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One of our best-selling publications, Supporting
Distance Learners (Francolin, 1998), has now been updated
and released as an Open Educational Resource.
Our long time friend and associate, Gabi Witthaus, now
on the Beyond Distance Research Alliance (BDRA) team
at the University of Leicester(UK) started working with
us in 2008 to update the publication as a web-based
guide to distance tutoring, using the affordances of
the web–linked pages, with external as well as
internal links, and the facility to insert multi-media
as well as text-based resources. The revised resource
incorporates much of the accumulated wisdom from Saide’s
eighteen years of existence, but also embrace recent
developments such as the Open Educational Resources
‘movement’, and the proliferation of learning
and research tools in a Web 2.0 environment. Our thanks
to Gabi not only for her excellent writing, but also
for working with us to turn the process into a professional
development exercise for the Saide education staff.
The resource is available not only on Saide’s
own OER
website, but also in the OER
repository of the University of Leicester, and on
the higher education OER repository in the United Kingdom,
Jorum.
The abstract for the resource reads:
This is a set of course materials intended for tutors
in blended learning or fully online programmes. It
takes readers reflectively through what it means to
support learners in e-learning environments of a variety
of kinds – both at a distance, and in conventional
contact tuition environments that are web supported.
The materials have been designed for learning in developing
contexts in which bandwidth is often a challenge.
The materials include a sample learning pathway with
key activities which illustrate how the materials can
be used in an online course for the training of tutors
using Web 2.0 tools such as forums, blogs, and wikis.
The abstract highlights the distinction between the
course materials and the learning pathway that guides
learners through the course materials. Without a learning
pathway, learner engagement with the course materials
runs the risk of becoming a random encounter without
a clear purpose or results.
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