Table of Contents

President's Corner

Technology Update

Trends and Issues Alert - Distance Education

Meeting Room WWW

New Members

Employment Corner

President's Corner
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10 Macro Trends

Here are 10 macro trends that will change the nature of the Internet over the next five years, according to Computer Economics:

1. At least one-fourth of a projected 350 million Internet users will use wireless devices for Internet communications and business activities.
2. The nature of Web content will become increasingly global as companies in Europe and South America, along with China and Japan, move to the Internet at a faster rate than other countries.
3. In the next three years, e-commerce will attain more than $6 trillion of business-to-business transactions over the Internet.
4. The age of the Internet entrepreneur will fall dramatically over the next five years as more teenagers start their own dot.com businesses.
5. Companies that want to conduct global e-business will be required to support Websites in multiple languages and create a culturally significant content.
6. Competition among affinity Websites will become fierce as media companies attempt to attract such interest groups as women, men, teens, Hispanics, Asians, African American, gays, lesbians, and people with specific economic or recreational interests.
7. Technological convergence and consumer demand will open doors for new media applications. Delivery of all existing media sources will span numerous platforms, including computers, thin-client devices, video systems, and audio systems - requiring converting media into multiple formats.
8. No monopoly in end-user or infrastructure technology is sustainable, and all present-day corporate dominance will eventually erode and technological convergence occurs.
9. Customer service standards for e-business efforts will have to meet or exceed those of offline competitors, as customer service becomes a primary differentiator between Web-based companies.
10. Cyber-terrorism will emerge as a form of economic warfare and a political and economic tool for competing companies, polarized political forces, and social classes.

Online education through computer networking is creating a paradigm shift in education. The old models [one-to-one broadcast via television, radio, newspaper, and lecture] came from 19th Century technology and they're based on transmission models. . . . New computer networking technology requires and enables a whole new way of teaching and learning. For the first time in human history we can have many-to-many communication across time and space. Never before have we been able to have group interaction that's time and place independent--the framework for a learning society. (Linda Harasim quoted in "Shaping Cyberspace into Human Space" 1996)

Distance education, the delivery of instruction when teachers and learners are separated in place and/or time, is currently being shaped by microcomputers, the Internet, and the World Wide Web (Kerka 1996). Decreasing costs of communication and the blurring of boundaries between the telephone, the television, and the computer ("The Revolution Begins, At Last" 1995) mean that anyone is potentially a distance learner (Kerka 1996). Distance educators are faced with enormous challenges in responding to the rapid changes in technology and to the growing audience for distance learning. Some of the trends and issues affiliated with distance education in the current environment are highlighted in this publication. The discussion is followed by lists of print and organizational resources on distance education.

The potential of current technologies to change the traditional teaching-learning transaction is a theme appearing in the distance education literature. What Linda Harasim refers to as a "paradigm shift in education" ("Shaping Cyberspace into Human Space" 1996) is recognized by others (e.g., Davison 1996; Filipczak 1995; Kerka 1996; Moore 1995b). Moore (1995b) sketches four possible scenarios to describe how educators might respond to "the new opportunities" offered by changing technologies: the minimal change model in which instructors make no fundamental changes but merely use technology as an instructional aid; the marginal change model in which the pedagogy and organization of education remain unchanged and students are added on to conventionally taught classes (the most common application of distance education in North America); systemic change in which institutions change the fundamental organization of teaching by reorganizing it into a system driven by technology; and a virtual system in which universities and schools are "place-free, with little or no formal organization" (p. 3). Only the last acknowledges the existence of a paradigm shift.

A number of issues are affiliated with the potential to change teaching and learning via distance education. One that is mentioned frequently is the need for staff development (e.g., Davison 1996; Filipczak 1995; Thach and Murphy 1995; Warren 1995). Since distance education is now considered to be more than just connecting people in one classroom to a lecture in another, there is growing realization that traditional teaching techniques will not work in distance education settings (Thach and Murphy 1995). Greater emphasis is being placed on learner centeredness and creating interaction between and among learners and instructors. If distance education instructors do not receive training to facilitate greater student participation and interaction, they may simply use distance education "to imitate existing familiar teaching situations and strategies via a variety of technologies" (Davison 1996, p. 151).

Technology is not the main issue any more, but it is still an issue (Filipczak 1995). For many students, issues of access are very real due to the costs of equipment and the charges for accessing the information highway (Davison 1996). Other issues related to technology include a lack of standards ("Trouble in Paradise" 1996) and cost of state-of-the-art equipment (Filipczak 1995). For the most part, however, distance educators can turn their attention to solving questions related to teaching and learning, questions that may lead to a genuine learning society.

• Virtual and Geographically Dispersed Teams Vicinity

• Gerrit Visser's Start4All Clearinghouse
  
• Bernie DeKoven's Coworking Forum
  
• Early Adopters in HR
  
• Communities of Practice Forum
  
• "Ideas on Working Remotely" http://facilitatedsystems.com/onlinefac.pdf

• MyPlaceware.com
  
• CentraNow.com
  
  

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  Employment Corner
  How Does the SEVA Job Bank Work?
   Job Bank 101
  By Janette Crumley
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  The SEVA -ASTD Job Bank is provided on our web site as a benefit to our membership and a community service to organizations in Hampton Roads.
  Here is how it works:
  
  Current job opening listings:
  Organizations in Hampton Roads are encouraged to call the Job Bank Coordinator, Janette Crumley, at 757.460.4183 or e-mail her at with new job postings to list on the web site. For your convenience, most job openings are posted within 48 hours. Stop by the Job Bank often to see what is new.
  Links - Job searchers are provided "hot button links" taking you directly to area and national search links for employment opportunities. Just press the button and you are one step closer to finding the right job for you.
  
  Announcing a new opportunity for SEVA-ASTD members:
  
  Confidential e-mail alert for members - If you are a SEVA-ASTD member, we have a special benefit to offer you. Provide your e-mail address to the Job Bank Coordinator and you will be alerted when a new job posting is added to the web site. This will save you time searching for area postings and alert you the minute SEVA-ASTD knows of a job opportunity. All job applicants will be kept strictly confidential.
  
  We hope you will visit our chapter's web site often for up to date information about chapter activities and to see what is new in the Job Bank.
  

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