Grein þessi birtist í Educational Media International. Júní 1997.

Abstract: The Internet is increasingly used in all education. In January 1993 the University College of Education in Reykjavik launched a distance education B.Ed-programme. This article gives a brief overview of an evaluation of the programme that was carried out in the years 1993-96. Selected findings are introduced with special emphasis on the use of the Internet. At the end there are some speculations about the future use of the Internet in education. But at the outset, few words about distance education in general.

Distance education

“Can anything be done for the education of my two boys?” wrote a settler, who lived far from any school in Beech Forest in Australia, to the Victorian Educational Department in May 1914 (Holmberg, 1986:12). The need for education in rural and isolated areas has been the force to start many distance education programmes all over the world. There are also other reasons for the growth of distance education. Some major changes in our society have started a wave of distance or correspondence educational programs. In the industrial revolution and during the first world war there was a wave of distance or correspondence programs. The discovery and evolution of new media, first the radio and then television gave way for many distance education programs all over the world (Garrison, 1989:52). Last but not the least computer communications have brought a new dimension to distance education.
Today the demands for distance education are not entirely the same as before. Travelling is easy nowadays and therefore the isolation is decreasing everywhere. But there is growth in in-service training and “lifelong education”. People of all ages are going to schools, colleges and universities to further their education. The main reasons for this are the great changes in our society. New developments in all fields are calling for new knowledge and skills. Distance education plays a big role there and will probably play an even bigger role in the future. It is much easier to take a distance course where one can choose the time and place to study than to go on a course at prefixed times and place. This is one of the reasons the University College of Education in Reykjavik offered its B.Ed. distance course.

BEd distance programme

In August 1996 a group of 54 teachers graduated from KHI (Kennarahaskoli Islands – the University College of Education in Reykjavik). They were a part of the 78 students who started on a distance education B.Ed. programme in January 1993. This was the first time KHI offered students the opportunity to get a B.Ed. degree by only attending traditional face-to-face courses twice a year, for two or three weeks each time in January and June. Between these courses the study was distance-based.
The students on the course came from all parts of the country but mostly from rural areas because one of the aims of the programme was to give the people in rural areas the opportunity to get B.Ed. degree without moving. (Mýrdal 1994:46). Most of the students were working as they started on the course. Half of them full-time but only about 17% were in less than 25% job. The majority of them or about 90% had experience of some kind of educational work mostly as unqualified primary or nursery teachers but some of them were qualified as nursery teachers.

The Evaluation of the Program

At the outset evaluation project was planned and data gathered from January 1993 until October 1996, after the first students had graduated. The main themes explored in this evaluation were:

• the overall organisation and administration of the programme;
• the lecturers’ preparation for this new task;
• the characteristics and composition of the students’ group;
• the reasons for the students’ choice of distance learning;
• the students’ working styles on the course;
• students work load;
• distance communication between the lecturers and students;
• communication and co-operation between the students;
• the use of computer communication via the Internet;
• support to the students from none-teaching staff of KHI;
• the face-to-face courses;
• teaching practise;
• examination;
• the aims of the programme;
• the attitude to the distance education (DE) programme;
• the students’ future plans.

Various methods were used for data gathering

• Four questionnaires were administered to the students, in January 1993, April 1994, January 1995 and the last one in September and October 1996.
• Nineteen of the students were interviewed formally, some of them more than once.
• In March 1996 a questionnaire was administered to the lecturers of KHI who had taught on the de-programme.
• Thirteen formal interviews were taken with the lecturers and other staff of KHI.
• All e-mail communications on the programme’s postlists were gathered.
• The students’ usage of the Internet was counted and timed.
• Four students kept diaries for a part of the time.

The data gathering ended in October 1996 and a final report will be finished early in 1997.

The use of the Internet

Here the focus will primarily be put on the use of the Internet on the programme. As the programme started it was decided to use the Internet for communication between lecturers and students. At that time telnet was the kind of connection most users used and the WorldWideWeb was still wet behind its ears and not many had even heard of it. Therefor e-mail was mainly used all through the programme as well as telnet access to a library catalogue and gopher to search for and obtain information on the Internet. Neither the students nor the lecturers had much experience in computer communication when the programme started. In the first questionnaire that was administered to the students in January 1993 they were asked about their experience both in the use of computers and also computer communication (Figures 1 and 2).

Although a great majority of the students had no experience at all of computer communication they very soon became familiar with this new way of communicating. In just a few months the Internet had become a part of their learning environment both in communicating with the lecturers and also each other. In the 1995 questionnaire it can be seen how big a role the Internet played in the students’ work (Figure 3).

Figure 4 records the Internet usage of the 32 students whose logons were counted all the time. On the graph the usage is divided into terms that is from January through June and July through December each year.

The average number of logons per student during the whole of the programme is a bout 100 each term (Figure 4). The difference between individuals is extreme from 20 logons up to 480 per term which is from about once a week up to three times a day.
The length of the logons is also different (Figure 5), but most of them are very short, only several minutes or probably just for checking and/or sending e-mail.

