Independent learning confronts globalization: Facilitating students' development as learners

As both researchers and teachers we are concerned with issues of student learning. Especially we are concerned with research and teaching in the adult ODE (open and distance education) sector, where the majority of students are 'mature age' and part time (Evans, 1994; Morgan, 1993). The university contexts in which we work, as is the case for many other colleagues in other educational institutions, have been influenced by the rhetoric and realities of new technologies. In the case of our work in universities, there is a concern for constructing what might be called the 'new educational technologies' in ways which encourage and sustain educational dialogues between teacher and students (Evans and Nation, 1993a; Morgan, 1997). Most of the new educational technologies are based on computer and communications equipment, and the technologies which surround them, in the world at large. The surge of computer and communications technologies is said to be 'globalizing' economic, social, and political relations, and drawing educational institutions and systems into the fray

Opening education: Policies and practices from open and distance education

We live in a society with ever-changing needs and expectations. Education practitioners and policy makers need therefore to face the challenges of new economic, social and technological conditions in their work. There is a global concern to develop forms of education and training which are open to the demands of needs of learners, and which are accessible at times and places suitable to those learners. Governments, institutions and practitioners are developing and implementing policies which reflect these trends. The overall theme of this book is the relationship between government and organizational policies and the work of practitioners in open and distance learning. The book does this by exploring a selection of international examples. The authors, many of them recognized experts, write from a wide range of international and organizational perspectives. Each one draws on significant experience within his or her field. Terry Evans is Head of the Graduate School of Education at Deakin University. He was the foundation director of the Master of Distance Education course there and has extensive experience teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students. Daryl Nation is Deputy Head of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Monash University. He is Associate Professor in the School and divides his time between policy development, research and teaching

Opening education: Global lines, local connections

The emergence of mass education opened new possibilities for the rising generations to become members of their developing industrial societies. All children were taught to read, write and calculate, and to understand something of their history and culture. Practical domestic and industrial skills were taught, and religion retained a place in the curriculum. In these seonses, mass education fuelled the emergence of democracies and the technological bases of industrialising economies. Literate citizens and workers could use and contribute to the stored - essentially printed - stock of knowledge of successive generations. They could form political ideas in more codified and collective ways, and give effect to them through the struggle for and within democratic political structures. They could become members of a more adaptable and productive workforce and, increasingly, a well-informed and demanding mass of consumers

Changing university teaching: Reflections on creating educational technologies

Behind the hype of the "virtual university" lies real change in the way practitioners approach university teaching. This book focuses on the changes to teaching both on and off campus that have either come from, or themselves influenced the development of educational technologies

Understanding changes to university teaching

Understanding changes to university teachin

Educational futures: Globalisation, educational technology and lifelong learning

A reader who has followed this book from the beginning will have completed a journey, not only via various points on the globe, but also through various educational sectors and approaches. Opening Education is the theme which links each of these points, but diversity is a theme in itself. Arguably, if educators, trainers, policy-makers and administrators are pursuing paths of opening their educational endeavours, they are likely to be diversifying in some way. Hence, it is not surprising that the preceding chapters have both a unity towards openness and yet a diversity in terms of practical and policy outcomes. However, the diversity is not random, indeed there are other common threads which one could draw. Few if any chapters avoid the mention of technology, especially new computer and communications technologies. Contemporary discourses of open and distance education policy and practice seem impossible without the lexicon of the new technologies