Resource 2.1.1 - Broadcast Radio Cases

The Case of Botswana [1]

The use of Radio as a medium of instruction for distance education started in the 1970s. The program uses what is known as the three-way teaching method of print, radio and face-to-face instruction to reach students who study by the distance education method, wherever they are in Botswana. Print is the main medium while radio and face-to-face methodologies are supplementary media. Radio is used in teaching the following subjects:

• Bookkeeping and Commerce
• English
• History
• Human and Social Biology
• Geography
• Mathematics
• Setswana

Students are also counseled through the radio.

The following problems have been experienced in teaching by radio:

• Reception: There are still parts of Botswana where reception is very poor. In such places students do not benefit from the radio lessons.
• Access: There are students who have no access to radios even though many households have radios. Some of those who possess radios often run out of batteries, especially in rural areas.
• Broadcast schedules: Some students have complained about the broadcast schedules. Botswana has only one central radio station and, as a result, not every program receives a suitable time slot for its target audience.

The Case of St. Lucia [2]

An entertainment-education radio soap opera, Apwe Plezi, was broadcast and evaluated from February 1996 to September 1998 in St. Lucia. It entered into a new season in 2000.The program promoted family planning, HIV prevention and other social development themes. Fifteen-minute episodes were broadcast and rebroadcast most days of the week on Radio St. Lucia.

The characters in the soap opera serve as positive, negative or transitional behavioral role models, and their fates provide vicarious learning experiences to demonstrate the consequences of alternative behaviors. Positive characters embody positive values and are rewarded while negative characters embody negative values and are punished.

The program's effects were assessed through analyses of data from nationally representative pretest and posttest surveys, focus-group discussions and other qualitative and quantitative sources. Among 1,238 respondents to the posttest survey, 35% had listened to Apwe Plezi, with significant effects on several knowledge, attitude and behavior variables. Apwe Plezi influenced listeners to increase their awareness of contraceptives, improve important attitudes about fidelity and family relations, and adopt family planning methods.

Resource 2.1.2 - Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI)

The Case of the Dominican Republic [3]

In the Dominican Republic, for example, an IRI project called RADECO was created for children who had no schools and has now been broadcasting for over twelve years. In early evaluations, it was discovered that children who had just five hours of integrated instruction a week using IRI and thirty minutes of follow-up activities were compared to students who were in regular formal schools for more than twice the amount of time. Studies showed that first graders using the RADECO programs responded correctly 51% of the time on posttests, versus 24% of the time for the control group. Second graders using IRI gave 10% more correct answers. Overall, even though these students had enormous obstacles, for both grades, students who used IRI for an hour a day had comparable results in reading, writing and language when compared to the control group, and performed significantly better in math.

Based on the early successes of the RADECO project, IRI programs are currently being developed in other areas where different types of obstacles are in place, such as the failing schools of Haiti, non-formal early childhood development centers in Bolivia and Nepal, and adult learning centers in Honduras.

The Case of Zambia [4]

In Zambia, interactive radio instruction now shows that IRI also can help to increase access to education for children who are without schools and teachers and who are increasingly vulnerable due to the effects of HIV/AIDs and poverty. IRI is delivering basic education to out-of-school children, especially orphans and other vulnerable children, in community learning centers. IRI is a collaborative effort among communities, churches, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the Ministry of Education's Educational Broadcast Services (EBS), the Peace Corps, and the Education Development Center. EBS develops and broadcasts the programs and develops supplementary materials such as mentor's guides, and the Ministry of Education trains mentors in its District Resource Centers and provides supervision/monitoring at participating learning centers. Communities, churches, schools (both government and community), and NGOs provide the learning center venues, mentor(s) to facilitate the radio broadcasts, radio receivers, a blackboard, and some locally made materials. Communities also mobilize out-of-school children to attend the learning centers each day. The Education Development Center (EDC) has trained EBS writers and producers and assisted EBS to develop a program of training of trainers for Ministry of Education resource center staff who, in turn, train mentors to run the community-based learning centers.

