Learning and Working in Cybertime and cyberspace
An interactive Newsletter That Probes The Lifestyle Implications Created by
Distance Learning and Telecommuting
Flexnews is based in the belief that it takes time for society to discover the
unique potential of new technologies. The automobile was understood to be a
horseless carriage before it emerged with its own identity. Flexnews
promotes the belief that living, learning and working on the internet,
freed from traditional bondage to time and place, but with almost
limitless potential for interactivity and connectivity, provides society
and individuals with creative opportunities that, as yet, are only dimly
understood.
Flexnews is sponsored by Flex Learning Systems: Distance Learning With a
Difference at: http://www.flexlearn.com
Contents:
1. Discovering the Shape of an Interactive Newsletter
2. Discovering the Shape of a Virtual Classroom
3. Marshall McLuhan: _Understanding Media_ (review)
4. Norman Coombs: "CMC: the Medium and the Message" (abstract)
5. Al Bredenberg: The Small Business Guide to Internet Marketing (review)
6. National Telecommuting Week (Media Event or Milepost?)
7. Upcoming Flex Learning Courses and Workshops
1. Discovering the Shape of an Interactive Newsletter:
The very term, "newsletter", smacks of the printing press and the post office.
We probably even need a term that will differentiate a project like this from
the technologies of the last 500 years. We also recognize that we are in the
process of discovering the shape that is best suited to such a venture. This
is a learning project and not a finished product.
We do believe that a short document is usually suited to this medium. Articles
will also normally be brief. They will frequently contain pointers to other
resources on the internet to permit the reader to take an interesting item and
follow it further.
In the near future, Flexnews will be interactively connected to some of the
other internet communications utilities like listservs, usenet groups and web
pages. Because we believe in learning by doing, we decided to launch Flexnews
in the simplest format at first, and to develop more interactive
interfaces as we learned and as it grows. Please be patient with us
because we do not want to lock ourselves into a format with a lot of
preconceptions.
In the meantime, if you have items for us to consider for inclusion in future
cybercasts, please send them to the Assistant Editor, Ann Parsons,
akpgsh@rit.edu or you may send comments to the Editor, Norman Coombs,
nrcgsh@rit.edu.
2. Discovering the Shape of the Virtual Classroom:
Frequently, when someone talks about CMC (computer mediated
communication) as a means of delivering education, they immediately focus
on how best to reproduce a traditional physical classroom. Usually,
the assumption is that the traditional class environment is the ideal.
However, in reality, that classroom may consist of a dull teacher at the
front, droning on about his discipline faced by rows of bored students
who have little interaction with the teacher and less with one another.
In reality, there can be poor education either in the classroom or when
delivered over a computer network. The environment does not make a bad
teacher into a good teacher.
However, to ask, "What is the shape of a virtual classroom" is to imply
that a physical class environment and a computer mediated environment
will be different and that each will have its unique strengths and
weaknesses. If that is true, then the focus for distance learning is
not to replicate a classroom but to maximize the attributes of CMC
technology.
This is the concept behind Flex Learning Systems which sponsors this
newsletter.
The term, flex learning, has been chosen to mean learning that
can be done from almost anywhere and at almost any time. CMC
permits a teacher to post a lesson on the internet at any time,
and the student can choose to read it and to reply to the teacher
at a different time. The technical term is asynchronous communication.
The developers of FLS have taught several hundred persons in at least 21
countries.
The networked PC has decentralized power and also flattened social rank.
One of the many implications for education is that the teacher loses
power, and the student gains power. Depending on the instructor, this
is either threatening or challenging. The common description of
traditional education versus CMC teaching is the "sage on the stage"
contrasted to the "guide on the side". This hackneyed saying contains a
kernel of truth. CMC educators need to explore how best to integrate
this new learning context into their teaching styles and into the
delivery of their particular subject matter.
Flexnews will provide pointers regularly to distance learning providers
and discussions of distance learning.
Flex Learning Systems is at http://www.flexlearn.com
or send mail to majordomo@flexlearn.com with one line of text saying get
e_power aboutfls
Rochester Institute of Technology DL is at http://www.rit.edu
Virtual Online University is at: http://www.iac.net:80/~billp/
Yahoo has a large number of distance education links.
3. Marshall McLuhan: _Understanding Media_
UNDERSTANDING MEDIA by Marshall McLuhan (1964) has been reissued with a
new introduction by Lewis H. Lapham on the 30th anniversary of its
original publication. Terms such as "the global village" and "the
medium is the message" are now part of common jargon.
Harper's editor Lewis Lapham reevaluates McLuhan's work in the
light of the technological as well as the political and social changes
happening today.
