Online Education is my general term for the use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) in collaborative learning, including for formal education in schools and universities, alternative non-formal modes of learning, and distance education and continuing education. Through internet connections students, mentors, and teachers access program information, topic resources, and one another via webpages, mailgroup discussions, real-time chat, video-conferencing, email and file transfers.
I believe that in the future effective education must include an online learning component, and that increasingly students and teachers will prefer the flexibility and in-depth focus on substantive content that online education promotes. Accordingly, research into the integration of online education with other modes of learning is a research priority.
I am concerned about both the drawbacks and advantages of various proposals for online education. We need to understand the relationships between online learning and communication vs. face-to-face interaction. We need to question the ideologies and interests that lie behind both traditional educational arrangements and these new possibilities. I want Online Education to make it easier for more people with more diverse backgrounds to be able to study the subjects which really interest them and to do so in ways that connect them more fully with on-going professional communities in these fields.
Research Papers and Drafts [click on title or link to go to full text]
“Towards Critical Multimedia Literacy: Technology, Research, and Politics.” To appear in McKenna, M., Reinking, D., Labbo, L. & Kieffer, R., Eds., Handbook of Literacy & Technology, v2.0. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Multimedia Genres for Science Education and Scientific Literacy -- UC Davis paper; NASA websites analysis
"Metamedia Literacy: Transforming Meanings And Media" In D. Reinking, L. Labbo, M. McKenna, & R. Kiefer (Eds.), Handbook of Literacy and Technology: Transformations in a Post-Typographic World. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
"Education, Cyberspace, and Change." Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture (EJVC-L@KENTVM),March 1993. Also Arlington VA: ERIC Documents Service (ED 356 767),1993. http://www.kovacs.com/EJVC/lemke.htm ; http://dli.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/aejvc/aejvc-v1n01-lemke-education.txt
"Hypermedia and Higher Education." Interpersonal Communication and Technology (IPCT-L@GUVM),April 1993. Revised as "Hypermedia and Higher Education" in T.M. Harrison and T.D. Stephen,Eds. Computer Networking and Scholarship in the 21st Century University. Albany: SUNY Press.1996. 215-232. http://infosoc.uni-koeln.de/etext/text/lemke.93b.txt
"The Coming Paradigm Wars in Education: Curriculum vs. Information Access." In Cyberspace Superhighways: Access, Ethics, and Control, Proceedings of the Fourth Conference on Computers,Freedom, and Privacy. Chicago: John Marshall Law School. 1994. [pp.76-85]
Report of Working Group on Complex Systems and Analysis of K-16 Education (Endicott House Conference, 1999). J. Lemke et al.
"Discourse and Organizational
Dynamics: Website Communication and Institutional Change" Discourse and
Society 10(1): 21-48, 1999.