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Make the most of what today’s technology has to offer in human services education!

Distance education presents special challenges to social work education. Using Technology in Human Services Education: Going the Distance provides case studies and practical research on making the best use of this powerful new tool for teaching. Designed for both practitioners and educators, this fascinating book examines the use of technology in education and practice in the field of social work and other human services.

Because setting up distance-learning programs can be expensive, Using Technology in Human Services Education suggests ways to reduce the impact on the budget, including setting up a consortium to merge resources with other schools. It also shows how to integrate traditional instructional approaches with the new technologies, how to make use of email and electronic discussion groups, and how to use the Internet to hone practice-related skills. In addition, it covers the current status of the technology itself.

Using Technology in Human Services Education: Going the Distance explores ways to maximize the potential of distance education, such as:

• a framework for designing distance education courses that fully utilize the unique environments these courses offer
• a discussion of the impact of technological tools in teaching specific course content
• ways that SACs (Site Advisory Committees) can increase students’ socialization into their new professions
• ways that students need to be supported in order to feel a connection to a distance-learning program
• the use of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) to help meet and identify the information needs of a field placement agency
  
  Using Technology in Human Services Education offers creative approaches and practical advice for making the best use of the technology. Whatever your level of computer skill, from novice to hacker, this book will give you ideas you can use. No individual or institution interested in maintaining top quality in human services education should be without this book!

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"A clear, jargon-free, interesting report that takes a serious look at the digital dilemma issues and provides a good perspective."
--Steven Sachs, dean of information technology, Northern Virginia Community College

This report not only examines issues of access and equity in computer-mediated education, but also explores issues of cost, affordability, quality, and effectiveness. As policymakers and institutional planners struggle to make sense of new and emerging technology, they also must be prepared to implement statewide and federal policy reforms, standardize hardware and software configurations, affirm the social nature of learning, and preserve the quality and core values of higher education. The author discusses these and other key issues of the new digital age, offering advice and recommAndations to thoughtful leaders on the "front lines" of change.

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Distance Learning in America is characterised by an enormous variety of institutions, programs, media and pedagogical methods. This book attempts to draw together an overall picture of the rapid growth and achievements in the field of American distance education and the problems and issues that confront it. The book is aimed primarily at the university and college teacher and student, and particularly at graduate students in adult and distance education and other related fields. It aims to provide a cross-sectional view of the administrative and policy issues, the questions about learners and instruction, the problems of curriculum and course design and the new conceptual and theoretical concerns of some of the country's foremost practitioners and thinkers.
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This work lists in detail the library resources that are available to those who are are being educated off-campus. ... Read more

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This book explores the challenges and the opportunities created by the rapid growth of "telematics" as European firms benefit from lower labor costs and access to big new markets in the fields of education and training. It considers job prospects and security for the developing world, and the potential a brain drain. ... Read more

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This volume contains a collection of critical reflections by teachers and administrators in open and distance education. They highlight educational problems and issues of a more general nature caused by the increased use of distance education within conventional higher education institutions. ... Read more

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Distance education, or distance learning, is a field of education that focuses on the pedagogy/andragogy, technology, and instructional systems design that are effectively incorporated in delivering education to students who are not physically "on site" to receive their education. Instead, teachers and students may communicate asynchronously (at times of their own choosing) by exchanging printed or electronic media, or through technology that allows them to communicate in real time (synchronously). Distance education courses that require a physical on-site presence for any reason including the taking of examinations is considered to be a hybrid or blended course or program. Distance education is a growth field with the development and spread of the internet. This book presents important research in this field. ... Read more

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Distance education, or distance learning, is a field of education that focuses on the pedagogy, technology, and instructional systems design that are effectively incorporated in delivering education to students who are not physically "on site" to receive their education. Instead, teachers and students may communicate asynchronously (at times of their own choosing) by exchanging printed or electronic media, or through technology that allows them to communicate in real time (synchronously). Distance education courses that require a physical on-site presence for any reason including the taking of examinations is considered to be a hybrid or blended course or program. Distance education is a growth field with the development and spread of the internet. This new book presents developments from around the globe. ... Read more