The review and links to other related material can be found at:
http://www.mcluhan.toronto.edu/sums/articles/tremewen_fn.html
4. Norman Coombs "The Medium and the Message", (abstract)
Journal: "EJC/REC", Vol. 3, No. 2,
url: http://www.rit.edu/~nrcgsh/tele/cmcart.html
The author reflects upon his experiences as one of the first college
educators to use computer-mediated communication in teaching
traditional classes in history and distance education classes at a
technological institution. The article calls attention to various
ways in which CMC has made it easier for students to interact in class
discussion, making history more relevant to their own experiences, as
well as ways in which the medium has removed certain traditional
constraints on the process of teaching. Finally, CMC's technical
limitations are acknowledged along with the prediction that CMC will
in time revolutionize teaching and learning as profoundly as the
printing press."
5. All Bredenber: The Small Business Guide to Internet Marketing
(review)
This book is concise and helpful. While it is primarily about how a
business can use the internet to market non-internet activities, it is
extremely relevant for companies actually doing their work over the
internet. The book itself is available electronically and can be
purchased and received using electronic mail. Not only does it tell how
to use the internet to sell your products, but it sets an example by
practicing what it preaches.
Here's the Table of Contents for The Small Business Guide to Internet
Marketing:
1. Introduction
2. Is Online Marketing for You?
3. Eight Myths of Internet Marketing -- Don't Fall for Them!
4. Ten Principles of Marketing on the Internet and the World-Wide
Web
5. Methods to Your Madness: Ways to Sell in Cyberspace
6. Working Up Your Internet Marketing Plan
7. Copywriting and Design: 15 Ways to Create Internet Advertising
that Get Results
8. Setting Up a World-Wide Web Site that Gets Results
9. Online Reading: Some Good Internet Marketing Resources
The book has received endorsements by Glenn Fleishman, Point of Presence
Company, moderator of the Internet Marketing discussion list and by
Clifford R. Kurtzman Ph.D., The Tenagra Corporation.
More information about The Small Business Guide to Internet Marketing
can be found at: http://www.copywriter.com/ab/
Al Bredenberg will teach an online course on internet marketing for Flex
Learning Systems beginning on February 19. See below for details.
6. National Telecommuting Week (Media Event or Milepost?)
Telecommute America Week was held last October and seems like a good
point of departure to ponder this topic. Some see it as the solution to
urban smog and traffic. Others see it as further fragmenting society
and undermining real community.
Telecommuting is growing but slower than some might expect. A recent
job to do web searches and report on them required the employee to work
on-site. Managers feel that if they don't "see" the worker at a desk
that the person may not actually be working.
Tom Miller, vice president, FIND/SVP, a national research company in
New York said there were more than 9 million people who telecommuted in
1994, up 20 percent from 1993, including 6.6 million employees who
telecommuted and 2.6 million contract workers. An additional 14.2
million people operated small businesses from their homes.
"Telecommute America! Discover a New Workplace" was a joint effort of
government, nonprofit and corporate entities aimed at encouraging U.S.
workers and employers to try telework alternatives the week of October
23-27, 1995.
The program was designed to highlight these five alternative work styles
during the Telecommute America! week.
Home-based telecommuters
Employees or independent contractors who work from home during
business hours one or more days a week, using a combination of
computing and communications technology to stay productive and
connected to their office and clients;
Work-at-home entrepreneurs
Self-employed individuals who operate a business from their
home utilizing computing and communications technology to
enhance their productivity;
Remote call center agents
Employees who can receive and handle customer calls from
home-based offices instead of corporate-center locations;
Virtual offices
Which allow business people to be equipped with portable
computers and communications devices to travel and work
anywhere, anytime; and
Telework centers and satellite offices
Which allow people who work in locations closer to home,
giving them much shorter commutes.
The Telecommute America! founding members include the Association for
Commuter Transportation, AT&T, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. General Services
Administration, joined by Mobile Office magazine and Steelcase Inc.
The program has been endorsed by the Environmental Defense Fund,
Families and Work Institute, Institute for the Study of Distributed
Work, National Association of Women Business Owners, New Ways to Work,
Renew America and Telecommuting Advisory Council.
There is a world Wide Web site (http://www.att.com/Telecommute_America),
which offers resources for telecommuters, information that can be
downloaded, a news and discussion group, and off-site links to other
useful telecommuting, home-office and virtual-office information.
Another example of organized activity to facilitate telecommuting can be found
at: http://www.careermag.com/newsarts/special/1054.html
7. Flex Learning System Upcoming Courses:
FLS courses are normally between 3 and 8 weeks in length and student fees are
moderate.
Jan. 29: E-mail, the Little Giant of the Internet
Richard BAnks and Norman Coombs
Feb. 19: Net Results: How to Market Your Business on the Internet
Al Bredenberg
Feb. 26: Selling What You Write
Joseph J. Lazzaro
February 26: "Writing: a Creative Act"
Ann K. Parsons
March 4: Careers and Job Search
Thomas Pitre
To learn more about Flex Learning Systems or about the course, send email to
majordomo@flexlearn.com with one line of text saying, get e_power aboutfls
visit the web at http://www.flexlearn.com
For a human response, send email to flexlearn@flexlearn.com
Flexnews Editor:
Norman Coombs nrcgsh@rit.edu
Assistant editor
Ann K. Parsons akpgsh@rit.edu