Technological Developments and the Future in Distance Education

Janet Poley, President
American Distance Education Consortium (ADEC)


Kansas City, Missouri
October 30, 2000

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  1. FORECASTING The Present & The Future
    Janet Poley
    President
    American Distance Education Consortium (ADEC)
  2. Bandwidth Supply and Demand
    • Assuming new applications and 30% annual growth in usage for current applications there will be a 20 fold increase in bandwidth demand by 2001 - there is a severe oversupply: 400 times increase in supply
             Mark Bruneau and Pascal Aquirre: Renaissance Worldwide
  3. Learning Oriented Policies in A Bandwidth Crazy World
  4. Growth in DE
    • Fastest growing segment in higher ed
    • On-Campus market large
    • Movement toward “one price” per credit
    • Estimated to be $2 billion by 2003 (Merrill Lynch)
    • Not just a matter of learning environments
  5. Organizational Renewal NOT Just Money on Bandwidth
    • 1996 Telecom Act Flawed
    • Greater Concentration/Megamergers
    • Increased Costs
    • Focused Capital Away from Access and Service Innovation -Favors Network Infrastructure
    • More Connectivity than Uses

  6. The Four Cultures of the Academys
    • Collegial
    • Managerial
    • Developmental
    • Negotiating
      William Bergquist
      Jossey-Bass

  7. The Four Ethical Issues
    • Privacy
    • Accuracy
    • Property
    • Accessibility
  8. New Big Initiatives
    • The Army - SOC - SOCAD
    • Other Services Close Behind
    • Private Sector Captures Courses - WEB-CT, Pearsons, Portals
    • Global Consortia
    • ????

  9. State of the Global Net
    • Increasingly wireless-U.S. lagging
    • More languages - English 51% over-all:78% of websites-96% e-commerce
    • Developing countries lag (Africa)
    • Venture Capitals shifting outside U.S.-14 of 46 in U.S.(Europe, Asia-Pacific)
    • Open Systems:SCORM,IMS,XML,WAP

  10. Brian Hawkins:Educause
    • New Markets Smaller than Predicted? Where,What language,Willing to Pay
    • Public-on-campus residential course demand increasing
    • Understanding economics/cross-subsidies is critical
    • Institutions cannot participate effectively alone

  11. Cooperation Essential
    • “Already we see consortia emerging among institutions aligned as strong competitors in a submarket - more will be formed.”

  12. Partnerships
    • Success may come through non-profit and for-profit partnerships creating the new learning environments

  13. Faculty Motivation
    • Employment models available will increase
    • Institutions have to change and support faculty to do this in partnerships and dot.com
    • Support systems will increasingly be outsourced
  14. The Technology
    • Less Obtrusive
    • Convergence
    • Appliances
    • Unbundling
    • Learning Environment/One Piece
  15. Hawkins Continued
    • Significant Market
    • Shakeout:process driven by partnerships & consortia and ultimately the marketplace
    • No untold riches here
    • Colleges and universities will be buyers
    • Alternative models will continue to emerge
  16. The Digital Divide
    • Rural/remote
    • Underserved
    • Largely income based
    • Currently getting wider
  17. Heterick Comments on DD
    • “We should worry about the unhappily slow roll-out and high cost of high speed digital connectivity. To produce really compelling learning applications, we will most often require megabit access."
  18. ADEC Vision No More Back Roads
    • Reach into communities less than 25,000
    • HBCUs, Tribal Colleges, Hispanic Serving
    • Developing Countries
  19. Pretty Good Internet
    • DSL
    • Satellite
    • Wireless
    • LMDS
    • Radio wireless
    • Protocols
  20. Internet 2 and 3?
    • Convergence - text, audio, video
    • Aggregation - teaching templates, middleware, business processes -many will be gone - 2-3 surviving models
    • Business models - no magic answers yet - private sector is poised
    • Labor question and international partnerships
  21. Next Generation DE
    • XML
    • Sharing of Learning/Electronic Objects-Open Systems - Interoperability
    • Collaboration - Improved Tools - Both Synchronous and Asynchronous
    • Network of Servers - Caching - Getting Over the Ditch
  22. Practically This Means End of Lower Cost Productions Maybe
    • High-quality video/audio distribution
    • Interactive collaboration environments
    • Visualization of remote data
    • Remote control of instruments
    • Multimedia enhanced e-business applications
  23. Digital Universities
    • Digital Universities
    • High Performance Internet Applications
    • Intelligent Collaboratories
    • Digital Technology
    • Transfer Systems
    • Information Engineering Applications
    • E-Commerce and Business Processes
    • New Business Model
  24. New Applications
    • Virtual clinics, laboratories
    • Net-based virtual auditoriums
    • Animations
    • Streaming and teleconferencing
    • Internet voice telephone
    • Revived MOOs and MUDs
    • Graphical virtual reality
  25. Net-based Auditorium
    • New idea - stay at home - no learning center - all the features of a smart classroom -slides, application sharing, student voting and feedback at a distance.
    • Requires pentium machine, client tools (plug-ins)-Centra Software’s symposium system-Place Ware’s auditorium system