In 2000 and 2001, EBS produced and aired daily 30-minute lessons for grade 1, following the Zambian curriculum for mathematics and English. Grades 2 and 3 are in the process of lesson development. In addition, each IRI program includes skills in English as a second language, basic mathematical skills, and a five-minute segment covering life skill themes (hygiene, nutrition, social values, etc.) in an attempt to strengthen the ability of the community to support its children. The programs are designed to be guided by a facilitator rather than a trained teacher, so the content can be delivered easily and more students can participate. Because the programs promote interactive learning during the broadcast, as do all IRI programs, facilitators are supported in their leadership roles with new content and subject matter.

Resource 2.1.3 -Television

The Case of Telecurso in Brazil [5]

Brazil, with its large territory and low school attendance, has been experimenting with radio and television education for more than three decades. Two states in the Northeast (Ceará and Maranhão) created secondary schools through television in the 1970s. Yet, a bit later, another player - a private enterprise, the Globo Television Network - stepped on to the stage and completely changed the relationship between secondary schools and television. Being the world's fourth largest network, Globo had ample experience in production, excelling in soap operas that found huge markets in all continents. Twenty years ago, the Roberto Marinho Foundation (FRM), the education branch of Globo, created the first Telecurso, adding a number of important innovations. First, it used very expensive production. Second, it used actors instead of teachers. This program was a major success and was aired for more than 15 years.

By contrast to Mexico's Telesecundaria, Telecurso targeted young adults who left primary or secondary schools before graduation. Brazil always had open examinations for primary (eight years) and secondary (11 years) certificates ("exame supletivo") for young adults who are beyond a certain age. Since these were open examinations, students could prepare for them on their own or enroll in preparatory courses. The Telecurso took the place of these preparatory courses, allowing students to follow the curricula by watching television. A number of institutions received supervision from FRM to create classrooms where, under the supervision of a teacher, improvised or certified, students could watch the programs/classes and use the complementary written materials.

In the early 1990s, with the rapid transformation and globalization of the Brazilian economy, industrialists were having problems with the appallingly low schooling levels of their workers. In many cases, they provided sponsorship for their students to take the preparatory courses leading to the government examinations. However, the quality of these courses was, at best, mediocre.

The Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo then struck a deal with FRM to prepare a new Telecurso for its workers. In this joint venture, the industrialists contributed US$30 million to produce a new program and Globo offered to broadcast it without any charges. Globo also donated the equivalent to US$60 million worth of commercial TV time to promote the new program, called Telecurso 2000.

Telecurso 2000 is a condensed version of a basic curriculum for distance education, which is to be provided through a combination of videotaped classroom sessions and books. Thus, both television sets and videocassette equipment are used. In addition, an optional curriculum is offered that focuses on teaching basic mechanical skills (the vocational course on mechanics).

It is difficult to identify all the users of Telecurso. Suffice it to say that 5.2 million accompanying texts were sold or distributed between 1995 and 1999. "Telesalas" (classrooms with television sets) have been created in enterprises, and a support system for those working with students has been established. At present, more than 200,000 students attend classes at factories, schools, churches, offices, prisons, ships and buses. An unknown - but probably large - number of people watch television and study on their own. But even more surprisingly, another large and uncounted crowd watches the programs regularly or occasionally, apparently because it is interesting, light and fun. A further development is the spontaneous utilization of the programs in regular schools - something that had already started with the old Telecurso. A number of states are now developing explicit programs to incorporate portions of Telecurso into regular secondary schools,

The per-student costs are significantly low because of the large number of beneficiaries. Assuming a cost of US$30 million for preparing Telecurso 2000, if the program were to stop today, figures for book sales indicate that several million students participated in Telecurso somewhat seriously. Suppose three million used the program, this would amount to US$10 per student. This is a very modest price (per student) for a set of 1200 15-minute lectures. Costs per book are around US$4 (the primary school program uses a single book and the secondary program uses multiple books). Hence, the social cost per student working on his/her own is US$14.

