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A Reader's Response to Betsy Frederick's 31 October 2002 SIGTel Bulletin article, "What is Telelearning?"

Dr. John Wenrich sent the following response to Betsy Frederick's article. His remarks provide another perspective on the "definition" of telelearning. Opinions expressed by Dr. Wenrich are his own unless otherwise noted.

Betsy did a great job explaining telelearning to us in her article. I would like to add a few comments in the hope of generating more discussion on the subject.

To start with - I would like to add a few notes on the history of telelearning. Those who were involved with computers and modems in the 'old days' used a number of different types of access portals to share educational material. MOO's and MUD's were big back in the '80's. Many of these worlds still remain and are frequented by users young and old. MUD stands for Multi User Dimension and a MOO is the same thing, just "Object Orientated." A MOO/MUD is a text-based virtual space and is an environment that can be built and extended by its users. The interface to the MOO/MUD is normally via Telnet or a MOO/MUD client, although there are recent developments of web based interfaces to the environment. Those unfamiliar with Moo's and Mud's should see www.hayseed.net/MOO/ and be sure to keep an eye out for the latest version of the old MOO - the online version of SimCity - The Sims.

Betsy also talked about distance learning. Today, there are really two areas that can be confusing, distance learning and online learning. As Betsy mentioned, distance learning is typically thought of as delivering college (and more recently high school) curriculum content online for credit. Online learning is learning about a subject through an online source - but not for credit through any group.

And then there is the cutting edge stuff - Tele-immersion and Internet2. Two different areas that are part of telelearning. Tele-immersion refers to the interaction of two or more sites via a 3D environment where the user is in a distant setting, but is able to see the person (or persons) whom he is interacting with in a 3D environment almost as if they were in the same room (www.internet2.edu/html/tele-immersion.html). (url here, link now outdated)

Internet2 is the next generation of today's commodity Internet and is in use by many university groups around the world. In addition to the university community, there is a K-20 initiative to develop appropriate content from the K-12 area on I2 (http://k20.internet2.edu/).

I hope this has generated some additional thinking and others will share their views on the topic.

Thank you.

John Wenrich, Ph.D. wenrich@vt.edu www.wenrich.net Associate Director, Institute for Connecting Science Research to the Classroom, www.icsrc.org Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, Virginia, USA

To "What is Telelearning?"

To Reader Responses to "What is Telelearning?":

• From SIGTel Board member John Wenrich
• From SIGTel President Elect Nola Campbell
• From New Zealand teacher trainee Julie Ball
• From New Zealand teacher trainee Paula Murray