Teaching with Technology

http://www.usdla.org
All,
I have chosen the U.S. Distance Learning Association (USDLA) journal; Distance Learning, for Educators, Trainers, and Leaders, as my selection for CTCH 603. At first glance, the journal looked kind of “cheesy” (lots of pictures/advertising, short 2-3 page articles, etc), so I didn’t think it would fly. However, once I dived in, there were a number of articles that grabbed my attention. Specifically, “Establishing Remote Military Leaning Centers”; something I experienced first-hand while stationed in Germany in the 1980’s. Also, there were studies on teaching subjects with traditionally high levels of student/teacher interaction in the classroom and the difficulties in presenting these same subjects in a distance learning environment (more on these two topics in the weeks to come).
The USDLA was established in 1987 as the first non-profit Distance Learning association in the United States formed to support distance learning research, development and praxis across the complete arena of education, training and communications. The learning communities that USDLA address are K-12, higher education, continuing education, corporate training, military, government, home schooling and telemedicine. Importantly, USDLA focuses on all legislation impacting the distance learning community and its constituents. The USDLA Public Policy Committee is tackling a number of issues currently of interest to the distance learning community:
• Require that teacher preparation institutions restructure pre-service and in-service programs to recognize the importance of integrating communication and information technologies in education.
• Maintain the protections for copyright holders and users that exist in current legislation and agreements to include the revision of legislation to accommodate digital technology.
• Continue to support programs, certificates, and course content development, including distance learning delivery options, to ensure quality learning materials will be available over the nation’s expanding educational networks.
The USDLA Journal, also established in 1987 was the first academic, peer reviewed, national journal dedicated solely to distance learning. The journal transitioned to being on-line in 1999 and is dedicated to the dissemination of ongoing distance learning research both in the United States and internationally. The association’s web-site is easy to navigate and has a number of drop-down menus to explore. Menu items include: free resource downloads, free downloads of professional papers and white papers on distance learning, a distance learning glossary and more. Today, distance learning is providing undergraduate and advanced degrees to students around the world. Corporate America is using distance learning to retrain many of today’s workers to keep up with the pace of technological changes. I have a strong interest in supporting the military overseas through distance learning and feel that this journal will help anyone in understanding the intricacies of distance learning as well as provide solid and effective teaching advice. Whether you agree that distance learning is as effective as traditional in-classroom teaching or not, it is here to stay and is worth a look.