The Case of Telesecundaria in Mexico [6]

Telesecundaria was created over three decades ago, to respond to the needs of rural Mexican communities where a general secondary school (grades 7-9) was not feasible, since the number of students was very low and it was difficult to attract teachers. The main characteristics of Telesecundaria have always been:

• the use of television to carry most of the teaching load; and
• the utilization of one teacher to cover all subjects, rather than the subject matter specialists used in general secondary schools.

This combination permits the effective installation and implementation of these schools in sparsely settled rural areas that are usually inhabited by less than 2,500 people and have low primary completion and secondary enrollment rates, since with just three classrooms and three teachers the complete curriculum can be covered.

Telesecundaria has experienced a very substantial growth rate since its inception in 1968. Current enrollment is over a million and is equivalent to 16.6% of total enrollment in grades 7-9.

On average, the Telesecundaria schools have three teachers -one for every grade-- and 22 students per grade. Students attend school 200 days a year, 30 hours a week. The instructional program went through many stages. It is now an integrated and comprehensive program providing a complete package of distance and in-person support to students and teachers. It puts teachers and students on the screen, brings context and practical uses of the concepts taught and extensively uses images and available clips to illustrate and help students. It enables schools to deliver the same secondary school curriculum offered in traditional schools.

At eight o'clock the teachers in all of the Telesecundaria schools in Mexico turn on the TV. The students then watch 15 minutes of television. At the end of the TV session, the set is turned off and the book, workbook, and teacher take over, following detailed instructions on what to do in the remaining 45 minutes. At first, the teacher asks whether students need to understand better the concepts just seen. Then, they might read aloud, apply what was taught in practical exercises, and participate in a brief evaluation of what has been learned. To finish, there is a review of the materials taught. At 9 a.m., another subject starts, following the same routine.

Evaluation studies show that Telesecundaria students start significantly behind other students but catch up completely in math and cut the deficit in half in language. It strongly suggests that the "value added" of learning is higher in Telesecundaria than in general schools.

As to cost, Telesecundaria schools have proven to be slightly more costly (per student) than conventional schools, mainly because of the cost of development of TV programs. However, a more appropriate comparison would be with the cost of setting up a general secondary school in a rural area. In principle, the cost would be prohibitive, since a school with 60 students would require 12 teachers, for a 5:1 student-teacher ratio, as well as a full laboratory and administrative personnel. This would mean running costs nearly four times those of Telesecundaria. Even after subtracting the unit costs of television programs, the cost still would be three times as great.

Resource 2.1.4 - Virtual High Schools

Choice 2000 [7]

Choice 2000 is one of the original charter schools in California. It is a completely on-line and fully accredited secondary school, covering grades 7-12.

The instructional platform utilized by Choice is interactive. Students attend classes daily at set times. Lessons are presented both visually and verbally. Students and teachers are able to interact directly in this virtual environment, hearing and answering questions and participating in discussions of what appears on the screen. Students must provide their own computer. The maximum class size is 20 students per class, with the average being 13 students per class.

The Alberta Distance Learning Centre (ADLC) [8] in Canada

ADLC provides a distance education program that lead to a high school diploma. The ADLC uses both asynchronous and synchronous on-line learning methods.

Online students are assigned to in-house Distance Learning Teachers who initiate contact with students to provide coaching, monitoring and tutoring opportunities for each student on a regular basis. Students work from a combination of Online and Print materials. They complete their assignments and generally submit them electronically. Expected turn around time for student work is one to three days. In addition, students receive multiple assessment opportunities beyond regular assignment activities such as quizzes, unit test, and possibly a mid-term exam placing less weight on the final exam and bettering the students' potential for high achievement.

