Rural and remote learners are disadvantaged even with online provision due to poor connections. Broadband offers a potential solution. This paper looks at the initial results of a project to install broadband services in the Western Isles of Scotland. It focuses on the educational potential of broadband and the design implications for online…

This is a report of the role of Distance education (DE) in enhancing education and training in developing countries. As countries compete in an ever more challenging international marketplace, they recognize the need to continually train and upgrade their citizenry. As national leaders struggle to cope with increasing populations and decreasing…

"Keeping Pace" has several goals. First, it strives to add to the body of knowledge about online education policy and make recommendations for advances. Second, it serves as a reference source for information about programs and policies across the country, for both policymakers and practitioners who are new to online education as well as those who…

NS-eCMS is developing an open web-based content management, communication, and collaboration eLearning platform that addresses the specialized requirements for distance education in natural sciences. The federated architecture enables straightforward development, exchange, and publication of material through open standards like XML/MathML. The…

Technology in secondary schools has become of increasing interest as the power of the microchip has developed. For the students of Mathematics, computers and handheld graphic calculators need to be accessible to all. They are relevant to the needs of the students' courses and to support and develop their Mathematical learning (Smith, 1997).…

This study measured the importance of training for higher education faculty and administrators in adapting to and implementing distance education courses in an interactive television (ITV) environment. The quasi-experimental study utilized a pretest-posttest control group design with Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) used to analyze the data. The…

Faced with a shortage of suitably qualified teachers in many subject areas, the United Kingdom Government has set up a number of initiatives to explore ways of supporting students' learning in classes taught by underqualified subject specialists and classes with no specialist teacher. One such initiative has been the Key Stage 3 (11-14 age range)…

This article presents a case example of a unit of study conducted in an Australian university that interfaced online and problem-based learning. The case example is presented in relation to the broader social, economic and technological climate characterizing higher education in the twenty-first century. Monash University's response to changes in…

This report is the third in a series of annual reports looking at the state of online education across the country. The goal of "Keeping Pace" is to be a useful document for policymakers and practitioners, and as such it takes a journalistic approach to research and writing instead of an academic approach. This report has two goals: first, to add…

New technologies are transforming the business simulation industry. The technologies come from research in computational fields of science, and they endow simulations with new capabilities and qualities. These capabilities and qualities include computerized behavioral simulations, online feedback and coaching, advanced interfaces, learning on…

This paper is the first in a two part series, this first part describes the findings from visits to two isolated and remote schools in the far north of Western Australia in 2001, the second part to be published in the next issue of AEC will describe a visit to the same schools in late 2003 to see what has changed. Parts of this first paper were…

"Interactive Multimedia in Education and Training" emerges out of the need to share information and knowledge on the research and practices of using multimedia in various educational settings. The book discusses issues related to planning, designing and development of interactive multimedia in a persuasive tone and style, offering rich research…

Interactive television (iTV) is a new media technology that has great potential for supporting second language learning, particularly for independent adult learners. It has many characteristics demanded by modern second language (L2) learning theories and is technologically quite sophisticated. However, in order for it to succeed it needs to fit…

There is little doubt that the advent of collaborative technologies in recent years has brought some significant changes in the way students learn, communicate, and interact with one another. In recent years, this emergence has sparked increased interest for research into the role and impact of instructional technologies on group learning. Despite…

This paper discusses a framework for designing online tasks that capitalizes on the possibilities that the Internet and the Web offer for language learning. To present such a framework, we draw from constructivist theories (Brooks and Brooks, 1993) and their application to educational technology (Newby, Stepich, Lehman and Russell, 1996; Jonassen,…