Study Shows High Speed Internet Access Growing

The Pew Internet and American Life Project offers two encouraging statistics for technology-based educational programs. In this May 2006 offering, Pew reports that 42% of Americans now have high-speed Internet access at home and that 48 million Americans have posted content to the Web. As access and digital expression become the norm, students will more quickly be able to grapple with information literacy concepts, rather than using time to learn the basics of working with computers in distributed learning environments...(Pew Internet & American Life Project)

Read more

Report Outlines Components of Quality Distance Learning

“Evidence of Quality in Distance Education Programs Drawn from Interviews with the Accreditation Community” is a March 2006 report from the Department of Education’s Office of Postsecondary Education. The report is divided into the areas of mission, curriculum and instruction, faculty support, student and academic services, planning for sustainability and growth, and evaluation and assessment. The section on planning for sustainability and growth deserves particular attention as a grounded reference to the level of resources needed to offer truly high quality distance education...(Instructional Technology Council)

Read more

Textbooks Reconsidered

“Reconsidering the Textbook” is an NSF-funded workshop that was held May 24-26, 2006. It asked the questions: “Will there be textbooks in the future? If so what will they look like, who will create them, and how will they best serve our students?” Learner engagement and place-based curricula relying on mobile information sources were two key concepts explored...(National Science Foundation)

Read more