Mention in passing, the end of August and the beginning of September

It is confounded in these 2 weeks.

The house’ network is not working, it makes my project doing’s efficiency lowwer.

The Fiba championship, games were played very late (1AM), and I was sick after I watched them. It makes me miss one meeting……..

26th August

This week’s meetin, Heny and I  discuss to set the main tittle of the project.

And I set up 3 selection

1. How to create an ideal distance education system?

-Distance education software application

-Equipment required for distance education compared with real time classroom

-Learning support

2. Research Open source distance education software, which one is best? (Which one is most suited to modern distance education technology?)

-Functions

-Marketing

-Case, living example

3. Distance education will be the main type of education?

-Instance of modern distance education

-Construct of future distance education

4. What are the factors that make a successful distance education system?

The result is we decide  the 2nd tittle’s meaning.

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Report’s structure  will may in my project

1. Introduction
2. Background
3. Review of related literature
4. Research purpose
5. Description of research
6. Research result
7. Discussion
8. Conclusion
9. References

 

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Some information is read before the meeting

ATutor

ATutor is an Open Source Web-based Learning Content Management System (LCMS) designed with accessibility and adaptability in mind. Administrators can install or update ATutor in minutes, develop custom themes to give ATutor a new look, and easily extend its functionality with feature modules. Educators  can quickly assemble, package, and redistribute Web-based instructional content, easily import pre-packaged content, and conduct their courses online. Students learn in an adaptive learning environment.

http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/

ATutor Requires:

• HTTP Web Server. (We highly recommend using Apache)
• PHP 5.0.2+ with the following libraries installed.
  • –with-apxs2=/usr/local/apache2/bin/apxs
  • –with-mysql
  • –with-zlib
  • –with-curl
  • –enable-mbstring
  • –with-gd
  • –with-jpeg-dir=/usr/lib
• MySQL – 4.1.10+
• See the System Software section of the site to download the required software.

Database User

A database user account with the privilege to create databases is required if your database does not already exist. That same user will then need create table privileges as well. See the MySQL chapter How the Privilege System Works for additional information.

Web Browser

ATutor makes use of many current HTML features that are only supported in current Web browsers. Though ATutor will function effectively in older, or text only browsers, we strongly recommend updating your browser to a more recent version. Current versions of FireFox 2+, Opera 8+, and Microsoft Internet Explorer 7+, and Google Chrome work well with ATutor.

 

Installation and Upgrade

http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/docs/installation.php

Claroline

http://www.claroline.net/

Claroline is an Open Source eLearning and eWorking platform allowing teachers to build effective online courses and to manage learning and collaborative activities on the web. Translated into 35 languages, Claroline has a large worldwide users’ and developers’ community.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGDAWQPyEKw&feature=search

Q: Why I read the above infomation?

A: I want to find out which system is suitable to research for the project.

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First  Questionnaire

Which D.E software do you prefer?

                                                               ATutor   Moodle   Claroline    OKI   

1. Feature & Functionality        1              2                 3                   4

特点与功能

1. Cost of Ownership                 1               2              3             4

拥有成本

1. Maintainability                       1               2              3             4

可维护性

1.  Usability                                  1               2              3             4

可用性

1.  Adoption                                 1               2              3             4

用户采用

1. Openness                                 1               2              3             4

开放性

1. Standards                                 1               2              3             4

规范一致性

1. Integration capability             1               2              3             4

综合能力

1. Reliability                                  1               2              3             4

可靠性

1. Scalability                                  1               2              3             4

扩展性

It is a unsuitable questionnaire, but I mark it down.

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To know the grade rubric of supervisor

Time management skills

• The student’s initiative and independence

• Approach to solving the problem

• Creative problem-solving skills

• Effort, commitment and enthusiasm

• Ability to work with a supervisor

• The difficulty of the project

August 19th content in the seminar

Modern distance education isn’t like it used to be. In the 19th century, students bought tutors’ textbooks and studied by themselves. But now students can search for much study information in the internet, and communicate with tutors and other students by phone and Email. Studying will be easier and more efficient than before.

Distance education, also named online education or e-learning, means the use of TV or Internet to implement distance education. Distance education is different from traditional education because students do not need to consider the location. Normally, part-time or adult students prefer to use this distance education. They can take the class whenever they want as distance education does not require a place to have the class.

