Abstract
Distributed education delivered via the Internet is a growing practice, with most institutions offering at least course websites and many expanding to full course offerings and even degree offerings. There are two schools of thought with regard to delivery mode; the larger group has focused on asynchronous delivery, accessible at any time via web pages and interactive tutorials and quizzes, while a smaller group advocates synchronous delivery where students are online and interact during class time. This paper summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of the two delivery modes and describes our successful and growing experience of more than a decade using an open source synchronous delivery tool blended with a variety of asynchronous capabilities and classroom instruction. We conclude that a synergistic combination of the two modes with in-person instruction, designed to provide maximum flexibility to the student within the constraints of the subject, offers the best support for student learning.
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Keywords
- Learning Management System
- Portable Document Format
- Asynchronous Mode
- Online Student
- Interactive Tutorial
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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© 2006 International Federation for Information Processing
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Pullen, J.M. (2006). Integrating Synchronous and Asynchronous Internet Distributed Education for Maximum Effectiveness. In: Kumar, D., Turner, J. (eds) Education for the 21st Century — Impact of ICT and Digital Resources. IFIP WCC TC3 2006. IFIP International Federation for Information Processing, vol 210. Springer, Boston, MA . https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-34731-8_18
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-34731-8_18
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
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