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Distance Education Center Course Management Tool (Speedway) Wins TxDLA Award
In January 2001, the DEC undertook a massive project to migrate the center's courses to an online format. The platform migration was designed to enable students to utilize a greater realm of technology and resources in their learning experiences, to capitalize on the evolving means for online communication and to allow the Center to participate in new online directions in distance education. The first step in this online Initiative was to determine a platform for delivery. After investigating available platforms and evaluating the needs of independent learners, course designers and instructors, DEC decided to create a course delivery platform in house. Susan Toalson, Director of the DEC explained that "with 150 courses relying on the delivery platform, we could not afford to have fluctuation in an externally controlled delivery platform impact our operations. At that time, the market was cluttered with many vendors that were being bought or disappearing in the Darwinian dot.com evolution. Commercial applications also carried licensing fees that were prohibitively high and not guaranteed to be immune from upward fluctuation". From a pedagogical standpoint, the commercial applications were also not ideal. "Our students are independent asynchronous learners. Most of the more sophisticated features in the available commercial tools were designed for online semester-synchronous collaboration". So DEC was committed to developing a new delivery system, Speedway. Specifically, Speedway developers focused attention on the following objectives:
The resultant Speedway tool utilizes a CD-ROM student interface coupled with online content materials and online communication interactions. This multimedia approach puts static content on the CD-ROM and houses dynamic materials online. The approach enables students with minimal bandwidth access to still benefit from the robustness of our new online courses. Please review http://www.utexas.edu/cee/dec/onlinecourses/navigation.html#features for an online description of the structure and features of Speedway. To be truly cutting edge any course management tool, including Speedway, will always be in need of ongoing revision. Currently, DEC is developing a purely online version of Speedway (Speedway 2.0). The 2.0 version will create opportunities for collaboration among students, allow for more robust communication (math symbols and graphs within text documents) and provide additional resources to help the student take responsibility for their own learning and progress in the course. To learn more about Speedway supported courses at the Distance Education Center, visit www.utexas.edu/cee/dec/. Fran Ebbers, DEC instructor, won the Texas Distance Learning Association John A. Baker Memorial Award for Excellence in K-12 Distance Learning. Awarded in memory of President-elect John A. Baker, this award recognizes the work of a K-12 teacher in the distance learning arena. Fran Ebbers has worked for Continuing & Exteneded Education's Distance Education Center at the University of Texas at Austin since 1993. She has written and revised tests and curriculum material for six of the eight high school English courses offered by the Distance Education Center. In addition to her skill in curriculum development, she is a talented distance education instructor, bringing over 30 years of teaching experience to the DEC program. Susan Toalson, Director of the DEC noted, "Fran's teaching strategies and online persona exemplify what education researchers have identified as principles of good distance education practice. She encourages frequent contact by e-mail, provides prompt feedback, communicates high expectations, emphasizes active learning and relates her lessons to real world contexts". Many of Ebbers' lessons involve the use of Internet resources to gather information. In a lesson on the Odyssey, students visit the Interactive Ancient Mediterranean Web site where they trace the journey of Odysseus and his men on a map. In a lesson on Romeo and Juliet, Ebbers assigns her students an essay entitled "Romeo and Juliet are Palestinian and Jewish" and sends them to the Internet to learn about the history of the mid-east conflict. In progressing through the exercise, students are able to see the modern relevance of Shakespeare's classic tale. In the same learning unit students also write a proposal for a promotional video of the play, and in the process, learn valuable multimedia and marketing skills. In addition to working with the Distance Education Center, Ms. Ebbers is member of the faculty at St. Edwards University. To learn more about high school courses at the Distance Education Center, visit www.utexas.edu/cee/dec/ . |
The University of Texas at Austin Continuing & Extended Education's Distance Education Center (DEC) development efforts for Speedway, the Center's proprietary course management tool, won the Texas Distance Learning Association Award for Outstanding Commitment of Excellence and Innovation in Distance Education. This award is for the person, institution, or corporation who has done the most to benefit and advance the applied practice of Distance Education, in the opinion of association membership, during the past year.