Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually involved correspondence courses wherein the student corresponded with the school via mail. Distance education is a technology-mediated modality and has evolved with the evolution of technologies such as video conferencing, TV, and the Internet. Today, it usually involves online education and the learning is usually mediated by some form of technology. A distance learning program can either be completely a remote learning, or a combination of both online learning and traditional offline classroom instruction. Other modalities include distance learning with complementary virtual environment or teaching in virtual environment (e-learning).
Computer-assisted language learning (CALL), British, or Computer-Aided Instruction (CAI)/Computer-Aided Language Instruction (CALI), American, is briefly defined in a seminal work by Levy as "the search for and study of applications of the computer in language teaching and learning". CALL embraces a wide range of information and communications technology applications and approaches to teaching and learning foreign languages, from the "traditional" drill-and-practice programs that characterised CALL in the 1960s and 1970s to more recent manifestations of CALL, e.g. as used in a virtual learning environment and Web-based distance learning. It also extends to the use of corpora and concordancers, interactive whiteboards, computer-mediated communication (CMC), language learning in virtual worlds, and mobile-assisted language learning (MALL).
The University of Leicester is a public research university based in Leicester, England. The main campus is south of the city centre, adjacent to Victoria Park. The university's predecessor, University College, Leicester, gained university status in 1957.
Professor Edward Conrad Wragg known as Ted Wragg, was a British educationalist and academic known for his advocacy of the cause of education and opposition to political interference in the field. He was Professor of Education at the University of Exeter from 1978 to 2003, serving as Emeritus Professor of Education from 2003 till his death, and a regular columnist in the Times Educational Supplement and The Guardian.
Gráinne Conole is an Irish-born professor and educational researcher, based in England. She was Professor of Learning Innovation and Director of the Institute of Learning Innovation, University of Leicester. Prior to this, she was Professor of eLearning at the Institute of Educational Technology in the UK's Open University. Previously she had a chair in education at the University of Southampton and was also previously director of the Institute for Learning and Research Technology at the University of Bristol. Professor Conole was named an EDEN Fellow in 2013 and was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship from the Higher Education Academy and ASCILITE Fellow Award in 2012.
The Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) was the United Kingdom's largest investment in education research. It was initiated in 2000, ended in 2011 and was managed on behalf of the Higher Education Funding Councils by the Economic and Social Research Council. The programme engaged 700 researchers in some 70 major projects. These covered all education sectors - from Early Years to Higher Education and Workplace Learning. The TLRP researchers work closely in partnership with practitioners to ensure the relevance and application of findings to policy and practice. Thematic work across the diverse range of projects enabled analysis of themes and the identification of 'ten principles for effective teaching and learning'.
E-learning theory describes the cognitive science principles of effective multimedia learning using electronic educational technology.
Online tutoring is the process of tutoring in an online, virtual, or networked, environment, in which teachers and learners participate from separate physical locations. Aside from space, literature also states that participants can be separated by time.
Mike Fitzgerald is a criminologist, former higher education manager and consultant. He was Vice-Chancellor of Thames Valley University in the 1990s.
A massive open online course or an open online course is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the Web. In addition to traditional course materials, such as filmed lectures, readings, and problem sets, many MOOCs provide interactive courses with user forums or social media discussions to support community interactions among students, professors, and teaching assistants (TAs), as well as immediate feedback to quick quizzes and assignments. MOOCs are a widely researched development in distance education, first introduced in 2008, that emerged as a popular mode of learning in 2012, a year called the "Year of the MOOC".
Neil Mercer is Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge.
The Institute of Learning Innovation, formerly the Beyond Distance Research Alliance, was a teaching and research group based at the University of Leicester. It was founded by Professor Gilly Salmon, and directed by Professor Gráinne Conole. The Institute of Learning Innovation worked on numerous UK-based and European funded education research projects on topics around technology-enhanced education, and offered PhDs as well as an MSc in Learning Innovation by Distance Learning. Research topics have included educational use of podcasting, e-readers, virtual worlds, open educational resources and open education, and learning design.
Michael Thomas is research professor at Liverpool John Moores University working primarily in the field of digital education in relation to social justice, the educational implications of disadvantage, online and distance education, digitally mediated communication and higher education policy.
Donn Randy Garrison is a Canadian professor emeritus at the University of Calgary who has published extensively on distance education.
Marilyn Leask is an academic and author who researches in education in the UK. She is Professor of Education at De Montfort University, and was previously Professor of Educational Knowledge Management at the University of Bedfordshire and a professor at Brunel University. Many of her works involve the educational use of information and communications technology (ICT).
Rupert Wegerif is a professor of education at the University of Cambridge in England.
Alejandro Armellini is the Dean of Digital and Distributed Learning at the University of Portsmouth. Previously, he was the Dean of Learning and Teaching and Director of the Institute of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education at the University of Northampton, England. His research focuses on learning innovation, online and blended pedagogy, course design in online environments, institutional capacity building and open practices.
Gillian "Gilly" Carr is a British archaeologist and academic. She currently specialises in the Holocaust and conflict archaeology, while her early career research focused on the Iron Age and Roman Archaeology. She is an associate professor and academic director in archaeology at the University of Cambridge's Institute of Continuing Education, and a fellow and director of studies in archaeology at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. In 2019, she was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and of the Royal Historical Society. In 2020, she won the EAA European Heritage Prize for her work on the heritage of victims of Nazism.
Rebecca Elizabeth Eynon is a British educationalist specializing in the sociology of education. She holds a joint academic post at the Oxford Internet Institute and Department of Education, University of Oxford. She is a Senior Research Fellow and Associate Professor at the Oxford Internet Institute and she is a co-convenor for the MSc Education, at the Department for Education, University of Oxford. Her book Teenagers and Technology, Routledge, 2013 attracted coverage in the national press for its insight in to the nuances of how teenagers behave on the internet and the implications for teens without internet access.
Allison Littlejohn, FHEA, is Professor of Learning Technology at University College London. She is a director of University College London's knowledge lab and an expert in learning sciences, specialising in professional and digital learning.
