In Search of a Virtual School by MORTEN FLATE PAULSEN, Assistant Professor NKI College of Computer Science, Norway I believe that the virtual school will dominate future distance education, and F d like to describe a few of the more interesting paths F ve pursued in search of a virtual school. This work has been conducted within the framework of the EJtKO Project of our college, a project to investigate the possibilities of establishing such a school in Norway. In order to explain what I rrtean by a virtual school, I should start with a definition of a school ifi general. In my opinion, the various responsibilities that a school must assume fall into f our main categories: professional, didactic, administrative and social. For all of these, a large measure of interpersonal communication is required. The professional tasks are those of establishing and maintaining curricula for the subjects to be offered at the school. This entails formulating a description of the academic goals for each subject and Traditional distance choosing the educational instruments that will be used to attain these education has not goals. In addition, student performance must be evaluated. It is important succeeded. for a school to establish a professional environment that allows its members to upgrade their own professional standards and competence. The didactic tasks are those of establishing conditions for teaching and learning so the academic goals may be achieved. The actual pedagogic methods used will, of course, depend upon the subject to be taught, the level at which it is aimed, the number of students, etc. The administrative tasks are those of maintaining a good practical environment for running the school, i.e., efficiently supporting and facilitating its teaching duties. Examples are scheduling, conducting examinations and paying salaries. The social tasks consist of creating a socially beneficial and coherent environment for the students, teachers and staff. It is very important for a school to have a good social environment; this will be conducive to both the professional and personal development of its members. Any limitation of the facilities for interpersonal communication will decrease the possibility of creating a good social environment. The kind of school we are all familiar with is the physical school. It has, through the years, proved able to address all the tasks mentioned above, but it has one large disadvantage: It is necessary for the students to be physically present during fixed intervals of time. This poses a problem for many prospective students, and out of this situation has evolved the institution of distance education. Distance Education
Distance education, as it has traditionally been conducted, is eminently capable of dealing with tasks of a professional, didactic and administrative nature, as outlined above. It is, however, not wellequipped for handling the social tasks of a school, primarily because it has very limited facilities for interpersonal communication. It is my claim that traditional distance education has not succeeded in creating a (contmuedonpage 72)
Morten Flate Paulsen n head of the EKKO Ptojett and a membei of both lFlP Woiking Gioup 3 6 on Di stane e Leaintng and the Eu> opean SUPERNET Pi ojet t on Di stane e Leai mnq
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