The face-to-face part of the course
Almost every one of the students felt the need for the face-to-face courses in addition to the network communication. In both the 1994 and 1995 (Figures 6 and 7) questionnaires the students were asked how they felt about having no face-to-face courses.

In the 1994 questionnaire about 80% strongly disagreed or disagreed and in the 1995 questionnaire about 90% strongly disagreed or disagreed. In many of the interviews the students also said that they wanted to meet the other students and they also wanted to meet the lecturers not only for getting lectures but rather for the personal contact.

Communication and dialogue
The students’ need for communication and dialogue between the face-to-face courses was very strong. This can be seen from questionnaires and interviews with the students as well as their diaries. Some of the students formed local groups for supporting each other. The groups used the E-mail and telephone for communication and they also met every now and then to study. These students tended not to have as strong need for communication with their lecturers between the face-to-face courses as the others.

Forms of communication
In the lecturers’ questionnaire they were asked how much they used various ways of communicating with the students, that is: face-to-face, computer communication, telephone, ordinary mail and fax.
Figure 8 shows cumulative percentages of all the lecturers’ answers. If the face-to-face communications which mostly took place on the face-to-face courses are left out, almost 70% of the remaining communications are by computer.

Other findings
One of the fundamental questions is whether the quality of the distance program is the same as the traditional one. In the lecturers’ questionnaire, 7 of the aims from KHI’s curriculum were listed. The lecturers were asked whether they thought these aims were better achieved on the distance B.Ed. programme, the traditional one or if they thought there was no difference. Majority of the lecturers thought that all of the aims were equally well achieved on both programmes. In all except one the rest thought that the aims were better achieved on the traditional programme.
If the lecturers were divided into three groups according to their use of the Internet in their communication with the students, there is a correlation between the use of the Internet and their opinion that the aims can be equally as well achieved on both programmes.
Although those are preliminary results, one can assume that the programme has proved to be successful. The problems were mainly in the beginning for example the lecturers claimed that more training would have been desirable. Valuable experience has been gained which should enable KHI to be in better position to undertake new tasks in this field in the future.

The future

A class of 8 years old was getting the first lesson in Icelandic history. The teacher had divided them into groups and they were doing a project on the first settlers who came to Iceland around the year 874. One group was making a model of a Vikingship, another the animals that they thought the Vikings brought with them, and the third the tools that they would have taken with them. When the teacher was walking around looking at their work she noticed that the group working on the tools had made a TV. As a good teacher she stopped and said to the children, “This is a nice TV you have made, but do you think that the Vikings had a TV?”. “Yes” the children said without hesitation. The teacher trying to let them discover their fault, said “but the Vikings came here a long, long, long time ago”. “Yes we know”, said the children, “this is black and white TV”. This is not only a good pedagogical story but it also reminds us of how fast the technology is moving us into the future. The technology we see the glimpse of today will be a part of our daily life tomorrow.
A lot has been written about technology in distance education. We must always bear in mind that learning is a process that takes place in the student’s mind. In distance education the technology acts as a bridge between the participants and is mostly used to substitute the physical connection. In most education there is a strong need for interaction. The one who is being educated needs to discuss what she or he is learning with the educator and others. The story of the Viking TV shows in a very simple way this need for two-way communication. Is also very clear in the research on the de-course that the students have a strong need for interactive communication.
As stated in the beginning of this article, computer communications have brought a new dimension to distance education. The Internet will make dramatic changes in distance education as it has the technical capability to transmit written words, audio and video. This is not tomorrow’s technology it is possible today but the needed equipment is not yet a part of our ordinary home. The Internet is making the two-way communication and interaction easy. The only difference soon to be left between distance and traditional on-campus education is the physical separation of the participants.
Through the years the making of special learning material has characterised distance education. The main reason for this is the lack of possibilities for two-way communication between a student and a teacher. Therefore much of the learning material that has been produced for distance education is almost do-it-yourself material suitable for self study. This has probably distinguished distance from traditional education the most.
The Internet will without doubt narrow the gap between traditional and distance education. There will not be as much need for special distance learning material because the Internet is an interactive or two way media. It will give the opportunity for real-time audio/video discussions between participants both in groups individually. In this manner the Internet will narrow the gap from the distance education side.
As an excellent tool for making and presenting learning material the Internet especially the Web will be much more used for those in traditional on-campus education. In this manner the Internet will narrow the gap from the traditional education side. It will also be widely used for searching and gathering information both in traditional and distance education.
If and when distance education does not need special learning material any more and the skills in using the Internet have become a part of educators daily routine more and more Universities and other educational institutions will be in better position to offer distance or mixed programmes for students across the world. Because of its low cost and wide accessibility it is likely that the Internet will replace the radio and TV in distance education and be the main media in both traditional and distance education in the nearest future.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to acknowledge the helpful comments contributed by his supervisors at University of Strathclyde, Mrs. Moira Laing and Prof. Douglas Weir, the rector of the University College of Education in Reykjavik Thorir Olafsson and the former director of the DE-programme Sigurjon Myrdal.

References

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