LECTURE OUTLINE: DISTANCE LEARNING AND INTERNET-RELATED ISSUES
Distance Education and Distance Learning
Distance education refers to the institutions or instructors delivering knowledge using telecommunication or remote capabilities.
Distance learning means getting an education from a remote teaching site via TV or
computer.
Both terms are used interchangeably here.
Distance Education--A Short History
The first attempt at distance education was by correspondence in 1873, with students using self-study instructional materials. Correspondence is still used today but with limited interaction between teacher and student.
Educating individuals by correspondence was acknowledged in 1883 by the Chatauqua College of Liberal Arts.
The National University Extension Association (NUEA) was created in 1915 and widened the focus on distance education.
The University of Chicago's 1933 study indicated that distance education should be done on an experimental basis.
Distance Learning Technologies
Different technologies are being used to enhance distance learning such as radio, television, telephone, computers, and desktop video conferencing.
Radio reaches a large geographical area at a low cost, can provide the same message to a large audience, and is useful in such curriculum areas as music or language arts.
Television grew out of experimentation with radio in the 1950s, but educational television grew at a slower pace until the 1960s and 1970s, because of teacher resistance and expense.
The success of Britain's Open University fostered respect for learning that combines television broadcast, radio, correspondence work, and summer school work and led to a similar school in the United States.
The first United States Open University began in 1971 in New York and made higher education available through such means as study guides, radio and television broadcasts, and correspondence materials.
Microwave networks developed and costs improved in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Women's participation in distance education in the 1980s and 1990s led to increased demand.
Audio conferencing uses telephones to permit interactions between individuals or groups at two or more locations, via a speakerphone, microphone, amplifiers, and speakers, and is an effective way to conduct a meeting, give simple instructions, or interview a person.
Video can be delivered over distances using cable, television, satellite, microwave transmission, and closed circuit, with different levels such as one-way video, two-way video and audio, and one-way video with two-way audio. Television usually involves one-way transmission of information.
Today, schools use programs developed by the Public Broadcasting System, and CNN's Newsroom and its local stations.
This system reaches a mass audience, but has a dependence on time and lacks interaction between instructor and learner.
A telephone connection or speakerphone between two locations adds talkback capacity.
Two-way, interactive video with cameras, video monitors, and microphones simulates face-to-face instruction, with transmissions by cable, fiber optic, microwave, or digital-grade telephone lines.
Two-way, interactive video can be difficult and expensive to operate.
Computers can be used with the CD-ROM and instructional software to take a correspondence course, as the student can use still pictures and graphics along with audio conferencing for learning on the Internet, including making telephone calls over the Internet.
The teacher can supplement distance learning with e-mail, computer conferencing, and chat functions on the Web.
E-mail allows students to contact the teacher personally.
Computer conferencing allows two or more individuals to talk to each other.
A chat function allows students to type information back and forth on the Web.
Desktop videoconferencing, which allows the user to participate in a conference without leaving a location physically, can be utilized if the user has the proper hardware and software.
Hardware requirements are a network or modem connection, speakers, microphone, video camera, and computer.
Software such as White Pine's CUSeeMe or Microsoft's Net Meeting require a large bandwidth, have slow and jumpy transmissions, and require high-speed connections to work effectively.
Using the telephone lines and modem, the teacher and student can communicate with each other.
Improvements in video compression have led to faster transmissions of images.
The teacher can use a LCD projection panel connected to the computer to enlarge the group of people that can see the screen video.
Teachers can use electronic blackboards known as whiteboards, for on-screen, static images.
Different approaches to distance education include varying levels of computer and online use in courses.
The best approach focuses on student needs, content requirements, and the constraints of the situation, such as the delivery system.
The instructor can integrate reading materials into the distance learning.
Video and audio conferencing can provide interaction with classmates, instructors, and experts.
Students can receive videotapes of lessons.
The fax machine can be used to distribute assignments or announcements.