Here is a short video from YouTube, and you will know the basic difference between distance education and traditional education.

Distance education uses the information network technology and digital technology in the digital environment of interactive learning. A modern distance education network includes information sources, network transmission, multimedia terminals and network management. There are more than 100 countries that have used distance education by now. As the development of satellite, cable, TV and electronic communication technology progresses, and with the improvements in global networking and multimedia technology, both developed and developing countries are supporting their modern distance education.

Distance education includes the following two models:

1. Based on group distance education, the tutors can educate a group of students via the audio, video and TV.
2. Based on individual distance education, the tutors can educate their students one on one. The rapid development of the internet makes individual learning possible.

This project is an IT research project.  Therefore, the research will focus on the IT devices required for distance education to work. I will focus on studying distance education programs. During this week, I watched some information about the software named Moodle.

Moodle is an online studying system, which has been used by 205 countries around the world in 80 languages. This studying system is an open source system is written by Martin Dougiamas.

Moodle stands for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment, and it is a course management system which can help educators to create effective online learning communities. Programmers and tutors usually use this system. Users can download and set it up on their web server. This system can support up to 40,000 students to study online in one instance of Moodle.

The Moodle system can help its users (system administrators, tutors, developers) to publish information online. The Moodle system is getting more and more popular and it is totally free to use.

Here is a Moodle Presentation from YouTube.

I will continue to study other open source distance education software.

10 open source e-learning projects:

Segue, LogiCampus, Dokeos, Claroline, A Tutort, Sakai, OLAT, Fle3, LAMS, eFront, Moodle

I plan to use the case study method, functional analysis method, and a literature review (studying articles) to do my project.

DE software links 1st week

http://moodle.org/about/

Moodle is an Open Source Course Management System (CMS), also known as a Learning Management System (LMS) or a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).

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http://www.techworld.com.au/article/223565/10_open_source_e-learning_projects_watch

10 open source e-learning projects to watch

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http://library.cpit.ac.nz/

CPIT online system

12th August

In my opinion, distance education’s history and development is impacted by technical equipment, money, teaching system and the intentions and preferences of teachers and students.

I will focus on the technical equipment aspect in the history section of my report, as I am doing an IT research project.

 http://www.digitalschool.net/edu/DL_history_mJeffries.html

This is a helpful paper.

It describes how before the 1990’s, television broadcasting was the mainstream media of distance education, because of the broadcasting technology’s development.

The first catalog of instruction films appeared in 1910 (Reiser, 1987) and in 1913, Thomas Edison proclaimed that, due to the invention of film, “Our school system will be completely changed in the next ten years” (Saettler, 1968, p. 68). 

 

 

As a result of visual broadcast’s popularity, distance learning was already no longer limited to textbooks. Students could learn by television broadcasting, and TV education was more convenient than the initial distance education.

In summary, the history of distance education shows a field that appears to be in a constant state of evolution, that is supported by theory, but in need of research which can fill many unanswered questions. The historical view of distance education shows a stream of new ideas and technologies balanced against a steady resistance to change, and it often places technology in the light of promising more than it has delivered. History shows nontraditional education trying to blend with traditional education while striving to meet the challenge of constantly changing learning theories and evolving technologies.

How should the international students search for information efficiently on the internet?

International students (not from English speaking countries) may have the same problem, searching and reading English information too slowly, as some academic papers have many terminologies, and the terminologies are not in common use. So the students will spend much time checking a dictionary and understanding the terminologies. It will slow the works’ progress.

It is one of my tasks to find out how to solve this problem.

10th August

Hi everyone,

10th August was the first time that I met my supervisor- Henry – and talked with him about my proposal.

We set some preliminary project goals:
1. History and compare distance education to traditional education.
2. Focus on questionnaire about real time distance education.
3. On-line learning: Find the IT issues to develop real time DE (in classroom, in office, at home).
4. Virtual education: Technical issues of Second Life, particularly those related to educational issues.

 

This week’s mission:
Find books, articles and web sites in order to learn about the history of DE.
Write my opinion on the blog after I read the information (books, articles……)

 Next week’s plan:
I will explain to Henry what I did in the last week and what I am doing this week.
Get ready for the seminar.