ED-MEDIA 1999 Proceedings Book - Association for the ...

In 1978, the University formalized its Masters degree in Instructional Technology by officially
establishing it within the Faculty of Education. Due to a number of factors, such as budgets, changes in
organizational structure, and individual personalities, a 'formal' Ph.D. program was not initiated until 1998
with the admission of four doctoral students into the Basic Area of Educational Psychology.
Events in the past several years have provided impetus to explore ADFs for the Masters degree. These
include a recent mandate by the provincial government to increase access for our programs to more
students, both on and off campus, increased levels of funding, and a growing recognition by the
administration of the potential of ADF.
A Brief History of ADF in the Department of Educational Psychology
Statistics
While the course in introductory statistics is not a specific IT course per se, it is a required research course.
Historically, the course was originally developed in the early 1960s for delivery on the IBM 1500 system.
Budget cuts in the early 1990s suggested a reduction in courses across the Faculty, including the statistics
courses. The complete 3 credit graduate course was resurrected, polished, updated, and reconstructed using
Authorware. It is delivered via CD-ROM with a unique twist. All student data tracking is done via the
WWW, meaning of course that delivery can take place anywhere in the world. There is even a facility to
update the user with any modules that have been changed since the CD was shipped.
Introduction to WWW
Around 1996, and effort was made by Professor Montgomerie and graduate student to develop a course
whose content is the Internet and the WWW and to deliver the course on the WWW. This course 'broke the
ice' and encouraged others to participate. At the same time, the Faculty decided to follow the
recommendation to bring the main IT players together in the same office area, regardless of home
departmental affiliation.
Additional Key Developments
In 1997, a formal reconfiguration of the Masters program was undertaken. In 1997, work began on
developing the course on EDIT 571, Introduction to Educational Technology and Communication for webbased
delivery, which we call Web-Based Instruction (WBI). This course, as well as two undergraduate
courses in IT were funded in part by the University and in part by a special funding mechanism established
by the provincial government to stimulate increased access to education on the part of the citizens of the
province.
In 1998, partial funding was received to create three more core courses in the Masters in IT program;
EDIT 568, 572 and 573. These courses have been developed and piloted at least once at the time of this
writing.
Issues Considered Along the Way
This forum will provide insight into some of the issues listed below along with opportunity for the audience
to discuss and network.
What are ADFs and which are useful for our purpose
There are numerous applications and variations of the term ADFs. In general, we mean any instructional
alternative to conventional lecture-seminar format. In contrast, distributed education means delivery to
both on and off-campus students. Should the course formats be different for these two groups Given that
the Masters degree uses the content of IT, both the content and the methodology need to be discussed,
demonstrated and practiced.
To what extent should the entirety of the courses be placed in ADF
What is gained and what is lost by moving entire courses to ADF What is the role of F2F in the delivery
of instruction Given that there will be an on-campus group as well as an off-campus group, how should
any differences in opportunities be resolved Should all learning activities be placed in ADF, for example,
does the technology allow for effective dialogue and debate
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