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With reference to India. ... Read more

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Distance education is arguably one of the major developments in education during the 20th Century. From schooling through to university education, distance education blossomed to facilitate frontier expansion in the New World, capacity-building in developing nations, access and equity provision in post-War societies and flexible professional development and workplace training for late-modernity. The International Handbook of Distance Education explores the array of distance education theories and practices as they have been shaped by the late-20th Century and then positions these in terms of the contemporary circumstances of the 21st Century. The Handbook is intended a comprehensive reference work for practitioners, researchers and administrators engaged in forms of distance education in private and public education, from schooling through undergraduate and postgraduate coursework to doctoral research programs. A critical thread runs throughout the Handbook to provide the reader with stimulation to critique policy and practice with a view to being creative and responsive in their own policy development and educational work.

*Discusses lifelong and flexible learning environments ... Read more

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Learning is a critical worldwide problem for humans, essentialto create a peaceful and happy world. We have serious problems inlearning in both wealthy and poor areas. New approaches to learningare needed, as the current system may not rise to the new challenges.

This book proposes a new strategy for learning, worldwide and for allages of students. Computer-based distance learning would be the majordelivery mechanism, with very large numbers of students. The veryfrequent interactions between the student and the computer would belike that with a skilled human teacher. These interactions would takeplace in the student's native language, in both directions. A typicalinteraction would be a question to a student, and a free-form studentresponse. Both voice and keyboard student input would be possible. Thelearning programs would work with each student until mastery isachieved, adapting to the needs of each. Students would be activelearners. The book begins with the problems and goals of learning. It considerspossible forms of distance learning, looking at the variablesinvolved, current examples of distance learning, and possible futureforms including examples from science fiction. It then investigatesstudent interactions, considering both frequency of interactions andthe quality of each interaction. Programs developed in the EducationalTechnology Center at the University of California, Irvine, illustratethe critical idea of tutorial learning with computers. Production oftutorial learning material and costs for a student hour of learning isdiscussed. The book ends with suggestions for future progress. Current hardware and software is fully adequate for the tasksdescribed. Development of all required learning units is a majoractivity. After this development, both better quality of learning andlower costs are very likely. Further experimental work is essential tounderstand the possibilities. ... Read more

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This book considers several aspects of providing qualityeducation at a distance:+ Quality of systems that support online learning, quality supportinfrastructure, quality of technical access and support, materialsdistribution; issues in each of these areas are considered. + Quality of teaching and learning experiences, including a rangeof institutional projects using online technologies and issues ofquality provision as well as areas of current and needed research. + Measuring quality - evaluation and assessment looks at recentresearch in working towards sustainable quality learning byconsidering quality evaluation as a collective process. + Administration and policy to support quality education @a distance including institutional approaches to assuring quality andidentification of differing perspectives for consideration.Quality Education @ a Distance contains the paperspresented at the working conference of Working Group 3.6 (DistanceEducation) of the International Federation for Information Processing(IFIP). Held in Geelong, Australia in February 2003, the conferencewas organised in four parallel streams to consider the aspects groupedabove, sharing presentations and discussions about establishingquality online environments for distance education. The QED conference attracted some of the key people in their fieldsboth internationally and from within Australia. In addition to thepapers presented at the conference, Quality Education @ aDistance contains an overview of each stream and a report of thediscussions that took place in the stream groups. The papers presentedby three international keynote speakers are also included. ... Read more

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Open and distance learning has been used in many ways in the recent past to provide both primary education and adult education. The Commonwealth of Learning works with governments, schools and universities with the aim of strengthening the capacities of Commonwealth member countries in developing human resources required for their economic and social development. Many existing policy documents link distance education with new information and communication technologies, portraying them as a promising universal access and exponential growth of learning.
This book answers the key questions to these issues and assesses the impact and effect of the experience of basic education at a distance all over the world and in a wide variety of forms. This is the first major overview of this topic for twenty years. ... Read more