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Introduction 

JAY REID, DEANZ PRESIDENT 
AUCKLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY 

AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND 

Thank you for your patience in waiting 
for this issue of the Journal of Distance 
Learning. A number of factors have 
delayed publication, but please be 
assured that there will be another issue 
published this year. The theme for that 
issue has already been set. 

This issue includes papers from 
contributors to the 2002 DEANZ 
Conference, Evolving eLeaming, as well as 
other papers of a general nature and 
four reviews of books and a CD-ROM. 

Many readers will be familiar with 
Christchurch College of Education's 
Primary Open Learning Option (POLO). 
In "Empowering an Indigenous Rural 
Community: Local Teachers for Local 
Schools," Jolm Delany and Derek 
Wemlloth present us with an honest and 
interesting evaluation of POLO's distance 
delivery of three-year primary teacher 
education to student teachers in a remote 
and isolated community (Pan guru, in 
Northland). This paper explores the need 
for contextualisation, especially for 
Maori, and examines how individuals in 
the community gained a sense of self-
worth and developed professionally. 
Delany and Welmloth make a paSSionate 
plea for the development of local 
teachers for local communities, the sort of 
people who are: 

grounded, owned, and accepted 
in their local community. They 
were not required to uproot 

themselves and their families in 
order to train for teaching, and 
their commitment to their local 
region remains intact. Rather 
than attempting to manufacture 
a commitment to teach in such 
isolated areas from graduates 
who would much prefer to 
remain in the big cities, the 
answer at least in part lies 
in educating local teachers for 
local schools . 

June Kean's paper reports on a survey 
of the perceptions of New Zealand 
Tertiary College (NZTC) students 
enrolled as distance learners in the 
college's Diploma of Teaching (Early 
Childhood Education) progranmle, and 
although aspects of studying by distance 
learning selected for the survey were 
limited to those that NZTC had 
identified as of importance in informing 
directions for future delivery, students 
saw studying by distance to be effective 
prOviding certain conditions were met. 
But some disadvantages were perceived, 
the major one being a lack of interaction 
with peers . She reports NZTC's response 
to this. 

Fred Lockwood was a keynote speaker 
at the DEANZ Conference. His paper 
contrasts speculation in 1995 by David 
Hawkridge on likely developments in 
the field of open and distance learning 
with actual development seven years 
later. Hawkridge's five original terms 

JO!lmal of Distance Leaming, Vol 7, No I , 2003 © Distance Education Association of New Zealand 

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of globalisation, electronification, 
commodification, domination, and 
liberation are revisited and examined 
critically in terms of dlcmges that have 
occurred and new challenges identified. 
Lockwood believes the latter are 
significant and suggests: 

The question is becoming, not 
whether flexible lean1ing can 
enhance the cost effectiveness of 
traditional teaching (important 
though that question is), but 
whether a illuversity will survive 
and prosper in the next century 
without rapidly integrating the 
various dimensions of flexible 
leaming into its process, culture 
and values. (Moran, 1997, p. 181) 

Online is the answer, but what is the 
question? Elspeth McKay addresses this 
familiar theme through the examination 
of commonly held beliefs about 
eLeaming. She describes the gaps in 
expectations that novice learners have 
with Web-based courseware. Do Web-
based courseware deSigners deal 
effectively with information that is 
central to eadl learning event? If 
e Learning is an holistic process and 
experientialleaming events are seen to be 
important, what place is there for the 
social aspects of community leaming? 

With "Becoming a 'Communal ArdUtect' 
in the Online Classroom: hltegrating 
Cognitive and Affective Learning 
for Maximum Effect ill Web-Based 
Education," Robert Woods and Samuel 
Ebersole explore how we might 
contribute to the kiIld of communal 
ililiastructure that builds COlmectedness 
and promotes learnillg. They posit: 

Practitioners must ... recogIuze 
that a positive social dynamic 
requires intentionality - that is, 
conmlilluty just doesn't happen 
but is created through a 
variety of verbal and nonverbal 
commillucation cues 

and suggest that there are no shortcuts to 
buildillg commilluty - that it begiIls with 
"precise defuutions and measurement of 
commilluty and the collection of data 
beyond siInple self-report by students." 
They illSist that it is necessary to 
structure time between teacher and 
students, and students and students, to 
facilita te the "transfer of illtellectual and 
emotional capital." 

Tlus issue also sees four reviews. Ken 
Stevens reviews books by Desmond 
Keegan, Distance Training: Taking Stock at 
a Time of Change, and Anthony Picciano, 
Distance Learning: Making Connections 
Across Virtual Space and Time. Jay Reid 
reviews Fred Lockwood and fume 
Gooley's (Eds.) book Innovation in Open 
and Distance Learning: Successful 
Development of Online and Web-Based 
Learning and Mark Nichols's CD-ROM 
Teaching for Learning: Designing Resource-
Based Learning Courses for the Internet Age. 

I hope you enjoy this issue. It touches on 
a range of sectors and matters of illterest. 
The book reviews cover material that 
is lughly topical and the CD-ROM 
reviewed is published by a New Zealand 
author. That's a feat ill itself. 

The next issue of the Journal of Distance 
Learning will be a themed one with 
preselected contributors. Nicki Page will 
edit tlus. Don't, however, let that put 
you off sendiIlg us material to be 
published ill 2004. 

Journal of Distance Learning, Vol 7, No 1, 2003 © Distance Education Association of New Zealand 

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