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Integrating Technology into Distance Teaching at The Open University of Israel

by Sloan-C

I. INTRODUCTION

To create a more effective learning environment and extend access to a more diverse set of learners, while controlling spiraling costs, the Open University of Israel (OUI) has decided to introduce improved educational strategies and new ways of organizing its distance teaching and learning methods.

In the framework of distance education, technology offers an opportunity to facilitate some of the target learning goals, such as entail a dialogue between teacher and student. This dialogue should be discursive, adaptive, interactive and reflective. It should allow students to ask more probing questions, and enable teachers to devise assignments that help students confront their beliefs and test their skills. Electronic mail and computer conferencing may provide students with more thoughtful means of discourse and communication, as well as more and better feedback than ever before from their peers, from distant experts, and from their instructor. It is believed that certain media, particularly those which combine audio-visual display and telecommunication, have the potential to mediate more of the teaching goals and learning activities [1], [2].

By coordinating and integrating diverse instructional technologies OUI aims at the following goals:

• Improve and upgrade instruction:
  a. Take advantage of multimedia aids capable of transmitting study material with accuracy and speed.
  b. Allow for an ongoing dialogue between students and their teachers or their fellow students by using electronic facilities and providing better feedback.
  c. Provide learning possibilities which do not depend on time, place or means of instruction, while allowing students to choose and control interactive learning processes to suit their needs and styles.
  d. Open up new avenues to students (e.g., access to data banks), and offer more opportunities for practice.

• Enhance student outreach and retention:
  a. Broaden student range and recruit from new groups (i.e., by bridging over geographical barriers).
  b. Improve access for students with learning disabilities.
  c. Improve advice to students on course selection.
  d. Increase retention through a better support system and an enhanced quality of learning.

II. THE CENTER FOR THE DESIGN OF DISTANCE TEACHING METHODS - SHOHAM

The Center for Design of Distance Teaching Methods -- SHOHAM -- was set up by OUI in 1995 as an academic center to develop and assimilate new distance learning methods, by incorporating state-of-the-art technologies into the existing course development and teaching procedures. These technological innovations are incorporated as required into the written course materials which the OUI produces in the various disciplines. SHOHAM faces an exciting challenge: How to deliver personalized, easily updated, performance-focused, learner controlled multimedia learning tools and information to the desktop, the office or the student's home, as well as to study centers and laboratories. This challenge is currently met by integrating technologies into the following three modes of distance teaching [3]: Independent Learning (Telecourses and Multimedia courseware), Distributed Classrooms (Interactive Distance Learning delivered via satellite to many remote sites), and Learning Community (Computer Mediated Communication and Informatics). An integrated learning environment, based on an effective convergence of all three modes of distance teaching, is currently in its initial stage. This innovative project is aimed at integrating synchronic and asynchronic modes of learning into a cohesive and coherent resource-based learning environment.

A. Independent Learning
This mode of distance teaching assumes that students are studying alone, that each student controls the pace of learning, and that learning takes place at different times and in different places. Instruction is material-based and interaction is formalized. Accordingly, instructional technology approaches to Independent Learning at the OUI are based on: correspondence study (text-book and other written material); TV assisted teaching (Telecourses; TV cable stations; VCR), and multimedia interactive courseware (CD-ROM).

1. TV assisted teaching - Telecourses
A number of companies around the world have been engaged in the development of "telecourses," study packages of academic courses that are transmitted via television and accompanied with study guides and/or textbooks. Such foreign produced telecourses are thoroughly reviewed by the academic staff of the OUI, and some are adopted and then adapted and translated into Hebrew. The OUI creates telecourses in areas where courses are scarce and in which television has an obvious advantage.

In addition, television broadcasts (on cable TV) accompany many of the OUI courses. Some of these broadcasts are produced by the University expressly for its courses and others are quality films acquired by the University for its educational purposes.

2. Multimedia interactive courseware
The OUI develops computerized, interactive supplementary learning facilities that combine text, image, video and sound (CD-ROM, diskettes). Multimedia integration is designed to afford easier access to masses of up-to-date information, and to encourage inquisitive studying. It generally falls into the following categories: data banks; computerized lessons and exercises: problem solving tasks; displays and simulations: and laboratory experiments. Several multimedia courseware programs, displays and assisting material, are currently being developed in various fields of study. In addition, selected multimedia courseware, produced by others, is adapted and integrated into the OUI courses.

B. Distributed Classrooms
This mode of distance learning is based on a simultaneous distribution of teaching from a central location to groups of students at different locations. The pace of learning and the material is instructor/institution based, and spontaneous on-line interaction may occur. The OUI approach to Distributed Classrooms mode is based on interactive satellite communication.

Interactive Studies via satellite (Ofek)
Ofek (meaning HORIZON in Hebrew) is a system for interactive distance learning via satellite. The system enables the instructor to deliver a "live" lesson from a central studio concurrently to any number of classrooms within the footprint of the satellite. The compressed digital video is addressed only to the classrooms that are selected and ready to receive it. The students in these remote classrooms can participate in the lesson by means of voice communication and data communication. Instruction via Ofek provides the lecturer with the most advanced aids and technological means to improve the quality of instruction and the internalization of knowledge by the students.

