_Learning can now be achieved not only in the traditional classrooms, but also through telecommunications. Educators and students may be wondering if learning takes place differently in both situations. Harasim, Hiltz, Teles and Turoff have commented th

Learning Via Telecommunications Bonnie Rowe Yu-Chih Doris Shih James Smith Texas A&M University EDTC 618 - Applications of Telecommunications in Education Spring 1998 Introduction Learning can now be achieved in not only the traditional classroom, but also through telecommunications. With the rapid growth of the Internet, coursework offered through telecommunications is increasing worldwide. Educators and students alike are questioning the differences between learning in traditional classrooms and via telecommunications, or "telelearning" (Tiffin & Rajasingham, 1995, p. 78). This chapter illustrates some possible differences in learning between the two modes. A model for delivering coursework solely on the Internet, with no classroom interaction, highlights the elements needed for successful learning in the online course. In addition, a historical perspective of learning is given. Several case histories are presented in which telecommunications were blended into the traditional model to support and enrich classroom instruction, broadening students’ perception of available resources in the emerging world of Internet education.
Characteristics of the Traditional Classroom Model In the early 1800s, established schools were housed in one-room school buildings with no more than four walls, blackboards, chairs and tables. The physical presence of the instructor and students in one location was necessary, and students had to travel to an appointed location to meet together to learn, which involved the problems of time and traveling costs (Saettler, 1990). Students were usually expected to stay in their assigned desks while the teacher stood in front of the class or moved around the classroom. Teachers directed all instructional activities primarily through verbal presentations and using the chalkboard, while the students remained silent for long periods of time and moved about or spoke only as directed by the teacher (Psychology Department, SUNY Plattsburg, 1997).

Our current educational system is based on the educational model of the 1800s, though a number of differences are found. Currently, traditional instruction is verbal and visual through the use of not only the chalkboard, but also the overhead projector, and television. As part of this traditional model, students usually receive their assignments near the end of the class period and are required to complete them by a given date. This method of learning requires the student to retain information to be used at a later time with the risk of doing the work incorrectly.

Learning in Traditional Classrooms Less Self-directed Learning
Learning in conventional classrooms is "centralised" and "hierarchical," according to Tiffin and Rajasingham (1995, p. 122). The teacher is the center, the authority figure, and the knowledge giver of the classroom. In those early nineteenth century U.S. schools, students learned passively from their teachers’ lectures and by memorizing facts (Saettler, 1990). Students in 20^th century traditional classrooms also may experience difficulty in keeping and retrieving the information they receive in class unless they take notes or receive handouts from the instructor. As a result, students may have little control over their own learning within the teacher-directed classroom model. (Harasim, 1990).

Providing Non-verbal Guidance
One major advantage of learning in conventional classrooms is that learners are capable of seeing non-verbal cues and body language from the teacher and their peers (Gunawardena, 1992), which would help to clarify any misunderstandings. Courses that benefit the most from teacher demonstration, such as using computer applications or speaking foreign languages, may be best delivered in the traditional classroom setting where these visual elements enrich learning.

Characteristics of Telecommunications Education There are various telecommunication instructional delivery systems. They include educational broadcast television, instructional television, one-way audio (radio and cassettes), two-way audio (audio conferencing and audiographic conferencing), video conferencing, and computer-mediated communication (CMC) (Bates, 1995; Tiffin & Rajasingham, 1995). Instruction through CMC is becoming popular. The Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) allow learners and instructors to interact both synchronously and asynchronously, and conduct "telelearning" (Tiffin & Rajasingham, 1995, p. 78). Assignments can be done and turned in at the learner's own convenience, and the WWW itself consists of vast resources which assist the learner's search of constantly updated information (Arizona State University, n.d.).

Collaboration
Learning via telecommunications provides opportunities for active student involvement. A major goal of collaborative learning is the active participation of students in learning activities. In the controlled environment of the traditional classroom, the majority of students' learning is limited to memorization of material delivered by the instructor whereas in collaborative learning, students learn how to discuss, research, investigate, and disseminate facts in small groups with other students. As a result, students have more ownership in their learning. Thus their learning shifts from a listener-competitor to a problem solver-team player. The process of creating, analyzing, and evaluating in collaboration strengthens socialization skills, increases cultural awareness, and increases general interest, focus, and synthesis efforts (Ellsworth, 1997).

Dissemination
Electronic dissemination of collaborative projects provides students unlimited opportunities for sharing the results of their learning experience. The traditional classroom affords students the opportunity to share their work with their teacher and a few peers. As students communicate and collaborate through their learning activities, a forum for sharing their work is needed. Electronic dissemination provides this opportunity. Students gain interaction with other students who have additional thoughts and comments to build upon foundational ideas developed in the collaboration process. E-mail is one way of sharing student generated collaborative projects whether it is addressed to specific individuals or classes, or to a listserv for group dissemination. In addition, the WWW provides an almost unlimited audience for sharing collaborative projects over web pages, while enabling schools to develop learning communities (Gordin, Gomez, Pea, & Fishman, 1996).