The Future of Distance Learning
Distance learning is expanding, as more schools and universities are developing two-way audio and video capabilities.
Learners are physically separated from each other and the instructor.
Instructors use audio and video conferencing and computer communication to teach.
Students can take classes from anywhere in the world, often with a flexible schedule.
Distance learning is being used in medicine, law, education, and business.
Distance learning reaches learners in remote, rural locations.
Distance learning reaches learners who are homebound, physically disabled, or unable to travel.
Distance learning can link two classrooms together, so that students can communicate with one another.
Professors throughout the United States are engaging in electronic instruction to reach a diverse audience that is inaccessible through ordinary, traditional classroom instruction.
Several universities and school districts offer distance learning and virtual degrees.
The Virtual High School was started in Massachusetts in 1996 with 43 registered high schools and 13 states registered.
Online learning is growing, in part due to expanded bandwidth, online instructional materials, and student growth in universities.
Two major online companies providing software for distance learning are WebCT and Blackboard.
Although American children are increasingly computer literate, they continue to score poorly on worldwide tests in science and mathematics.
The concept of a dynamic educational cyberspace is being developed to motivate learners and provide important instructor-student communication through technology.
Drawbacks of Distance Education
Distance learning offers many benefits, but also has drawbacks.
Distance learning can be difficult and expensive to implement.
Distance learning is technically difficult to set up and requires experts.
Distance learning requires much planning and scheduling of rooms and equipment.
Distance learning requires redesign of lessons and activities to take advantage of the technology.
Distance learning requires properly trained teachers, extra time, effort, and resources.
Distance learning technology may be misused.
Not all subjects or instructors are suited to distance learning.
Internet Issues
Computers have improved education, medical care, and business operations.
Computers have helped artists be more creative and factories and businesses operate more efficiently.
Computer advances also mean problems with Internet security, invasion of privacy, crime, identity theft, spam, plagiarism, and copyright.
Internet Security
Even though data are encrypted or encoded, it is possible to steal information on the data and difficult to verify the user's identity.
Because of security problems, many school districts are using a security system called firewall, a combination of software and hardware that protects communication from computers outside the network, to protect their systems against hackers.
Many people do not want to see unsolicited e-mail or spam on the Internet.
Gary Thuerk was the first person to send spam in 1978, an e-mail ad he sent to 600 people over a network of university and government computers.
The amount of spam sent in 2003 was 76 billion e-mails.
Spam often outnumber legitimate e-mails.
Congress and courts are attempting to lessen or prohibit spam.
E-mail accounts need to be protected by deleting spam, by users complaining to the Internet Service Provider, and by using the spam filter that comes with the browser.
Filtering and monitoring software like Cyber Patrol or Net Nanny helps ensure a safer online experience by disallowing access to inappropriate or unwanted Web sites and e-mail.
Some search engines, especially designed for student use, allow only appropriate sites to be accessed.
Privacy concerns and identity theft issues have increased, as the number of computer systems grows.
A technology called a cookie keeps records of the user's online activities on the hard drive and are "data entries sent from a Web server to a special file on your machine" (Dyrli, 1997).
Computer record matching is a positive tool in locating criminals but may allow unauthorized users access to information on someone's spending and personal habits.
the 1970s and 1980s, a series of laws were enacted to protect privacy by controlling the collection and dissemination of information.
The Freedom of Information Act (1970) gives individuals access to information about themselves collected by federal agencies.
The Privacy Act (1974) allows people to decide what data can be recorded by a government agency, and how it can be used.
The Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (1974) regulates access to public and private school grades and anecdotal records stored on computers.
The Comprehensive Crime Control Act (1984) prohibits unauthorized individuals from accessing a computer file to obtain information protected by the Right to Financial Privacy Act and protected information found in a computer file.
Viruses are a harmful force in computing today.
A virus is a set of instructions or code that infects computer files by duplicating itself, a harmful capability in computing.
