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Greetings Dear readers of TOJDE, I am pleased to inform you that in the 7th year of TOJDE is appeared as Volume 7, Number: 1 on your screen now as. Very much thanks to all of you once more that we met 21st time, since January 2000. In this issue we published 15 articles, four book reviews, one notes for editor, news and announcements for our readers. And also, we give a place for the Call for Papers to the 4th Special Issue of The Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education (TOJDE) (Volume: 7, Number: 2) To be delivered in April 2006. The first article is coming from The Robert Gordon University, Scotland, United Kingdom which is written by Geoff GOOLNIK. He is tutor at Centre for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (CELT). His article titled as “Effective Change Management Strategies for Embedding Online Learning within Higher Education and Enabling the Effective Continuing Professional Development of its Academic Staff”. According to Goolnik, “Previous research studies show that those universities wishing to successfully engage in online learning will have to adopt and implement tactics that have the capacity to overcome existing social and cultural constraints. An inclusive, consultative framework needs to be established, and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) has been recognized as a key concern that should be addressed here. Second article is dealt with some problems of DE in Nigeria by Dr. Mudasiru Olalere YUSUF in his study which entitled as “Problems and Prospects of Open And Distance Education in Nigeria” He is from Department of Curriculum Studies and Educational Technology, Faculty of Education University of Ilorin, Nigeria. His article explores that the major terms inherent in open and distance education, its potentials, possible factors that may inhibit successful implementation of the programme, and the use of low and high technological tools for its implementation, by adding of his recommendations. And than third article is about “Environmental Education and Networking in Mafeteng Primary Schools: A Participatory Approach” which is written by Constance BITSO, from Institute of Education National University of Lesotho, Southern Africa. His paper explores that a participatory process of Environmental Education (EE) networking in Mafeteng primary schools, than discusses cycles of the participatory process undertaken for the EE networking in Mafeteng schools, including identification of problems, problem solving, reflective workshop and study tour. And finally the paper outlines issues that emerged in participatory EE networking, which include school governance, teachers’ existing knowledge, and communication, decision-making and power relations. The fourth article is a join study from Canada. It is dealt with skill enhancement for the health subject which is titled “Skill Enhancement for Health: An Evaluation of an Online Pilot Teaching Module on Epidemiology”, written by Rory McGREAL, Sue DAVIS, Terry MURPHY, Chris SMITH. Their article based on a pilot study about an epidemiology course conducted online and delivered across Canada was based on four main criteria: design, content, process and outcomes. The evaluation of this pilot of across Canada was based on four main criteria: design, content, process and outcomes. Data was collected through seven sources: participant online survey results, post-pilot workshop feedback, four focus groups, telephone interviews with participants, interviews with course developers, examination of online materials, and analysis of log files generated by the web server. The pilot course showed that the course took much more time than estimated; the online environment was challenging/frustrating for some; there were technical glitches; discussion boards were not regularly used; interaction with instructors was minimal; feedback from instructors was slow in coming; the short development time led to errors/mismatches between content and assessment; and the high student/teacher ratio of 1:48 made it difficult to provide timely feedback. The fifth article came from one of Turkish young researcher who is studying at Florida State University, USA. Her name is Semire DIKLI. Her subject is entitled as “Automated Essay Scoring”. She focuses our attentions to the impotency of Automated Essay Scoring (AES). AES systems can be very useful because they can provide the student with a score as well as feedback within seconds I believe that her article is one of an interesting article of this issue. Now lets talks about the sixth article which is jointly written by Inci MORGIL, Nilgun SECKEN, A. Seda YUCEL, Ozge OZYALCIN OSKAY, Soner YAVUZ and Evrim URAL, from Hacettepe University, Faculty of Education, Department of Chemistry Education, Ankara, TURKEY. Their subject is about “Developing A Renewable Energy Awareness Scale for Pre-Service Chemistry Teachers”. Their paper pointed out a need in students for gaining consciousness on renewable energy resources under the light of the importance of renewable and sustainable energy, a “Renewable Energy Awareness Scale” that questioned to what extent the individuals were aware of renewable energy was developed. The Renewable Energy Awareness Scale, which consisted of 50 items, was administered as a pilot study. The factor analysis concluded with a scale of 39 items with a reliability coefficient of 0.944 was developed. The seventh article which is also joint study which is written by Associate Prof. Dr. Aytekin ISMAN from Sakarya University, TURKEY and Research Assistant Zehra ALTINAY Eastern Mediterranean University, NCTR. Their subject was about “Self-Perceptions and Roles: How Eastern Mediterranean University Students and Teachers View Online Program and Courses”. In this paper authors are try to define self-perceptions and roles of both students and teachers about online program and courses who experience online context at EMU by conducting qualitative and quantitative researches. The study is a guide in order to have qualified distance education system by handling the communicators’ expectations, roles and perceptions and recommends some innovations for distance education in North Cyprus. The eight