History of Distance Education

Distance learning, also known as virtual learning, is defined as any formal approach to learning where communication between the instructor and students is through different means of technology, and not through face-to-face interaction. This type of learning has been used since 1700s in the form of correspondence education; but with the advancement in technologies, this process now comes as far as involving the use of audio and visual effects, which started to develop in the 1900s.

Distance Education methods have evolved over the years tremendously. After the failure of radio-instruction in the 1930s, lots of efforts were put in developing television-instruction and had hope in it to prove effective. In 1948, Iowa state was one of the first educational districts in the US to air. Research shows that class-room television instruction proved to be just as effective as traditional face-to-face teaching.

By the 1960s, the launching of the first “flying classroom” by the innovative Midwest Program on Airborne Television Instruction (MPATI) took place, which spread educational programs through schools and to the general public in Indiana and some of the surrounding states. Internet marked the history of tele-education, giving access to both parties involved and proving to be the most efficient form of all. With its numerous methods of communication, it gives a variety for the user to choose from, and makes the learning method as real as possible.

The link below is a short video of the University of Southern California (USC) giving a brief introduction about distance education.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jCXBwE40T-w

Examples of currently used technologies include telephone, broadcast video, internet chat (such as AIM), videoconferencing, or net meeting. These types of communication media are called synchronous technologies since they involve a teacher and students in different geographical positions, learning at the same time. The other type of communication involving the students in different geographical areas, and each of them learning at different times, and is called asynchronous technology. It includes voice mail/fax, videocassette, audiocassette, e-mail, and print materials.

Among the numerous universities offering online degrees is the University of the Phoenix, which is considered one of the largest universities in the US. About 9,600 faculty members work in its online campus, offering a degree possibly in 2 years only. Statistics show that 94% of its alumni would recommend it to other working adults.

Resources:

Fusco, Marjorie, and Susan Ketcham. Distance Learning for Higher Education: an Annotated Bibliography. 23 June 2008 http://books.google.com.eg/book

Jeffries, Michael. "Research in Distance Education." MA Distributed Learning. 14 July 2007 .

Tele-education Projects in Egypt

Distant Education has proved to be an efficient form of education, and thus its use has increased through the last couple of years tremendously. As it is based on advancements in technology, its implementation was somewhat difficult in the developing countries of the Middle East. But due to Egypt's care about education and technology; it has implemented several tele-education projects in several universities in Egypt.

In December 1993 in New Delhi, India, a summit meeting was held between the leaders of nine of the high-population countries in the world concerning the implementation of distance education in each of these countries. These countries included Egypt, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, and Pakistan, which constituted about 72% of the world's illiterates, and more than 50% of the world's population. In the meeting, they agreed on a "Joint Initiative on Distance Education" to help promote distance education in certain criteria. For example, to enhance the training of teachers and other personnel, and to have better access to marginalized groups. This meeting was coordinated by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which volunteered to support, facilitate, and coordinate the project. This was one of the first projects that Egypt participated in. It showed interest in teacher training at a distance project, while most of the 9 countries created projects to support their initiative.

Concerning undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, Egypt has four Universities that offer this kind of education. They constitute Cairo University, Alexandria University, Assiut University, and Ain-Shams University, all of which started providing distant education after the 1989 approval of The Supreme Council of Egyptian Universities to provide open learning in universities interested in offering that kind of education. These Open Learning Centers provide a wide range of disciplines through distant education. These Universities are considered to be dual-mode universities; this means that they offer both, on-campus and off-campus programs.

On the other hand, a single-mode distant education University is one that only provides distant education with no alternative forms. An example of single-mode Universities is the Arab Open University (AOU), which has several branches around the Arab world, one of which lies in Egypt. Established in 1999, the AOU uses technological advancements in communication to make higher education and continuing education accessible to all Arab Citizens, willing to have an opportunity to learn. In order to have a high quality accredited education, the AOU has concluded agreements of cooperation and affiliation with the United Kingdom Open University (UKOU) that cover licensing of materials, consultancies, and accreditation and validation.