For the predominantly asynchronous courses, students communicate by such Internet media as e-mail, online chat, threaded discussions, audio conferences, and shared whiteboards, as well as by telephone, print, and fax machine. For synchronous courses, live classes are conducted over the Internet. The entire class "meets" at a regular time and they are able to communicate with each other using microphones, drawing tools and even sharing computer software.

The Open School in British Columbia [9] (Canada)

The Open School in British Columbia (BC) provides asynchronous learning opportunities to high school students in the province. The online courses use WebCT platform and are developed by a team of teachers, instructional designers, web developers and education specialists who work together to produce ready-to-use, K-12 courses and resources that meet BC Ministry of Education curriculum guidelines. Unfortunately though, a review of a sample course shows that it is basically a hyperlinked text. See http://www.openschool.bc.ca/online_login.html

Virtual School Service in Australia [10]

In Australia, the only full-service virtual school is the Virtual School Service. It provides online classes to Queensland's high school students in subject areas that regular high schools have difficulty offering. These subjects include Economics, Mathematics, Japanese, Modern History, Information Processing and Technology, and Physics. To review sample activities go to: http://education.qld.gov.au/virtualschool/html/students/infohub/study_activities.htm

PBS - High School Equivalency Online Program [11]

The General Educational Development (GED) Testing Service develops and distributes the GED Tests. These are basically designed to provide a "reliable vehicle through which adults can certify that they possess the major and lasting outcomes of a traditional high school education." More than 860,000 adults worldwide take the GED Tests each year. More than 95 percent of U.S. employers consider GED graduates the same as traditional high school graduates in regard to hiring, salary, and opportunity for advancement.

PBS LiteracyLink offers learners a GED Connection package to help them prepare for the GED test:

• 39 video programs, broadcast by Public Television stations or available as videotapes
• student workbooks covering Reading/Writing, Social Studies/Science, and Math
• interactive online learning modules, with practice tests, online activities and quizzes for each GED lesson.

These integrated multimedia components work together to make studying for the GED easy for a busy adult who needs to work at his or her own pace. In addition to the online modules, learners can view the lessons on their local public television stations, record these lessons, and use the videotapes to study at home. Many local adult education programs, community colleges, one-stop career centers, or libraries have GED Connection videos and books available, with classes and teachers to help. Online teachers from several states are available to coach adult learners in virtual classrooms.

Florida Virtual School [12]

The Florida Virtual School (FLVS) is a statewide, internet-based, public high school offering rigorous curriculum online. Enrollment for 2002-03 exceeded 10,000. Courses are free to all Florida students and are available to public, private, and home school students. Non-Florida students can enroll in FLVS on a tuition basis. FLVS will offer 75 courses during the 2003-04 school year, including honors courses and 11 Advanced Placement courses. FLVS course grades are accepted for credit and are transferable.

All FLVS courses are delivered over the Internet. To help assure student success with virtual learning, a variety of web-based, technology-based and traditional resources are provided. Teachers communicate with students and parents on a regular basis via telephone, email, online chats, instant messaging, and discussion forums. For course demonstration go to: http://www.flvs.net/_global_connections/flash_courses/index.htm

FLVS is currently working to assemble a "Virtual School Sourcebook" designed to offer readers a resource for developing and managing a virtual school learning enterprise. It will highlight FLVS "lessons learned" along with key issues that should be addressed when undertaking a virtual school initiative. It is also willing to license its courses to other schools and districts.

The Babbage Net School [13]

The Babbage Net School is a private virtual High School offering on line, interactive courses in English, Math, Science, Social Studies, SAT, Foreign Language, Advanced Placement, Music, and Art. These courses are taught by certified teachers in a virtual classroom featuring interactive audio, synchronized web browsing and a shared whiteboard. The courses cover the full range of high school level subjects including enrichment courses, foreign language and Advanced Placement courses. The Babbage Net School also offers In-service courses for teachers.