article took us to Scandinavia, Norway. The article which is entitled "Professional development of higher education teachers, - can distance education make a difference?" and written by Yngve Troye NORDKVELLE, from Lillehammer University College, Lillehammer, NORWAY. The paper reviews some of the classical indicators of academic professionalism, and illuminates a historical epoche when research and teaching became separate dimensions of professionalism in higher education. The paper argues that this separation has gone too far and that a new sense of professionalism needs to be invoked in the area of teaching in higher education. The nineth article was sent to TOJDE by Adesoji A. ONI who is also from Nigeria, Department of Teacher Education University of Ibadan. Dr. Adesoji A. ONI emphasizes in his article that and perception of school leavers about the democratic government in Nigeria. A self-designed questionnaire was used for collection of their views. The participants of the study comprised 500 school leavers selected across different working places in the six states of Southwest Nigeria. Results clearly revealed that majority of the respondents are not satisfied with the current performance of the present democratic Government in Nigeria. His article is entitled as “The Relationship Between Levels of Education and Perception Of Democratic Governance”. Next article is again from Bangladesh Open University, BANGALDESH, which written by Md. Tofazzal ISLAM and Abu Sadeque Md. SELIM from School of Agriculture and Rural Development wich is titled as “Current Status and Prospects for E-learning in the Promotion of Distance Education in Bangladesh” . The mentioned in their article that> e-learning as an advanced system for training and educating mass people using information and communication technologies (ICTs) has been received an increasing level of interest in recent years in most of the western countries. In spite of socio-economic constraints, ICTs are rapidly expanding in the developing countries, and thus offering a new scope for the use of e-learning for the promotion of distance education. In Bangladesh, e-learning was first introduced as early as 1960s as a Radiobroadcast followed by a pilot project School Broadcasting Program (SBP) in 1980s and then expanded by the establishment of the National Institute of Educational Media and Technology (NIEMT), which was later transformed into Bangladesh Institute of Distance Education (BIDE) in 1985. The significant progress has been done after the establishment of the Bangladesh Open University (BOU) in 1992 as the first and only national distance learning university. Within a decade of its establishment, enrollment of BOU students have reached nearly 400 thousands, and thus enlisted it as one of the mega-universities. They discuss in this paper, the current situation and future prospects for e-learning in Bangladesh considering the current trend of ICTs expansion in the country. The eleventh article is also dealt with elearning which is join study again realize by Debra PEAK and Zane L. BERGE on evaluation and eLearning. The purpose of this paper is to discuss what similarities and differences exist between evaluating elearning and traditional classroom instruction, how Kirkpatrick’s evaluation levels are currently conducted, why conducting Kirkpatrick’s Level 4 evaluation is so difficult to do, why elearning evaluation has evolved to include return-on-investment (ROI) calculations, and whether other evaluation methods currently practiced are more relevant and useful. The twelfth article is considering about learning organizations in educational intuitions whit title as “The Reflection of the Learning Organization Concept to School Of Education”. An article is written by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Esmahan AGAOGLU, Anadolu University, Faculty of Education, Eskisehir, Turkey. She emphasize in her article that the organization should adopt the education as a life style and transform them to learning organization. This situation is current for educational organizations. The societies of today need the individuals who know how to reach knowledge, how to convert the gained knowledge to the behaviors, how to produce new knowledge using them. For growing up the individuals who have these characteristics, educational organizations have to transform to learning organizations. In this process, the teachers also have important role. So this the reason that she realized a descriptive study, by aiming to determine whether the schools of education have the learning organization features. The thirteenth one about is “Distance Education as a Women Empowerment Strategy in Africa”, written by Felix Kayode OLAKULEHIN and Olugbenga David OJO from National Open University of Nigeria, Lagos, Nigeria. According to them; women emancipation through empowerment all over the world is at its peak and Africans generally are not left out. It is an attempt to make sure that women’s voices are heard and are given their right places in the scheme of things. Therefore, this paper stresses the use of open and distance institution in Nigeria as an avenue to attain knowledge and education that would put women in a better stead toward achieving their aims and aspirations. The fourteenth one about is enitled as “Electronic In-Service Teacher-Training for the New National EFL Curriculum in Turkey”. This discussion paper focuses on the new curriculum for English as a foreign language, noting that teachers need information about the philosophy of the new curriculum and how its different elements support each other. The paper sets the curriculum reform in the context of international objectives in education such as the Dakar Conference, the Pisa project, Socrates programmes, the Common European Framework for Languages and the European Language Portfolio. The paper discusses the role of electronic learning in in-service training in both ongoing and one-shot teacher training programmes. This article should be evaluated fort he responsibiliyt of distance education function and advntage for givin en education to the teacher for new curriculumn understnding and application fort o integrated EU EFL teacher training in due course. And, the fifteenth