On assessing such universities, researchers have found fault with the planning and administration of programs offered by the AOU in Egypt. Although AOU was established under the umbrella of the Arab Gulf Program for United Nations Development Organizations (AGFUND), and uses materials, consultancies, and so on from UKOH, it leaves no option for home-developed materials to be developed. Another negative point is that AOU requires completed secondary education in order to accept students. This limits the number of people who can apply, and it also frustrates those who do not want a degree, but only professional enhancement opportunities. Regarding its aim to offer education for all Arabs who are willing to learn, AOU contradicts itself by requiring good knowledge of the English language for all the programs to be taught, which only a minority of Arabs have. Also a tuition of more that 1000 $US per semester is quite a lot for the average Arab citizen.To help fix these problems, regular monitoring of the system is required to update and improve on the system.

Most people enrolled in a distant education program or course face problems with using the technology, let that person be a student, teacher, or even administration. To overcome this problem, the Human and technology Development Foundation ( HDF ) was founded. It is the largest non-profit organization in the Middle East working in the field of Information Communication Technology (ICT). Its main aim is to promote, inform, and train in order to cultivate a better understanding of information technology in the Arab region. In October this year in Egypt, HDF will host the 2008 ICT-learn conference aiming at meeting the networking needs of international e-learning and distance learning providers.

Another very important recent project implemented in Egypt in 2007 is NEPAD e-schools project in El-Beheira governate. NEPAD stands for the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, which aims at developing the African countries in several aspects, education included. Egypt is the first Arab country to implement this project, which aims at providing a learning mechanism based on the implantation of ICTs in schools. HP, Oracle, and GIMPEX have collaborated to support this project, with GIMPEX donating up to 120 SMART Board interactive whiteboards, and HP providing 3 computer labs in different Egyptian governate schools, with the latest technologies including desktop, laptops, computer servers, wireless network, smart boards, while providing internet at all times. The project also aims at training teachers to use the technology in order for them to efficiently teach the kids through an interactive learning environment.


Resources:
El Hadin. "Under the Auspices of Minister of Education …." 11 Feb. 2007. 14 July 2008 .

"Human and Technology Development Foundation." 2008. 14 July 2008


Mohamed, Amel A. "Distance Higher Education in the Arab Region: the Need for Quality Assurance Frameworks." Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration 8 (2005). 14 July 2008 .

Visser, Jan. "Learning Without Frontiers." 14 Apr. 1994. 14 July 2008.

TeleEducation in the Arab Countries

TeleEducation is especially relevant to Arab countries for various reasons. Considerable proportions of the Arab population live in rural areas and TeleEducation can connect those and serve them. Arab women who are less free to travel seeking education abroad or continue their education as they marry relatively early are also favored by TeleEducation. Also, the prevailing economic problems -especially in oil-poor countries- have been accompanied by increasing rates of illiteracy and higher rates of drop out from school. People who drop out of school or decide not to pursue college education because they have to work and bring money can learn through the flexible TeleEducation, providing that it is at affordable costs.
Although rural areas are disadvantaged by bad internet connections, approaches like usinf broadband are being intensively studied in order to facilitate TeleEducation in those areas.

The markedly high rates of increasing internet connectivity recorded in the the Middle East and Africa (where Arab countries are situated) are supportive of the development of online education programs. For instance, Egypt was estimated to have more than 4 million internet users in 2008. It has the highest rate of internet access in oil-poor Arab countries and one of the highest rates of increasing internet connectivity worldwide.
The Syrian Virtual University (SVU) is regarded as the first Arab institution of its kind; it initiated virtual education in the Middle East. It was founded by the Syrian Ministry of Higher Education and was inaugurated on September 2002. Partners of SVU have been selected from well reputed universities in the US and Europe; those offer their own course material, tutoring, services, and internationally-recognized certificates to SVU students. In this way SVU provides its students world-class education in almost all fields as well as accredited certificates. In addition, students obtain a degree that is fully accredited by the Ministry of Higher Education in Syria. Services that SVU offers to students include technical support, internet access, counseling, academic advising, and others. Plans of SVU contain designing their own courses and establishing their full programs, cooperate with Arab and international partners; those would be of similar standards to the SVU partners' degree but at more affordable costs. They also plan to make most of the courses taught in Arabic to be more relevant to the target population.

Jordan Electronic Academy (JeA) is another example of e-learning institutes in the Arab region. JeA is a joint institution between Kuwait's Technology World Company (TWC), Jordan's Al Balqaa Apllied University (BAU), and Jordan's Association for Military Retirees (AMR). JeA is accredited by the Ministry of Higher Education of Jordan and provides online courses to students of BAU and other universities in Jordan as well as life long learning certificate programs to working adults in both the public and private sectors in Jordan.

