North Carolina Community College System
Monterrey, Mexico
August 17, 1999
North Carolina has one of the largest community college systems in the United States with more than 750,000 students in 59 institutions. We have a campus or center within 30 minutes of most of our citizens. However, to achieve our goal of educational access for all residents of North Carolina, the Community Colleges System has embraced distance learning. One of our pioneers in that area is a North Carolina host site for this teleconference. Pitt Community College continues to find new ways to match technology to student needs, and I extend my special thanks to their president, Dr. Charles Russell, for his participation.
I'd like to talk about the role that distance learning
in community colleges plays in preparing our students for a world which
demands up-to-date skills. Our primary challenge is to design a new philosophy
focused on flexibility, problem solving and genuine commitment to lifelong
learning. Though lecture and discussion will never be extinct, our
students require, and often demand, technology enhanced instruction.
Distance learning and computer simulations can make
certain kinds of training more effective and efficient. North Carolina
Community Colleges have been early adopters of distance learning in large
part because of our mission to educate adults wherever they live and work.
Our colleges offer courses day and night--even at midnight when factory
workers get off the late shift; weekdays and; on campus and at remote sites.
Technology greatly extends delivery of instruction into homes, workplaces
and remote locations.
Broadcast television is our oldest distance learning
technology, first introduced in our system in cooperation with our state's
public TV network in 1975. That network, UNC-TV, is part of President
Broad's university system. These telecourses remain a vital and fast-growing
part of distance learning. In 1997-98 we had approximately 13,000
telecourse students. This past year we had about 18,000 students,
a jump of almost 40 percent. Why? Because students can watch
or video tape programs at home for viewing anytime. Flexibility
matters to distance learners.
The North Carolina Information Highway is another technology that our colleges use to deliver and receive instruction. This technology uses live two-way video and most nearly replicates the traditional classroom of any of the technologies. Not quite half of our community colleges have distance learning classrooms. This technology allows us to combine students at remote locations or from other colleges, universities, or high schools with one instructor. Community colleges can offer courses and programs not available on their own campuses. We work with the universities to send classes originating on university campuses to our community colleges. We are particularly pleased about the baccalaureate completion programs universities offer students who have finished associate degrees at community colleges. These degree completion programs use a variety of distance learning technologies.
Video delivered over the Internet, or IP video, is a more cost-effective approach than the Information Highway and is being adopted by some of our community colleges and the universities. IP video, however, does not provide as high a quality image as does the Information Highway. Because the current state-provided backbone is overloaded, there are problems with transmission. At the moment, community college use of IP video in North Carolina is confined to a few experiments at a handful of colleges. However, we are working with the State's Information Technology Services Office to increase bandwidth to support IP video, because relatively low cost and ease of use persuade us that most of colleges and universities will use this option in the future.
In the last two years our colleges have added the Internet to their distance learning technologies, and Web-based courses are growing by leaps and bounds. This past fall, thirty-three colleges reported delivering instruction using the Internet or a combination of telecourses and Internet. 243 classes were offered to 3,357 students. 140 different course titles, the vast majority of them courses for credit leading to a certificate, diploma, or degree, were available to adults who have Internet access at home, at work or in open computer labs on our campuses. Our colleges use the Web to teach everything from introductory college transfer courses to computer technology courses, accounting and business courses, to opticianry courses--- the variety is amazing.
We know many of traditional classrooms use the Internet for delivering some content or for communication among faculty and students. Distance learning technologies are being incorporated into the regular classroom.
Distance learning technologies are not necessarily more cost-efficient than traditional classroom instruction. Initial investments in technology, plus ongoing maintenance, upgrading of software and equipment, and training of faculty, makes it very costly. Contrary to what many people think, our faculty have found that courses delivered over the Internet are much more time intensive for faculty than traditional lecture/discussion classes, and enrollment is usually limited. There is more interaction using this mode of instruction than with face-to-face classroom instruction. Students ask more questions and require more feedback. We have found that class sizes average 13.8 for Web-based courses and 17.3 for telecourses.
If distance learning technologies have not resulted in cost savings, why are we committed to distance learning technologies? We have two main reasons: to increase access and to provide alternative teaching and learning strategies. Let me give you a concrete example. When military personnel enrolled at Fayetteville Technical Community College were called to active duty overseas, they were able to complete courses over the Internet or through videotapes. Without distance learning, these students would have been forced to withdraw and lose whole semesters.
We know there are critics, and some of our faculty resist these technologies. A major criticism is lack of personal contact between students and faculty and with other students. Our faculty tell us that, in fact, students enrolled in Web-based courses communicate more with them and with other students than those in traditional classes. Faculty also tell us that the quality of the interaction is better in Web-based courses as compared to traditional classrooms because students have time to reflect before responding when they are using e-mail and discussion groups.
Not all students will find these technologies the best methods for them; however, providing options in delivery methods is another way that our community colleges meet student needs. The faculty member will never be replaced, nor will face-to-face interaction become irrelevant. What I believe we will see is technology-mediated instruction in all of our courses and curricula. Distance learning technologies will become standard in traditional classrooms, as we connect a classroom in a North Carolina community college to Mexico through two-way video and interview an expert in a subject area; or we communicate with workers at a plant in another country who are using a new manufacturing process that a plant in our country is adopting. The world will become the laboratory for learning as we learn to integrate these technologies into instruction.
These are exciting times even as we struggle to keep up with constant change. I believe that our community colleges are ready for the challenge of using the technology to to teach adults to live and work in a highly technological world .
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