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A brighter side of SARS When universities
and schools in Hong Kong were forced to close in the first weeks
of the SARS crisis, one educational institution remained relatively
unaffected: the Open University of Hong Kong, whose student body
largely comprises distance learners. "We continued
to develop, review, produce and deliver our courses; we continued
to support students via the telephone, e-mail, the electronic library,
the Open for Learning TV programmes on TVB Pearl without interruption,
or have them greatly diminished by the crisis," says Dr. Yuen
Kin Sun, Head of the Open University of Hong Kong's Educational
Technology and Publishing Unit. "Distance learning students
have a flexibility that was not available to students following
conventional education. Studying at the traditional university you
need to attend lectures and the core of the learning happens in
a classroom in the presence of fellow students and teachers. In
distance learning, much of the teaching is delivered through various
technology," he adds. It's true that
distance learners usually study in isolation. But if you think that
distance learning is like sitting on a desert island with your nose
buried in a book, think again. Over the past few decades, technological
and economic forces have worked together causing a revolution in
the industry, making the loneliness of the distance learner a matter
of personal choice, and not a given. Today's distance learner can
expect at least some of the following in their distance learning
programme: - Copies of
course materials online - Meeting fellow
students in a conference call - Attending
workshops to hone study skills - Networking
with alumni - Access to
academic databases - Face to face
tutorials It's a far
cry from the very first generation of distance learning - the simple
correspondence course - in which when you enrolled, a bundle of
printed material was sent for you to take home and study on your
own. You hardly ever met a fellow student. The printed materials
were your tutor, and the only interaction you could expect with
other humans was at the point of enrolment, feedback on end-of-term
assignments through snail mail, and the results. Birth of new
generations That first
model was frowned on by traditional educational institutions and
with good reason: It was ineffective. "The dropout rate of
students was high because this model was too uninspiring; there
had to be a more interaction," says Louise Aylward, who specializes
in editing distance learning educational materials for the Open
University of Hong Kong. "After
the Open University of UK was set up in 1969, a second generation
of distance learning methodologies developed that used a lot of
media such as study guides, tele-tutoring, and audio and video cassette
tapes, and computer-based courseware to deliver materials. Tele-tutoring
and audio and video conferencing offered a degree of student-teacher
interaction either on a one on one, or one to group basis,"
says Dr. Yuen. "A third generation, the web-based learning model - developed, which used the Internet for the delivery of multimedia subject content, for administrative functions such as distribution of university information, submission of assignments and return of marked assignment, course registration and payment of fees and so forth, and for academic communications and interaction through electronic discussion board and email; in some cases, the Internet is also used for assessment," adds Dr. Yuen. A fourth generation of distance education, known as flexi-learning model, also exists although there is uncertainty over its definition. "It could be that it pushes flexibility very far - allowing you to do the first year of your degree in the conventional mode, and the rest by distance learning. I'm not clear about the definition. However, flexibility has always been a key component of distance education," says Dr. Yuen. Convergence
with the conventional Importantly,
Dr. Yuen's conjecture of a model that combines conventional and
distance learning points to developments over the past decade within
the conventional education industry itself. Prompted by
the rising demand for continuous education among working adults
especially in Asia, the development of technology and the need to
be commercially viable in a business sense, conventional universities
have begun to absorb elements of distance learning into their programmes,
especially web-based learning. The Hong Kong
Polytechnic University, for example, embraced online learning about
five years ago, seeing in it a host of advantages - students who
attended their part-time courses could return home from lectures,
reflect on what they had learned in the classroom and post their
questions or clarify issues on discussion boards. Shy students could
use the discussion boards to speak up. Two years ago,
the Hong Kong Polytechnic University inaugurated the HKCyberU, which
uses a new model of education known as 'blended learning'- a hybrid
between distance and conventional education, using web-based learning
complemented by optional face to face tutorials. The majority of
the programme is conducted online via discussion boards, e-mail
and tele and video conferencing. The face-to-face components are
usually optional. Students are also allowed to switch back and forth
between the blended learning programme and a parallel face-to-face
programme offered by the Polytechnic University. Dr. Yuen, whose
institution the OUHK is keen to keep the flame of pure distance
education burning, says that some distance learning programmes advertised
in the media cannot be categorized as pure distance education courses
because they involve face-to-face tutorials. "These programmes
may be better described as part-time courses, because distance learning
places the onus on the course materials and does not necessarily
involve face to face learning," he says. "It's
not strictly distance learning if it isn't flexible, it doesn't
lend itself to autonomous learning, and the course materials aren't
a student's main source of learning; the three components of pure
distance learning courses," says Louise Aylward. "Distance
learning materials are specially designed to aid learning because
they are the primary source of learning as opposed to the tutor
being the primary source of teaching in face to face education.
It's not just about taking lecture notes and putting them up on
the web or making photocopies of them for distribution. They have
to be designed to provide a good learning experience where a student
internalizes the concepts that he or she is learning and is able
to apply them to a job, as opposed to just learning a lot of stuff
to reproduce at an exam, but which you may not be able to use six
months later," says Aylward. While the SARS crisis has been a tragedy to Hong Kong in many senses, for the distance learning industry, it has been an opportunity to vindicate critics. As the need for continuous learning increases with the demands of the knowledge age, modern distance learning and any related hybrids will undoubtedly play a bigger role in the lives of adults learners who wish to opt out of the classroom experience without having to bear the stigma of holding a simple correspondence qualification. |
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