In addition to SVU and JeA, other Arab countries have started online universities or e-learning centers. Those include Al Ahliyya Amman University (AAU), Gulf University for Science and Technology (GUST), King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), King Khaled University (KKU), and JSS Academy based in Dubai Knowledge Village.

Most of these institutes -if not all- use UKS or Universal Knowledge Solutions. UKS is believed to be the leading learnig solutions enabler in the Middle East. UKS' skilful specialists, strategic partnerships, and specialized education and technological providers supply schools, higher ducation institutes, government and corporate sectors with uncompromised products and services. They provide customers with flexible and cost-effective learning solutions to facilitate the smooth flow of the learning process for the learners.

In Egypt, the Ministry of Education has launched the NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa Development) e-schools programme in an inceasing number of governorates. The project is a joint project between the Egyptian Government, HP Consortium, ORACLE Consortium and NEPAD e-Africa Commission. Egypt is the sixth country to launch this project after Uganda, Ghana, Lesotho, Kenya, and Rwanda. There are also other TeleEducation projects being put to work in Egypt.

References:

Jordan Electronic Academy (JeA). July 6 2008. http://www.uks.ae/images/casestudy/he/jea_case%20study.pdf

Pambazuka News: Weekly Forum for Social Justice in Africa. March 14 2003. July 6 2008. http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/internet/40235

Radsch, Courtney, C. "Blogging in Egypt". 2008. July 6 2008. http://www.resetdoc.org/EN/Radsch-blogging.php

Syrian Virtual University (SVU). 2003. July 6 2008. http://www.svuonline.org/sy/eng/about/mission.asp

UKS. 2007. July 6 2008. http://www.uks.ae/partners-clients-HE.htm

Disadvantages of TeleEducation

As previously mentioned, the advantages of online education are numerous, but like everything in life, it also has its negative side. To one person, it could be exactly the thing he wants, but to another, it might be very difficult and full of obstacles. To the students, this new form of technology would be hard to use at the beginning, his/her social communication skills might deteriorate as a result of lack of direct interaction, and on a large scale might even drop out or fail due to lack of motivation.

Tele-education involves the using of numerous online technologies for communication between the student and the professor/ or class. They include audio conferencing, slide sharing, online forum, file transfer, chat, video broadcast, telephony, and video conferencing. All these methods require some kind of computer knowledge to the student, which is not present in all cases. Also even if the student does know how to use these methods, it could be an uncomfortable process. For example, having to sit in front of his/her computer to watch lectures and type to communicate might not be the most appealing option. As the learning process involves using electronic media, such as computer, video camera, high speed internet connection, and mike, it requires continuous maintenance of these devices; otherwise the learning process would stop. This is costly and time consuming.

Although Tele-education offers numerous methods of online communication, it can never replace the real face-to-face experience. For example, the lack of immediate feedback from the professor, or immediate interaction during class might create frustration, and a feeling of isolation. This results in de-motivation, which in turn increases the rate of failures and drop outs. Students do not develop their oral communication skills as well. For example, they might lack presentation skills when applying to a job later.

Mostly students pursuing an online degree do so due to the lack of time. They are either working or have children to take care of. But in order to pass a course, whether online or traditionally, time has to be devoted for studying. Traditional education enforces a class schedule on the students, while during online education, the student has to clear time slots off his/her schedule on their own. This needs a lot of devotion, hard work, and independence from the student to succeed.

In addition to that, some employers do not acknowledge online-degrees; so students have a narrower job market to choose from. Due to lack of experience, students enroll themselves in un-accredited online universities, and later during applying to jobs, find that out.
Another problem is the lack of available courses online. Not all courses can be studied online, like in nursing clinical for example, physical attendance is mandatory to complete the course. Also some courses are more expensive online due to the cost of multimedia accessories and syllabus material, so price is not considered an advantage in all cases.

As for professors, it is difficult for them to assess the students’ work due to lack of interaction. For example exams have to be set for a certain period of time to avoid cheating or external help, and they shouldn’t be repeated so as not to be copied. Professors also find problems in complexity of the copyright and the author's rights for electronic documents. As they were previously used to traditional teaching methods, they find it hard to change their teaching style, role, and tasks to match the new system.

Refereneces:
Kieth, Londrie. "Disadvantages of Online Education." Eznie Articles. 3 July 2008 .
Yan, Bodain, and Jean-Marc Robert. Investigating Distance Learning on the Internet. 3 July 2008 .