As distance learning becomes the millenial imperative of most institutions of learning, I will discuss what I perceive to be the trends and implications in distance learning along with the opportunities for innovation and intervention that synchronous learning environments offer. In Summer 2000, The University of Arizona's Composition Program assembled a team of faculty and graduate students to develop online versions of Business and Technical Writing , of which I was a part. My paper will discuss aspects of the course development significant to thinking about using technologies to enhance learning collaboratively and synchronously.
Distance learning appears to be all the rage.
Not surprisingly, I am writing this paper to be presented as a distance learning experience-an online conference. What appears to be valued in real-time conversation is the ability to ask and answer, build immediately on others' ideas, sense other people's presence. There are other ways to achieve the experience of sharing work and engaging in exchanges about that work, but clearly, there is something important enough about having conversations in some form of presence that a great deal of effort has been put into designing the conference in this fashion. In this paper, I would like to analyze those values and the opportunities to incorporate them into distance learning a bit more. Distance learning, being all the rage and all, presents educators with big questions.