Editorial |
This question of the disciplinary status of distance education is the subject of much of the large, healthy Dialogue section featured in this issue. Part of this discussion was received by Dan Coldeway when he was guest editor of the Journal in Spring, 1988, and Dan Coldeway acts as moderator in this discussion, introducing the question and providing a concluding note. The article by Dr. Holmberg just referred to has already aroused strong reaction, seen for instance in Greville Rumble's 1988 article in the Journal of Distance Education and Malcolm Tight's Dialogue item in the same issue. The last words in this debate have certainly not been written. As always, readers are encouraged to contribute their responses to this and other issues raised in the Journal to the Dialogue section.
As for computers, concrete, critical, and focussed discussion of a particular application of computer technology is provided by Dominique Abrioux's article, which will be valuable to all distance educators involved in second language learning. Dr. Abrioux makes a particularly striking point when he indicates the very limited impact that computer-applied language learning seems to have had so far on the methodology of teaching languages at a distance. While Dr. Abrioux stresses the importance of caution in using these applications, he also states that these applications could help fulfill student needs which have so far not been met.
Another close and careful scrutiny of technology in distance education is found in the article by David Kirby and Cathryn Boak, an analysis of teleconference interactions in six courses offered by Memorial University in Newfoundland. This study shows how the system for analyzing audio-teleconferencing instructional session, which the authors have already discussed in a 1987 article in the Journal of Distance Education, can demonstrate the instructional style of various teachers.
Distance educators in Canada and other Western countries may occasionally be overwhelmed and blinded by the wealth of media possibilities open to them - print, audiotapes, videotapes, television, teleconferencing, computers, and so on - and thus led into forgetting the other issues and problems of distance education. In case the Journal might seem to be fostering such blindness, the articles on computers and teleconferencing are followed by Dr. Mutanyatta's article on distance education in Botswana, which Dawn Howard accepted during her editorship. It is salutary to be reminded that for many distance education students the crucial question is not whether they have access to a computer but whether they have access to an adequate light source. The Commonwealth of Learning, which John Daniel describes in the For Your Information section, will obviously be continually dealing with such contrasting problems.
Although members of the Canadian Association for Distance Education have already learned through Communiqué of Audrey Campbell's death, this sad news should not go unrecorded in the Journal of Distance Education. Audrey's death saddened not only her colleagues here in British Columbia but throughout Canada, and indeed through the distance education community worldwide, which had the opportunity to find out her quality through her splendid work in organizing the 1982 Vancouver meeting of the International Council for Distance Education.
Finally, a happier note. The Journal of Distance Education has been awarded a publication grant for the next three year period by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. I am delighted to acknowledge their support for the first time in this issue of the Journal and to pay tribute to Dawn Howard whose high standards as editor helped earn this grant for the Journal.