Needed Elements in Education via Telecommunications Access and Skill
The requirements in using telecommunications in education differ from those in the conventional classroom. Nobody is required to go to any specific location and be physically present with the instructor or other students in this virtual classroom; hence, problems with the use of time and space are often reduced, along with the cost of travel. However, there would be the need to have access to computers, the Internet, and specified applications. Both the teacher and students are required to be skilled with the technology system, and the latter must acquire the communication protocol set up for media-based social interaction (Tiffin & Rajasingham, 1995).

For learning to be effective, the on-line learning environment has to be organized, structured and well defined, so that learners will not be confused or lost in cyberspace. It may include elements such as a syllabus, assignments, announcements, tests, course content, interactive tools, course administration, and personal home pages (Arizona State University, n.d.). Web pages should be frequently updated so that learners are motivated to continue learning.

Motivation
In order for students to use telecommunications for learning, they must first understand what they are doing and why. They must make connections between the media and the content, and then they must be able to relate it to themselves. Thus, the teacher is essential for helping the students understand the instructional context. In so doing, students learn from communication, collaboration, and dissemination.

Communication
Learning is built through conversations among students or student groups involving the development and interpretation of communication (Gay & Lentini, 1995). However, students must initially learn how to use various technologies and tools of telecommunications in order to effectively use the communication process. Hands-on learning of the technical aspects of communications technology is the first step to using telecommunications. This typically involves learning how to use the hardware and software needed in accessing, connecting, e-mailing, up and downloading files, and using computer conferencing systems (Ellsworth, 1997). Once students have gained knowledge of telecommunications operational procedures and feel comfortable with the use of the technology, they can then exchange ideas and share information with other students and teachers through collaboration.

The Online Learning Model The computer is a tool which offers learners the capability to complete multiple tasks such as saving, revising, retrieving, and distributing the information. The Internet allows enhancement of both teaching and learning (Harasim, 1990; Windschitl; 1998).

Learner-centered Instruction
Because of the nature of the web environment, in which instructions may be given through both synchronous and asynchronous modes, learners must participate actively and interact with various components in order to achieve the learning goals. These components are illustrated in Gunawardena’s (1992) learner-centered instruction model: instructor, peers, experts, mediated instruction (audio/video tapes), library, databases, and coordinators.

Self-directed Learning
In contrast to traditional classroom learning, on-line learning encourages self-directed learning. Tiffin and Rajasingham (1995) see on-line learning as "decentralised", "democratic" and "learner-based" (p. 122). Indeed, learners would be given a measure of freedom to control the learning pace, sequence and content. As a result of this freedom, the learners must have responsibility for their own learning and discovery of knowledge (Gunawardena, 1992; Harasim, 1990; Montgomerie & Harapnuik, 1997; Reid, 1997). This self-directed learning component is amplified by the opportunity given by the use of technology to revise, store and retrieve the information (Harasim, 1990).

Critical Thinking and Cognitive Learning
The decentralized and flexible telecommunications environment provides opportunity for critical thinking and strengthens the learner's cognitive skills. Harasim (1990) noted some strategies used in developing these skills:

For online course activity, learner strategies such as weaving (synthesizing key themes in a conference) and critical reviews of the proceedings encourage multiple passes through the transcripts to enhance analytical thinking (p. 52). Online conferences and discussion prompt learners to actively collect, handle, organize and construct information. Learners are not acquiring knowledge passively through memorization or note taking because higher order thinking skills such as synthesis, analysis and evaluation are involved. Learners are to decide what information is important to pick up and what should be eliminated.

Collaborative Learning
The concept of collaborative learning could very well be carried out in the online environment. Students are not only learning from their instructor but are also learning from students at other locations (Montgomerie & Harapnuik, 1997; Wolcott & Robertson, 1997). Walker (1998) identified several skills which students would acquire effectively through collaborative learning via telecommunication: problem solving, social skills, communication, various academic skills and acquiring information.

Active Learning
Harasim (1990) points out the reasons that on-line teaching would encourage active learning. First, collaborative work and research prompt active seeking and sharing of information and knowledge (Wolcott & Robertson, 1997). Second, equitable participation ensures that each learner is highly necessary to group work, and active contributions of knowledge assist the progress of each member. Third, the asynchronous mode of on-line activity allows learners to input information at their own convenience and from an unspecified location; therefore, the frequency of interactivity increases. Shy learners were found to be interacting more frequently than in the face-to-face mode, according to a study by Montgomerie and Harapnuik (1997). They found that students became more open in discussions and reflected their thoughts in depth while in the online course. Last, active learning is also produced by the text-based nature of the Internet. Although the Internet allows loading of movie clips, sounds and graphics, text is used dominantly (through e-mail, gopher, ftp and veronica). Reading encourages learners to construct meaning of the information they are to share and to verbalize the information structurally, thus encouraging active learning.