  26. Check Out Applications
  27. More Applications

  28. Best of On-Line
    • Learner Centered
    • Learner Motivation Critical
    • Learning Environments/Resources only one part
    • Communication with Faculty and Peers Critical
    • Assessments - Cont/Summative
  29. The Real Digital Divide
    • “At the current roll-out rate of our phone companies’ digital subscriber line technology and the cable companies symmetrical broadband services, we will be severely limited in what we can design in the way of new learning environments for quite some time to come.”
  30. New View
    • Less Canned
    • More Design
    • Big Opportunities for Software
    • May Really Be More Like CAD/CAM
    • Things We Are Doing Now with Blackboard,WEB-CT etc. -Resources
    • Convergence with Administrative Systems
  31. Improving Access and Applications
    • Bandwidth offers “realism” with instructional potential for more concrete and complex symbols and visuals
    • Bandwidth offers “voice” and affect
    • Two-way offers active engagement and adaptation to learners
    • Synchronous offers immediacy and responsiveness
  32. Legal Issues
    • Access: E-Rate, FCC-wireless to tribal lands and spectrum mgt.
    • Broadband Deployment:tax incentives, NSF, PITAC
    • Distance Learning:financial aid, copyright framework - DMCA
    • IP & Copyright - Napster
  33. Legal Issues (Cont.)
    • IP: Trademark Issues, ICANN,Database Protection - .edu domain
    • Internet Content Reg: filters
    • Privacy:Students, Consumers, Opt In
    • Digital Signatures: authentication
    • Internet Taxation
    • State Issues
  34. Creating Success
    • “The most successful educational organizations - the ones that others will want to emulate - will be establishing design sensibilities that create new ideas for marketplaces as well as marketplaces for ideas.” Michael Schrage Educom Review
  35. The Full Motion Video Myth for Learning Applications
    • Television & Internet Convergence
    • 50 Years of Television Research - What Makes A Difference?
    • Sight, Sound, Text, Cueing
    • Content,Packaging,Dissemination, Manipulation,Terminals
    • Attribute Analysis, Virtual Reality
  36. Framework for Successful Change
    • In Colleges/Universities top-down bureaucratic,centralized corporate strategies don’t work and are counterproductive
    • Scarce resource today is not Bandwidth, but people who can create and innovate in the knowledge age
      R. Birnbaum
      How Academic Leadership Works - Jossey Bass
  37. Maslow Had It Right
    • The more evolved people get, the more psychologically healthy they get. More enlightened management policy is necessary in order to survive in competition, and the more handicapped an enterprise with an authoritarian policy will be.
      A. H. Maslow
      Maslow On Management - John Wiley
  38. Successful Collaborative Outcomes
    • Competence
    • Shared, Understood Goal
    • Mutual Respect, Tolerance & Trust
    • Creation and Manipulation of Shared Spaces
    • Multiple Forms of Representation
    • Continuous Communication
  39. Collaboration (cont.)
    • Formal and Informal Environments
    • Clear Lines of Responsibility but Not Restrictive Boundaries
    • Decisions Not by Consensus
    • Physical Presence Not Necessary
    • Selective Use of Outsiders for Insights
      Michael Schrage
      No More Teams