The Division of Distance Learning

I’ve just learned that I’m officially on the AECT Board as liaison for the Division of Distance Learning. I’m pleased to have accepted the post to complete the unfilled term of Susan Jones. My term expires in October, 2008, when the member we elect in January will start a new three-year term.

For those who don’t know me, I’ve been a member since 1998, and an intern at the last spring convention in Long Beach 2000. I’ve been president of DL and a member of several committees and task forces. I had a bit to do with re-establishing the Graduate Student Lounge at the Denver 2000 convention and, with a lot of help and a lot of work from a lot of people, that’s grown to be an excellent part of the larger AECT family. I’m probably most infamous for being a curmudgeon.

DL is my home in AECT because distance education is my specialty field and my passion. Having spent the last 40 odd years involved in computers, networks, multiplayer games, social environments, and online activities ranging from IRC chat to Second Life, from MUD game design to MOO role play, from IM to podcast, I’m firmly convinced of the value of the technology to aid in learning. The problem that I see over and over is that the focus seems to be on education.

Back in the dark ages of my master’s program, I used to think that Education was what Teachers do and Learning is what Students do. I’ve gotten a bit more cynical in my old age. Now I think that Education is what Schools charge for, and Learning is what people do when the teachers shut up and leave them alone.

Some recurring thinking about distance education that you’ll see over the next few months as I write about AECT, the Division, and the Field here:

• As good as the classroom isn’t good enough.
• All education is at a distance. The only difference is the technology you use.
• All learning is internal to the learner. (”The phrase ‘Distance Learning’ is an oxymoron.”)

So that’s a bit of an introduction and I hope that this coming year will give us all an opportunity to engage in some interesting dialog about the the field of distance eduation, the division in particular, and the association in general.

- NL

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/

Please remember to vote for the next AECT president and board member-at-large. You can do so by reading about the candidates here and then logging in at AECT to vote.

Also, remember that we would love to have your submissions for the 2007 Conference in Anaheim. Proposals are due by February 15.

Did you know that some AECT presentations have already begun? These are the BlogTracks presentations, where folks are blogging about their topics and trying to encourage participation prior to, and during, the Dallas Convention. Come participate in the conversation and be a part of the convention regardless of whether you will be attending in Dallas!

The first BlogTracks is about the current trends in the distance learning literature. The blogs are:
http://ernisesingleton.edublogs.org/ — higher
education and distance learning
http://myunghwa.edublogs.org/ - General themes in the
literature
http://frankiejones.blogspot.com/ - distance learning
in corporate settings
http://denisedomizi.edublogs.org/ - informal learning
in distance education environments
http://janettehill.edublogs.org/ - online
collaboration/connections, and general themes from the
literature.
http://mkbvs.edublogs.org/ - virtual schools
http://rickwest.edublogs.org - general themes in
distance education literature, with some focus on cognitive dimensions of distance learning, as well as the history of DL research.

The other BlogTracks is about the journey towards developing an online presence. The blogs are:

BlogTrek: The Next Generation (Nathan Lowell)
- http://durandus.com/blogtrack/

AECT Blog Track - Hanging Out My Shingle (Michael Barbour)
- http://blogtrack06.blogspot.com/

Educational Explorations (Rick West)
- http://the-wests.net/rick/

paigeworrell.com (Paige Worrell)
- http://paigeworrell.com/aect/

The deadline for applying for the 2006 AECT Conference Internship is May 1, 2006.

You may visit the AECT Intern Blog at http://www.aect-members.org/interns to read about the program’s history, view a list of past interns, and more.

Visit http://www.aect.org/ect/ect.asp?clientid= to begin the application process.

For more information, contact Clif Mims (clifmims@memphis.org) or Sandie Waters (sandie.waters@gmail.org).

All the best,
Clif Mims

The following comes from Phil Harris:

Dear AECT Member:

You are invited to participate in AECT’s 2006 Salary Survey, available
online at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=171061881152

As part of AECT’s mission to serve and represent professionals in the
field and support professional growth we periodically survey our
membership about their employment to find out, for example, what jobs
our members do, how much they are paid, where they work, and why they
stay in their current jobs.

The information we gather from this survey will be used in a report we
will make available to our members through TechTrends, the first such
report to be offered since 1998 (see Pershing, J.A. & Lee, S.H. (1999).
Employment profiles and compensation. TechTrends, 43(6), 7-14.

This survey is both voluntary and anonymous; no information will be
obtained that will identify you, or how you have responded.

Please complete the survey by FRIDAY, APRIL 7. This should take less
than 10 minutes of your time.

Thank you for helping AECT gather information that will help you! We
greatly appreciate your participation.

Sincerely,

Phillip Harris

AECT Executive Director

The DDL elections are now underway. You can access the biographies of the candidates and cast your vote by looking for the link under “AECT and Divisional Elections Now in Progress” on the AECT homepage (http://aect.org).

Be sure to vote!

If you didn’t get your AECT proposal in on time (originally the deadline was SundaY), you have until today to turn it in because the deadline has been extended due to technical difficulties. I apologize for not getting this on the blog sooner, and thank Nate for posting to the listserv as soon as he learned of this.

If you have already turned in your proposal, good for you!

There is a new event this year, the AECT Symposium in Bloomington, ID, June 22-25. Proposals are accepted through the end of this month. For more details go to http://www.aect.org/events/, but here is a brief synopsis:

The Research Symposium is a planned bi-annual event designed to draw the best minds together for an intensive intellectual exchange of ideas on a focused topic that would culminate in the publication of a Symposium Proceedings and AECT white paper. The goal of the symposium is to bring a small group of scholars together in a format that encourages in-depth dialogue and different perspectives on predefined topics and problems. This format also has a mechanism to coalesce those different perspectives into a final paper that would be submitted to the board as an official AECT white paper, which they may chose to promote.

All presenters must register and are expected to attend. The Symposium will be Webcast.