The Sloan-C View Newsletter

ALN Conference

Profiling WCET continued from cover

  • In 2004, as both e-learning and technology became fully integrated into campus activities, WCET members were again being asked for evidence of their effective use of resources. Today, WCET is partnering with the Observatory for Borderless Education in the U.K. on a multinational benchmarking project focused on institutional policies and practices as they relate to this integration movement.

In addition to addressing the pragmatic, day-to-day realities that our members face, WCET is continuing to look to the future. Under development are projects that address the growing need to find good adjunct faculty to teach online; that create decision tools to assess institutional readiness for open source software; and that delineate good practices for training teachers to work with digital natives. WCET is also actively involved in the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement that is making high-quality learning materials available electronically throughout the world.

Each year more colleges and universities discover WCET’s services and, more importantly, the WCET community. They join the organization and help shape its future. Individuals from member institutions also collaborate with one another and share information critical to their own jobs on a regular basis through our online community. WCET’s conference moves to a new location each year: in November 2005, it will be held in New Orleans, Louisiana. The conference offers a wonderful opportunity for new people to meet the WCET community, interact with state and national higher education leaders, and learn from each other.

For more information about WCET, its programs, and how to join its vibrant community of peers, please visit our website at http://www.wcet.info or send an email request to info@wcet.info.

~Reviews~

Books
The Distance Learner’s Guide, 2nd ed.
Sally M. Johnstone & George Connick (Eds), Published by Prentice Hall (2005)
As colleges and universities begin to treat students as consumers of educational services, it is critical that the students understand how to be informed consumers. The Distance Learner’s Guide is designed to empower students and to help them understand the choices they must make when choosing to study in an electronically mediated learning environment. The chapter authors, all experienced researchers and practitioners of distance learning, have created this easy-to-use guide for any prospective distance learning student. The book is available from Amazon.com.

Chapters
“Strategic Alliances - Collaboration for Sustainability”
Sally M. Johnstone & Sharmila Basu Conger with Ulrich Bernath, William J. Husson & Antonio Lomba Maurandi
In: Strategies for Sustainable Open and Distance Learning (2005), Hope, A, & Guiton, P. (Eds), Commonwealth of Learning.
This book is a product of the effort by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) to collect what had been learned about sustainable development of open and distance learning (ODL) initiatives into a book for those in developing countries wishing to make use of ODL. WCET’s chapter discusses how forming strategic alliances can assist in the development of sustainable ODL solutions. The entire book examines the nature of sustainability in open and distance learning in order to provide a guide to successful implementation.

“A Policy Perspective on Learning Theory and Practice in Distance Education” Sally M. Johnstone
In: Learner-Centered Theory and Practice in Distance Education (2004), Duffy, T. M. & Kirkley, J.R. (Eds), Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, New Jersey.
This chapter examines, based on the practices used as examples throughout the book, how higher education public policy reflects (or, in many cases, fails to reflect) what we know about how students learn. The entire book offers the reader almost two dozen institutional case studies and associated critical analyses from researchers in U.S., Mexican, and Canadian universities.

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