as the latest article which is from United Kingdom which was titled as “Theories of Learning and Their Implications for On-Line Assessment”, written By Anthony Francis UNDERHILL, BA MA Cert. Ed ILTM, University of Central England, Birmingham. This paper briefly reviews the theories of learning and their relationship with traditional forms of assessment and seeks to argue for the need to further develop online assessment tools to further facilitate the growth in process based learning activities such as collaborative and cooperative group work consistent with a socio-constructivist pedagogy. Four book reviews were on “Authentic Learning Environments in Higher Education”, edited by Edited by Anthony Herrington and Jan Herrington and, published by Information Science Publishing in 2005. Other one is “Online Assessment, Measurement and Evaluation Case Studies from Higher Education, K-12 and Corporate”, “Online assessment, measurement and evaluation”. These three books reviewed by Dr. Adnan BOYACI, Anadolu University, Eskisehir-TURKEY. And “Global Peace through the Global University System”, edited by Edited by Tapio Varis, Takeshi Utsumi, William Klemm, 2003, published Research Centre for Vocational Education (RCVE) and reviewed by Reviewed by Dr. Cengiz Hakan AYDIN, Anadolu University, and Eskisehir-TURKEY. Reviewer Dr. Boyaci indicates in his review that “Authentic learning has been growing in importance and popularity as a learning approach for last decade. One of the critical reasons of this growing importance depends on the fact that traditional university education do not result in appropriate learning outcomes. Especially increasing popularity and influence of constructivism as a philosophical approach to learning have accelerated the research studies and papers investigating alternative models of teaching and learning, which has resulted in that authentic learning, has emerged as a challenge to existing learning environment. However implementation of authentic learning in higher education executed face to face and/or technology mediated courses such as online subjects has still been arbitrary and undefined. Thus rich variety of examples of authentic learning environments found in this book will contribute the readers with the inspiration to teach their subjects and courses in ways that reflect the authenticity.” Online Assessment, Measurement and Evaluation Case Studies from Higher Education, K-12 and Corporate is edited by David D. Williams and Marry Hricko and published by Information Science Publishing, 2006. The book has eighteen chapters divided into three sections which underline three broad educational and training areas, namely elementary and secondary (K12), higher education and corporate. In addition to section of authors’ biography contributing the book and an index, there is a preface in which chapters of the book are shortly introduced. Besides two editors, forty-seven authors have contributed to the book. Contributions of authors having different backgrounds and institutions enable the book to have very comprehensive spectrum and this makes the book attractive practically for those having different kinds of practice, problems and point of views. Online Assessment, Measurement and Evaluation Emerging Practices Edited by David D. Williams, Scott L. Howell and Marry Hricko, published by Information Science Publishing for 2006. Online assessment, measurement and evaluation have emerged as a new domain challenging process of education and educators in the twenty-first century. As the improvements in online technologies have provided new tools, the vision of traditional methodologies and principles used in assessment, measurement and evaluation has also been challenged. In this sense there is a crucial need to make clarify the concepts, issues and systems involved in this new challenging domain of assessment, measurement and evaluation. This book provides coherent point of view to online assessment, measurement and evaluation Another book, Global Peace through the Global University System is a collection of papers presented in working conference on the Global University System (GUS) hosted by the University of Tampere, Finland in 1999. The main goal of the conference was bringing international experts to share their philosophy, past and present experiences about the GUS. The conference was held by the University of Tampere because UNESCO has an agreement with the University to establish the UNESCO Chair in Global e-Learning. The Third International Conference on Open and Distance Learning: 'Applications of Pedagogy and Technology' held by Hellenic Open University, Hellenic Network of Open & Distance Education on 11-13 November 2005, Patras, GRECEE. I attended that conference as key speaker and presented another paper. After conference I request review of the conference from my dear colleague and conference coordinator Dr. Antonis LIONARAKIS for the notes for editor, for TOJDE readers. In total, the 3 days of the Conference there were 620 people (registered) who attended the presentations and panels and about 70 people. In the other sections are again in the same format as usual as TOJDE’s presenting stile. News and some announcements are placed in this issue too. Dear readers, you can reach us online either directly at http://tojde.anadolu.edu.tr or by visiting Anadolu University homepage at http://www.anadolu.edu.tr from English version, clicking on Scientific Research button and than go to the Referred Journals. To receive further information and to send your recommendations and remarks, or to submit articles for consideration, please contact TOJDE Secretariat at the below address or e-mail us to tojde@anadolu.edu.tr Happy New Year and Good Lucks for 2006. Hope to stay in touch and lets meet in next Issue, in January 2006. Cordially, 31st December 2005 Prof. Dr. Ugur Demiray Editor-in-Chief Anadolu University Yunusemre Campus 26470-Eskisehir TURKEY Tel: +90 222 335 0581 ext. 2521 or Direct: +90 222 249 0576 GSM: +90 542 232 21 167 Fax: +90 222 320 4520 or +90 222 249 0576 E-mails: udemiray@anadolu.edu.tr or ugdemiray@hotmail.com URL: http://home.anadolu.edu.tr/~udemiray URL: http://tojde.anadolu.edu.tr |
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