The OUI has established its instructional program via satellite, creating an extensive outreach throughout Israel. A broadcasting system was set up at the main campus. It comprises a central computer and two studios fully equipped to process a broad range of visual information. The equipment in each studio consists of three video cameras, two PCs and a Mac computer used for computations and multimedia presentations, a special writing board, a color scanner, audio sources, CD and tape. Classrooms throughout the country are equipped with computerized monitoring system and regular telephones connected via satellite enabling students to speak to the lecturer at the center and to enter their computerized responses. At present Ofek supplies academic courses and inservice teacher training courses, as well as some corporate training.

C. Learning Community
This mode of teaching functions at both the individual level and the group level ("virtual community"). It is self-paced within group norms, resource-based and occurs at different times and different places. The interaction (student to student and faculty to student) is spontaneous. The Learning Community is based on Computer Mediated Communication (CMC). This includes:

• Asynchronous telecommunications media.
• The creation of a virtual campus.
• Access to large data bases, hypermedia stacks, video, and text material

1. Computer Mediated Communication --Telem
The Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) project at the OUI, Telem, is an experimental project in which each student is connected to the central system and to each other through a modem and communication software. There are three types of CMC that are utilized in Telem: electronic mail, computer conferencing, and the Internet/World Wide Web, which at present all come together in integrated software packages. Electronic mail provides asynchronous communication between students and tutors, and submission and marking of students' assignments. Computer conferencing provides group communication (many-to-many), literary discourse, and interactive, reflective and asynchronous communication; discussions are adaptive and flexible. The Internet provide, ready access to libraries and resources, easy communication with the academic community, navigation assistance in searching resources, a bank of course-related audio/visual items, and potentially a network of tutors all over the world.

In order to make CMC a common reality, students and tutors must have the necessary equipment at home, and be both prepared and sufficiently trained to use it for this purpose. A reliable and pedagogically effective handling system has yet to be developed, that provides an effective moderator function. In addition, there is an urgent need for high quality contents and course material to be in an effective manner on the web, utilizing the potential added value of such media (e.g., hypertext, hypermedia, mapping and navigation tools.

2.Informatics
This project is in its initial planning stage. The aim is to reach a stage where the University libraries' enormous resources of knowledge and expertise will become accessible to the OUI faculty and students through new electronic links and made available wherever they are needed. Students will work with research data once available only to specialists. They will explore subjects in the media best suited to the material and to their own learning styles, drawn from a palette of text, sound, video, and still pictures. Researchers in more fields will use visualization tools to find patterns, understand relationships, and work with ideas as metaphors and images.

D. Integrated Educational Technology Environment
This R&D project aims at developing innovative learning environments with the intent of combining the benefits from all existing technologies and modes of distance teaching. The focus is on developing the necessary instructional and educational foundations for tomorrow's state-of-the-art learning centers, including the home and the work place as required by a society that strives for Life Long Learning (LLL)

The goal of the project is to build a high-quality, well integrated learning environment, consisting of both synchronic and asynchronic integrations. The main Learning principles of this project are:

• Active and interactive resource-based learning in various formats (text, video, audio and multimedia interactions with an on-going feedback).
• Self --and collaborative-- learning which utilizes both synchronic interaction (live distance teaching sessions) and synchronous interaction (before and after the live sessions).
• Modify teacher's role from lecturing to moderating, coaching, tutoring and facilitating the learning process.
• Preparing modular materials which enable tailored and customized learning (on-demand and just-in-time).

III. CONCLUSION

The integration of advanced technology into the distance teaching process opens up a wide range of opportunities to improve access and quality of services to students, and to bridge geographical barriers while preserving a learning environment and high academic standards. All these can be achieved in an effective and economical manner. However, integrating the hardware technology will not, in and of itself, solve the problems. What matters is how the technology is to be used to achieve the targeted pedagogical goals.

As distance education has evolved, so too have the roles of student, teacher and institution in the system. Distance education no longer has a distinct pedagogy common to all its forms. The pedagogy of synchronous remote classroom teaching resembles the pedagogy of traditional classroom teaching more than that of asynchronous correspondence teaching [1]. The development of the proper pedagogy most suited to each mode of distance education remains a challenge.

The integration of advanced technology into higher education in general, and into the Open University's teaching process in particular, presents an excellent opportunity to improve the services available to students. The OUI has a unique character and relative advantage as a distance-education institution which maintains high academic standards and keeps abreast of changes and innovations. Therefore, the university intends to move ahead with this innovative approach at a pace and on a level that will put it in the forefront of this important field.

By diversifying distance education facilities, the OUI will enable more students from such target populations as soldiers, teachers, disabled students and new immigrants to join its ranks. It will also be possible to make these facilities available to potential students around the world (e.g., Jewish communities overseas). In addition, networks for collaborative course development with scholars overseas can become feasible. Development efforts in this area are designed to make the system more flexible and better adapted to the pedagogical needs of special groups (including students with specific disabilities). Furthermore, these modern technologies can, to some extent, compensate students for the absence of a university campus and create a virtual campus.

IV. REFERENCES

1. Daniel, S. J., (1995). The mega-universities and the knowledge media: Implications of the new technologies for large distance universities. Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an MA degrees at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.
2. Laurillard, D., (1993). Rethinking university teaching: a framework for the effective use of educational-technology. Routledge, London and New-York.
3. Miller, G. E., (1995). Long term trends in distance education. Presented in a conference organized by the International University consortium. University of Maryland, College-Park.