Putting the distance in distance education: An international experience in rural special education personnel preparation

Rural Special Education Quarterly, Winter 2003 by Kelly, Karen L, Schorger, John R

A local internet connection was purchased from an internet service provider (ISP), Spidernet, at 56.6 kilobits per second which turned out to be as reliable as any ISP used by the instructors in the U.S. The computer setup was a 450mhz Macintosh G3 with a 56.6k internal modem. Course design was done primarily with Microsoft Word 98 for Macintosh. Web access for monitoring and posting class materials for the course to the web-based provider's site was done using Netscape 4.7. The e-mail program, Eudora 4.3, was used for POPS (post office protocol 3) access, to send and receive all e-mail and to build class address books. The instructors determined, due to the considerable geographic distance and the 9-hour time differential between the U.S. and Cyprus, to primarily use asynchronous instructional formats with the occasional exception of chat room sessions regarding case study assignments.

Challenges and Outcomes

Project data collection during the design, development and delivery of the two on-line courses consisted of instructor computer daily use logs, course folders for class emails, announcements, and group assignments, as well as individual student folders for email messages and attachments (course assignments) sent and received. A satisfaction survey consisting of three questions and optional comments was emailed to participants after final grades had been posted for the second course. Survey questions focused exclusively on students' perceptions of course effectiveness, technological barriers, and timely feedback from instructors. In addition to evaluating student satisfaction, a secondary purpose of the survey was to investigate components of the distance education format that enhanced learning or detracted from it when compared to traditional classroom learning, as this issue has been investigated recently with generally insignificant differences (Jordan et al., 1999).

In the summer of 2000, during on-campus (traditional, face to face) courses, ACCESS students were required to provide a brief written statement of how the program had contributed to their professional development to date. The instructors in Cyprus subsequently reviewed these comments in order to identify emergent themes related to recommendations for revising and enhancing distance learning courses.

During the course of this project, several challenges were identified as barriers to effective instruction in the delivery of computer-mediated instruction from an international setting. It should be stated that these barriers might have occurred in a less "distant" format; however, all challenges discussed below were found to be largely representative of both courses delivered during this study.

The first challenge, which occurred throughout the course of the year abroad, involved the inconsistency of Internet access, principally for students in the remote areas of New Mexico. This was not an unexpected problem given the variety and quality of ISPs in rural areas. Solutions ranged from switching providers to using their school district's access and even utilizing the Internet access of classmates, spouses, businesses and friends.