Individuals write a virus or code and bury it in an existing program; when the program is loaded into a computer, the virus attaches itself to other programs that reside in the computer's memory, causing a chain reaction that infects and damages programs.
When a person inserts an infected disk into a computer's memory, the computer's files become infected.
Computers can be infected electronically, when a hacker creates a virus and sends it over phone lines to a local network; since the network is connected to thousands of computers, the infection is carried to all the connected computers.
A virus program can be a silly annoyance or a destructive force, wiping out huge amounts of data.
E-mail attachments have become a common way to spread viruses.
Viruses are hard to detect because they can be programmed to wreak havoc immediately or to lie dormant until a given future date. Viruses programmed to go off on a certain date are called "time bombs."
Worms, often confused with viruses, are destructive programs that replicate themselves throughout disk and memory, using up the computer's resources and eventually crashing the system.
Famous examples of both viruses and worms exist that have cost billions of dollars in computer disruptions.
Virus protection software such as Symantec's Norton AntiVirus and McAfee Virex scans for viruses, repairs damaged files, and prints status reports.
Currently, thousands of viruses exist, with ten to fifteen new viruses discovered every day.
The best protection against virus infection involves frequently backing up the hard disk; downloading into a single computer as opposed to a network system; using virus protection programs to check every piece of software for a virus before loading it into the computer's memory; locking the USB drive or zip disk, so they cannot be destroyed; and not opening attachments, unless the sender is known.
Some warnings about computer viruses are hoaxes.
Crime involving computers is increasing, costly, and often difficult to detect.
The cost to the nation of computer crime or abuse amounts to billions of dollars annually.
Criminals steal computers from homes and businesses, manipulate financial accounts, break into secret government computer files, and use computer on-line services to lure young people to their homes.
Research indicates that in the United States, at least 80% of businesses have been victimized by at least one criminal incident involving computers, costing up to $9 billion annually.
Security budgets for companies have increased 188% since 1998.
the early 1980s, there were no clear laws to prevent individuals from accessing military computers or White House computers.
Famous hackers such as Murphy, Zinn, Mitnick, and Levin and his Russian gang perpetrated serious criminal violations, with hacker clubs committing crimes for amusement.
Hacking is now associated with theft and fraud, although computer hackers were once seen as computer geeks who had a curiosity about how things operated.
Some computer programmers with limited access to mainframes created "hacks," or programming shortcuts to complete computing tasks faster, some of which were superior to the original program.
The best known hack was created in 1969, when Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, two Bell Lab employees, came up with an open set of rules to run computer machines and called their standard operating system UNIX.
Many hackers have gone underground, because of fear of prosecution.
Identity theft occurs when someone steals a person's identity by using that person's social security number, driver's license, or other type of identification.
The thief uses the information to purchase items, open new charge accounts, and access the person's existing accounts.
Identity theft is easy today on the Internet, because there is no human contact.
The Federal Trade Commission reported that in the past five years, 27.3 million Americans have been victims of identity theft, at a cost to businesses and individuals of $48 billion.
Protecting passwords, safeguarding computer hardware, taking caution in communicating on the Internet, and updating antivirus and firewall protection can help guard against identity theft.
Plagiarism, representing or using someone else's work as one's own without giving proper credit, is an escalating problem on the Internet.
Students' access to gigantic amounts of information makes discovering plagiarism increasingly difficult for teachers.
A high percentage of students admit to cheating and plagiarizing.
Plagiarism Web sites help teachers and others combat plagiarism, by comparing papers to billions of pages of content on the Internet.
Copyright laws are designed to protect downloaded material from the Internet, as well as books, videos, newspapers, reference materials, magazines, and software, from being copied or used without the creator's and/or publisher's permission.
Teachers should understand the Copyright Act of 1976 and be able to explain the concept of fair use, the guidelines that regulate how educators can copy and use copyrighted materials.
The use of copyrighted material by teachers should consider purpose and character of the use; nature of the work; portion used of the work; and effect of use on the marketplace.