The classes meet in a "classroom" at a specific time. Only registered students are allowed into a class. The virtual class is extremely similar to classes given in a traditional brick and mortar school building. A certified, experienced teacher is in control of the class and guides the students through each lesson. The classes meet at assigned times. The students have a textbook. The teacher talks to the class and students can be 'given the floor' so they can also talk to the class. Some class material is shown to the class as web pages using a synchronized web browser. Other material is displayed on a whiteboard which functions as a blackboard in a traditional classroom. Students can raise their hand to get the teachers attention. Or, students can ask questions by using text chat. The teacher can have a student answer a question by talking to the class or writing on the whiteboard. So, the virtual class is fully interactive. Students can also interact asynchronously with the teacher or their classmates by using email.

The Virtual High School (VHS)

VHS is a research-based project administered by a partnership between the Hudson Public School (Massachusetts, USA) and The Concord Consortium. Through the Internet, participating schools can offer new courses without the need for increasing enrollment to justify the expenses. The project functions as a cooperative. Each participating school contributes at least one teacher and a site coordinator to the project, and, in exchange, the school can enroll a pre-established number of students in any VHS courses. A site coordinator helps to recruit the students and teachers, ensure that the technology is available and functioning, and provide support to the students. The advantage of the cooperative system is that the major cost of a project-personnel-is shared among all participants.

Before developing the online course, the teacher must complete a graduate-level course on design and development of network-based material. Each online course may take a year to develop, and must be approved by the school principal and VHS central staff. More recently, an Evaluation Board has been formed to define standards of quality for the courses. The courses, mostly one semester long, are taken for credits as core subject or elective. The courses are mostly interdisciplinary and use student-centered, hands-on instructional strategies that emphasize collaborative learning and inquiry. Students can take the course at home or during school time. In this case, the VHS coordinator functions as a tutor. The online courses are housed in a LearningSpace educational environment that enables teachers to deliver lectures, moderate student discussions, conduct assessments, and receive students' work. Students can submit work individually or in groups and can participate in discussions with their peers.

The first semester of the project was hampered by a series of technical problems and the lack of participants' experience with the process. For instance, because staff underestimated the server capacity that would be needed to support 350 students online, the courses were offline for a few weeks. As time passed, technical difficulties decreased, the teachers learned how to manage the logistics of online teaching, and students improved their understanding of the responsibility and persistence necessary to participate in distance learning. During the 1997-98 school year, the project had 30 participant schools and offered 30 courses to 700 students. In 1999-2000, the number of schools grew to 87, and the project offered 94 courses to more than 2,500 students. It is estimated that the project will serve more than 6,000 children over the five-year grant period. [14]

Resource 2.1.5 -Virtual Universities [15]

Peru's Higher Technological Institute (TECSUP)

Peru's Higher Technological Institute (TECSUP) is a dual-mode institution that uses both conventional campuses, in Lima and Arequipa, and a virtual campus that was introduced in 1999. As of 2000, more than 1,600 learners were enrolled in a variety of distance education courses, primarily technical training. According to Wolff and Garcia, learners can access the TECSUP virtual campus through TECSUP conventional campus locations, their workplace, home, or public Internet kiosks. Courses are generally seven weeks and include online content, self-evaluations, and discussions with the instructor and others students. [16]

For more information, visit http://www.tecsup.edu.pe

The African Virtual University (AVU)

The African Virtual University (AVU) is a single-mode institution that operates without a conventional campus, but uses the facilities of conventional universities in 22 sub-Saharan African universities in 15 countries to provide learners with facilities to access technology delivery systems. [17] Started in 1997, the AVU supports learners across the continent through videotaped instruction and/or live broadcast (via satellite or fiber optic connections), with learners participating in the discussion by way of e-mail, telephone, or fax. Additional reference materials such as books, journals, and course notes are also available for learners. Courses currently offered by the AVU focus primarily on training and certificate programs, with more than 23,000 learners having completed at least one semester-long course. Though current fees per course are still out of reach of many Africans, they generally are much less than those of competitive programs offered by other international universities. For more information, visit http://www.avu.org.

