¶ … Teaching Online Courses
Just as the first automobiles were built to travel across dirt roads but were later redesigned for pavement, so education must be reshaped frequently to assure that generally practices are formed with respect to new information, political dynamics, and technologies. The advent of high-speed, high-bandwidth communication technologies has dramatically affected the face of education. Technology integration in the classroom is now not only common, but expected or even required. Academic Senate for California Community Colleges' publication, entitled "Guideline on Minimum Standards for College Technology," states that "students should have access to...computers for campus computer instruction[,]...campus technology mediated instruction[, and]...computer assignments from any class," in addition to "computers for Internet assignments" and "computers for e-mail communication to instructors" (Guidelines).
This change is largely in part to the ubiquity of technology in daily life. Affordable home computers have brought technology into the home, and as the generation of students that grew up with computers in the household are now entering college, state-of-the-art hardware and software is becoming a necessity for community colleges to remain competitive with larger state schools. To that end, the Academic Senate recommends "comprehensive replacement plans to maintain currency of all technology" (Guidelines).
Distance learning courses are the inevitable child of advances in communication technology. Because human resources are a huge drain on a community college's limited funding, the use of technology to allow a single teacher to teach many more students than they could otherwise manage was natural. Teachers now have access to "such diverse learning strategies as computer assisted instruction, real-time two-way interactive video, multimedia presentations, electronic bulletin boards, and e-mail" (Curriculum). This allows them to create resources for students that can take the place of face-to-face time.
Works Cited
Curriculum Committee Review of Distance Learning Courses and Sections." Academic Senate for California Community Colleges. Nov. 1995. 29 Oct. 2006 http://www.academicsenate.cc.ca.us/Publications/Papers/distance_learning_review.html.
Guidelines on Minimum Standards for College Technology." Academic Senate for California Community Colleges. Spring 2000. 29 Oct. 2006 http://www.academicsenate.cc.ca.us/Publications/Papers/Guidelines_minimum_standards.html.
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