A Historical Perspective How would telecommunications look to our forbears in education? Defining the educational philosophy of eastern civilization, Confucius prescribed the progression of "Great Learning....[as] objective investigation, acquisition of knowledge, sincerity of will, right-heartedness, cultivation of the person, proper family relationships, orderliness in the nation, and peace and equality in the world. The progression is from the head to the heart, from being to doing, and from the immediate to the distant." (Republic of China Yearbook, 1995, p. 500). A call for such active, analytical, and meaningful learning might be the constructivist's manifesto for reaching around the world with online learning.

As the first great education writer of western civilization, what would Plato have done with a constructivist’s computer, much less telecommunications? Since his idealism was based on the belief that all knowledge resides within the spirit of an individual, Plato certainly sounds like a constructivist. Since Plato recommended using mathematics and the classics to sharpen the intellect’s ability to access internal absolutes, he might gladly have embraced the computer as an efficient tool for sharpening the wits. The classical mentoring model of the expert guiding his pupil to discover the order and knowledge within himself would surely have thrived as more pupils were connected with the experts (scholars) in the classical world’s centers of learning (Plato, 1920).

The medieval education approach, referred to as the Trivium for its division into grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric stages, was not greatly different from the Plato model. As described at the 1947 Oxford Symposium on Education by essayist and translator Dorothy Sayers, the typical fourteen-year-old student of the Tudor period was allowed some freedom to pursue his own interests under the guidance of his master. The student took responsibility to sharpen the mental skills he would need to defend his positions and ideas in the academic world (Sayers, n.d.). Once again, it is easy to imagine this young scholar in a videoconference, accessing guidance from a distant human mentor, or testing his wits in an online debate in his chosen field. No imagination is needed, however. Cases abound.

The Blended Models A New View of the World
Telecommunications programs in large and small schools, rural and urban settings, are blooming with the result that learning is returning to the student-centered approach used in earlier times. Telecommunications has helped students of all ages get a real view of the world and see themselves as members of a broad community. In 1991, Utah sixth graders anxiously awaited news from their email pen pals in Russia when counterrevolution broke out. Although television broadcasts were immediately taken over by the Russian military, email was amazingly not disrupted. American students rushed to send electronic news digests to their Russian partners, giving them a window to the outside world until the coup attempt failed. Fourth-graders in the same school, linked to a class in England, were shocked into a new perspective when they learned the English town had been settled in 1225, more than six hundred years before their own town (McCarty, 1995). In “The Water Project,” sponsored by the International Education and Resource Network, Washington state students learned they could help far-away friends stay in school when they raised money to buy water pumps for Nicaraguan villages, freeing their penpals from walking miles each day to bring safe drinking water home (Copen, 1995). Other students learned the seaman’s perspective and to plot longitudes and latitudes as they read the online log of a freighter captain bound from San Francisco to Japan (McCarty, 1995).

A Network for Individual Exploration
Telecommunications has the potential to transform whole education systems. Opened in 1996, the Townview Magnet Center in Dallas brings 2500 high school students together in six magnet schools, each emphasizing a separate discipline for career development, and all with a strong emphasis on technology. All six schools are part of an extensive, high-speed network that allows "students to access about one hundred multimedia CD-ROMs, scores of software application tools, educational videotapes, and cable and satellite television broadcasts" (Watson, 1996, p. 40). The cutting edge infrastructure connects 1100 computers, 11 file servers, 14 CD-ROM servers, and 300 laser printers. Textbooks have been supplanted by online, multimedia information, more current and from world experts. Inside-the-walls lectures are replaced by visits with online experts and attendance in online conferences in the student’s chosen discipline (Watson, 1996). This connection between the seeking student and the mentoring expert is strikingly similar to the classical and Tudor students’ experience, but at a distance.

Connections for Everyone
Just as impressive as the Townview Magnet Center is the financially challenged "one-room schoolhouse" program in a remote New Zealand location where the distinction between student and teacher has softened. High school students taking distant classes by videoconference become mentors in email and fax modem use for their younger schoolmates. More advanced students are allowed to surpass the teachers’ expertise by accessing help from the Internet in learning web-design software. In a strong example of meaningful learning, a social studies class links to students in a town once stricken by an earthquake. For a civil defense project, the two classes collaborate on a plan for keeping communications active during a disaster ( Coburn, Dobbs, & Grainger, 1995).

Conclusion Using telecommunications, teachers and experts are once again guides as students explore their own interests and engage in solving real world problems, all the while honing their inner "tools of learning" (Sayers, n.d.). This new approach might actually be considered a return to the learner-centered model that worked well in ancient times. Those classical and medieval systems were learner-centered but available only to the ruling classes. As access has broadened to include the general population, strategies to deal with so many students have necessarily became less and less student-centered and, thereby, less successful. Telecommunications finally allows learning control to return to the learner, with teachers acting as the classical scholar or medieval don. With wholly online learning environments, as well as classroom instruction augmented with telecommunications activities, the excellent learning experiences once abandoned for mass education can now be available to every student.
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