These are some notes from the AECT Distance Learning division member meeting, held today.
Discussed items:

1. Outgoing officers: Vance Durrington, former past-president; and Rick West (er, me) as former communications officer

2. Renewed collaboration with QRDE. Tony Pina has done a great job re-establishing our connection with the Quarterly Review of Distance Education. IAP (the publisher of the journal) gave Tony books to give away to members, free advertising in their website and journals for the division’s Crystal Awards, and money/sponsorship for the division’s Crystal Awards and other new division awards. So we will now have a great connection with QRDE.

3. Division awards. Joanne Bentley was nominated and accepted the opportunity to run the division awards for the next few years. These are the awards that will be offered (more details on how to apply will come from the division’s listserv in the future);
Crystal Award for excellence in DL practice
Research award for DL scholarship
Special issue in QRDE of the top six papers presented at AECT. There will be also special discussed papers as part of our convention next year.

4. There is a new DL website at http://www.aectnow.org/ddl. They are working with Larry Vernon to develop a way to have a database of best practices in distance learning, as well as a virtual mentoring system for new folks just getting started with online instruction. They are also hoping to have avenues for researchers to get together for collaborations.

5. There was a lot of discussion about the role of students in the review process, and it was proposed that each proposal to distance learning next year have at least three people with terminal degrees, or practitioners with the appropriate certification. Graduate students would be encouraged to review proposals, hopefully in tandem with a faculty member, and their comments could be taken into consideration by the program planner. This proposal would be similar to what is being done in other divisions for the upcoming convention in 2008. President-elect Chris Miller is continuing the discussion on this topic on his blog, so please offer your ideas to him there.

6. See you next year in Orlando, for AECT 2008!

Tags: AECT2007, distance learning

I think it would be great for anyone attending AECT this year to blog about some of the sessions they attend. If you would like to do so, please email me at rickwest [at] uga [dot] edu and I will create a username on this blog for you.

Along those lines, here’s a link to my post on my personal blog about a session I attended that debated the educational value of F2F, online, and blended learning:

http://www.the-wests.net/rick/2007/10/25/debate-between-f2f-and-online/