A topic is an important supporting idea that explains, clarifies, or supports a module. A topic would be a lesson or an assignment. Topics in a module on Central Tendency might be Median, Mode, and Mean. The Topic/Learning Object is often designed to require one hour of work working with the lesson which is usually make up of an objective, multimedia content, and a summary. Students are also expected to study in addition to working with interactive “online instruction.” Study means reading papers and texts, watching videos, or reviewing materials.
Published in Chapter:
Best Practices for Designing Distance Education and the U-M-T Approach
Michael Simonson (Nova Southeastern University, USA)
Copyright: © 2009
|Pages: 6
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-198-8.ch025
Abstract
Distance education is defined by the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (Schlosser & Simonson, 2006) as: Institution-based, formal education where the learning group is separated, and where interactive telecommunications systems are used to connect learners, resources and instructors. Distance education has two major components, distance teaching and distance learning. Distance teaching is the efforts of the educational institution to design, develop and deliver instructional experiences to the distant student so that learning may occur. Education and distance education is comprised of teaching and learning. This article focuses on distance teaching.