The University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI)

Serving a dispersed and rural population in Scotland, the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) provides a diverse collage of thematic multidisciplinary learning opportunities for both degree-seeking and nondegree-seeking learners. Like many single-mode institutions, UHI uses 50 local learning centers to provide regional support to learners. Using instructional readings, local classroom instruction, informal tutors, videoconferencing, self-paced computerized instruction, and other media, UHI offers courses that, like most professional development training, focus more on "building individual competencies than the transfer of knowledge." [18] UHI courses are developed in consultation with employers and are tailored specifically to the needs of the Highlands and Islands. They cover a range of subjects focusing on the region's principal industries and businesses, including fisheries, land management, forestry, marine ecology, and tourism. For more information, visit http://www.uhi.ac.uk.

The Virtual University of the Technological Institute of Monterrey (ITESM)

The Virtual University of the Technological Institute of Monterrey (ITESM), Mexico, is the primary provider of distance education in Mexico and many other areas of Latin America. ITESM is a dual-mode institution that offers mainly master's degree-level programs through its virtual campus. [19] Using primarily satellite technology, ITESM provides courses to more than 1,300 reception sites throughout Mexico and Latin America. In addition, ITESM offers a franchised [20] master' program in educational technology with the University of British Columbia. For more information, visit http://www.itesm.mx.

The University of Phoenix (UP)

One of the few private for-profit universities to offer distance education internationally, the University of Phoenix (UP) operates a variety of small campus facilities throughout the United States and an online virtual campus. For the majority of learners, the online campus provides a variety of resources to support their classroom sessions. [21] In addition, the UP offers courses that are conducted fully through the virtual campus. In addition, the UP offers nonfranchised international programs to learners around the world through online courses. Currently enrolling more than 80,000 working adult students, the UP completion rate averages approximately 60% across all programs. For more information, visit http://www.phoenix.edu.

The Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK)

Previously known as the Open Learning Institute of Hong Kong, the Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK) offers a variety of degree and certificate programs in the arts and social sciences, business and administration, education and language, and science and technology. [22] Currently the university offers more than 100 postgraduate, degree, andsubdegree programs to more than 25,000 enrolled learners. The OUHK uses a flexible credit system under which learners earn credits for each course, which accumulate toward a degree. Similar to other open universities-specifically, the United Kingdom Open University-the OUHK provides course-related materials to distance learners through a variety of instructional media, including text, videotape, and some broadcast television. Additionally, learners are required to attend tutoring sessions at local study centers periodically during each course. For more information, visit http://www.ouhk.edu.hk.

Nova Southeastern University (NSU)

Like the University of Phoenix, Nova Southeastern University (NSU) offers international programs to learners around the world. NSU is private, not-for-profit university that has students at its conventional campus and learners taking courses offered at a distance. NSU currently enrolls more than 18,000 learners. Many programs at NSU provide dual-mode educational opportunities to students who meet both in person and online. Providing online programs all the way to the doctorate level, NSU's virtual campus supports online learners with an extensive virtual library. For more information, visit http://www.nova.edu.

The Center for Open Distance Education for Civil Society (CODECS)

The Center for Open Distance Education for Civil Society (CODECS) now offers educational opportunities to learners throughout Romania. [23] In cooperation with the United Kingdom Open University (UKOU), CODECS operates 12 regional centers that offer tutorial support for learners using UKOU instructional materials (including videotapes, instructional texts, course software, etc.). Certificates, diplomas, and degrees attained through CODECS-offered courses are recognized internationally through the UKOU. The CODECS model for institutional structure is a primary example of franchised international distance education. For more information, visit http://www.open.ac.uk/collaborate/romania.htm.