The ACS Division of Chemical Education is sponsoring a session on "Distance and Collaborative Education Using the Internet" which begins today and ends on August 19.

Anyone may participate (at no charge). Papers are available on the CONFCHEM website. http://www.chem.vt.edu/confchem/ Discussion occurs on the CONFCHEM Discussion list. Individuals may subscribe by sending the message:

SUBSCRIBE CONFCHEM first-and-last-name

To: MAJORDOMO@CLARKSON.EDU

We would welcome participation of those with considerable experience with distance education. Perhaps you could forward this message to your Distance Education Discussion List (DESIEN).

Currently, a paper by Carl Snyder from the University of Miami is being discussed. His paper is entitled: AN INNOCENT TRIES DISTANCE EDUCATION

In his paper Carl Snyder draws some conclusions based upon his brief experience with Distance Education:

1. Distance education requires a great deal more time from both the instructor and the student than does classroom education.
2. For success in a distance education course, the student must be more highly motivated, more self-disciplined, more mature, and must have or make more time available for the course than is required for success in a classroom-oriented course.
3. Distance education is suited best to postgraduate, graduate and perhaps senior (maybe even junior) undergraduate studies.

He seemed to find synchronous discussion more satisfactory than asynchronous discussion.

Based upon your experience, do you agree with these conclusions? I would appreciate any contributions you can make to the discussion.

Donald Rosenthal
CONFCHEM Discussion List Manager
Department of Chemistry
Clarkson University
Potsdam NY 13699-5810
ROSEN@CLVM.CLARKSON.EDU