Distance Learning Partnership

A Distance Learning Partnership has emerged as a major initiative to construct an integrated voice, data, video, fiber optic backbone infrastructure in the Southern Tier region of New York State. The fiber optic infrastructure is a dedicated network that provides a powerful integrated learning system to extend cost-effective resource sharing to members of the partnership without regard for time and distance. During the developmental phases the network calls for linking 16 high school districts, Binghamton University, Broome Community College, Roberson/Kopernik Museum and Science Center, WSKG public broadcasting television, and Broome-Tioga-Delaware Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES). The system will allow school district members to share teachers for low enrollment courses; to enrich the curricula for all students; to provide efficient and cost effective communication resources; to share staff development programs; and to provide cost efficient resources for Binghamton University and other higher education agencies to serve as active program providers for credit and non-credit courses and programs. The partnership affiliation provides the higher education members with options to plan programs for curriculum enhancement and expansion of courses in enrichment programs, extend graduate courses beyond the traditional classroom; and participate as an interface to technological links to other national and international networks. This fiber optic network provides powerful enabling technological capacities to the region for the delivery of diverse educational resources among member participants, plus the technological basis to access and retrieve a wealth of unique programmatic resources via the utilization of computers, TV technologies, and telecommunications services on a global scale. Binghamton University's participation in the distance learning project builds from a 1989-91 study on telecommunications in education. This research provided substantial data and evidence for a strategy to integrate technologies in the support of educational delivery systems. The assessment made clear that telecommunications technologies should be considered as avenues for supplementing instruction, administrative functions, cultural enrichment, and for integrating the University's programs. Predictions are on target that the 1990's will be the decade of the end-user for interactive technologies in the teaching and learning environments. These interactive technologies promote a real possibility for globalization of information transfer and retrieval for use in research on economies of the world, social issues, the environment, as well as for teaching and learning in and outside of the traditional classroom. The current dynamics of computer technologies, the telecommunications utilities (telephone services; TV-cable; satellite |DBS~; ITFS; PBS types; video technologies; fax services; and other media), and fiber optics are readily available for the transfer of voice, image (video), and data in a real time pattern. Such a system is technically and economically feasible. The implementation of the regional distance learning initiative also coincided with Binghamton University's new strategic directions to serve a variety of internal and external needs through academic outreach programs and services. Therefore, the fiber optic infrastructure is a major technological advancement in support of the University's programs. The development of this evolutionary learning system was implemented under the leadership of Broome-Tioga-Delaware BOCES Center and a $150,000 Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) grant to partially fund Phase I in building the network. The grant also provided partial funding for construction of state-of-the-art electronic classrooms at Binghamton University, Broome Community College, BOCES Center, and Roberson/Kopernik Museum. The distance learning initiative in Tioga County, New York, which began in 1990 as a pilot project, will be connected in the first phase of this initiative. …

Topic: Education and Technology Integration
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences