance education
It’s a simple truth that not everyone has the ability to put their life on hold so they can go to school full time. Continue reading
I had Volume 1, Number 1 … and lost it!
In your journal collection (those of you who still possess such ancient tomes), do you have any first issues? On your shelf, is there a Number 1 from Volume 1 of a journal? I have just one, and you wouldn’t have to guess too hard to know that it’s from Distance Education, launched in Australia some 32 years ago. It was a great start to a great journal, one that has been a stalwart in the field for both new and established researchers and practitioners. Continue reading
The Idea of a University: Distance Education!
With the recent flurry of interest in Cardinal John Henry Newman (don’t tell me you missed his beatification on 19 September – that’s why the Pope made his ill-fated (‘ill-fêted’?) trip to the UK), attention has been given to his warm and entrancing notion of what constitutes a university. Yes, it’s a time for reflection on what was, what’s gone, what’s now and what might be with respect to our tertiary institutions, through reflection on Newman’s lectures on The Idea of a University. Continue reading
Life by e-learning
Now I don’t often write to the newspaper (you know, the whole ‘Angry of Mayfair’ thing), but I couldn’t help myself when I read the opinion piece ‘Death by e-learning’ in the Higher Education section of ‘The Australian’ newspaper. Writtten by one Gerry O. Nolan, ‘an e-learning technical consultant at a university in Sydney’, the article made a number of what I consider to be unsupported claims related to e-learning, universities, distance education and academics. Continue reading
Whoops, another new big thing!
Oh dear, just when I was getting excited about Wolfram Alpha, Google rolls out another ‘new big thing’, Google Squared. Yes, there are similarities between the two and, interestingly, Continue reading
Conference tales
Perusing the latest blockbuster issue of Distance Education (29, 1, 2008), the article by Don Bewley on the history of ASPESA (ODLAA’s predecessor) naturally caught my eye (and so it should – Som Naidu had flagged it with me!). Building on an earlier contribution by Alistair Inglis (Distance Education, 20, 1, 7-30, 1999), Don provides a special focus on the regional activities of ASPESA, in particular the South Pacific dimension.
What I found as I read through the article was that it rekindled memories of particular incidents and people associated with conferences. Continue reading