1. How long have you been an instructor for distance education courses? In what field of study?


since 1996


2. What do you think are the advantages of distance education?


it really depends on (a) what you mean by distance education, as there are many different models and (b) what populations you are trying to serve. As with any form of education, you are looking for alignment between learner / customer needs and the your form of provision. Assuming that you are referring to the form of distance education currently practiced at this university, I would say the chief advantages are that more students can participate in graduate degrees, specifically Master's. Typically, these are students that are working fully time, that also usually have family obligations as well.


3. What do you think are the disadvantages of distance education?


Again, assuming you are referring to this university, group or team work remains an elusive and difficult thing to do with the CAETE program. Also, their (CAETE's) new delivery software, Tegrity, is a complete and utter disaster that forces everyone to have a simplistic, powerpoint driven pedagogy.


4. What kind of technologies are being used to deliver your lectures and the course work (video streaming, email, instant messenger, CD-ROMs, web pages, conference calls, online reference books, etc.) to your students?

• all of the above except IM
• it is all about choice

5. Which forms of these technologies are most effective?


again, this question cannot be answered in the abstract, because it depends on your educational objectives. Distance education is no different from other forms in this respect. You have to decide what you are teaching and what is the most effective pedagogy first, and then select and integrate technologies to support these goals.


6. What would you like to see changed/improved in these technologies?


can't answer, see (5)


7. Do you think there is effective collaboration/interaction amongst instructor/student and student/student in a distance education setting? If not, in what ways could it be improved?

• instructor / student is fine and in many cases , a few phone calls exceeds the instructor contact that most students receive in traditional lecture courses
• student / student continues to be problematic

8. Have you ever taught "traditional" higher-education courses? How does instruction for distance education compare?


This question does not make sense of this campus as all of our distance ed courses are combined, serving both on campus and remote students simulataneously.


9. What aspect(s) of traditional education are lacking the most in distance education?


boring lectures


10. What aspect(s) of distance education are an improvement over the "traditional" educational system?


a customer-oriented (student-centered) mentality can be promoted through the business models adopted by many distance education providers.