Society is rapidly moving towards a more knowledge-intensive society. Learning to learn and learning to use information will be key skills in the information society. New technologies will find their way in new pedagogical and didactic approaches. Open and distance learning is one of the most rapidly growing field in education. Understanding how to cope with globalised, growing masses of information, helping the learners to manage their own learning processes, teaching these skills, supporting active, self-paced learning, and finding effective models for assessment and evaluation of the learning and teaching processes will be key areas.
The third issue of the electronic journal "Infofoorum" is a special issue completely devoted to distance learning and distance teaching.
Professor Elizabeth Burge from the New Brunswick University in Canada and the President of Canadian Association of Distance Education outlines the key factors, key learnings, and key challenges that the Canadians have learned about the distance education since 1980. Mr. Hilding Sponberg from the Gjovik College in Norway gives a view into the use of the integrated environment around ISDN and videoconferencing technology in the transfer of learning to remote target groups. Uma Kanjilal from the Indira Gandhi National Open University in India writes about innovative ways and means of providing distance learning packages to the library and information professionals. Vice Rector of the Tallinn University of Educational Sciences professor Peeter Normak treats the organisational structure of distance education at the university, the implementation of innovative methods and the main problems and activities planned for further development of distance education at the university. Associate professor Sirje Virkus from the Department of Information Studies of the Tallinn University of Educational Sciences gives an overview of the activities of different international organisations in the field of open and distance learning and about the international co-operation in distance education.
The editorial board of the journal is very pleased about the interviews given to "Infofoorum" by the President of the International Council of Distance Education professor Armando Rocha Trindade and by the Secretary General of the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities Mr. Piet Henderikx.
The section "Facts, events, comments" includes information about the 18th World Conference of the International Council for Distance Education "The New Learning Environment: A Global Perspective" which took place at the Pennsylvania State University, USA on 2 - 6 June 1997 and the Sixth European Distance Education Network/EDEN Annual Conference "Open and Distance Learning: A bridge from the 90s to the year 2000 and beyond: Achievements and Perspectives" organized in Budapest, Hungary on 23 - 25 June 1997. An overview is given also about the international seminar "Estonian Possibilities to Integrate into the European Distance Education Network" which took place on August 4th - 5th 1997 at the Tallinn University of Educational Sciences and the Tartu University.
All the comments, propositions and opinions are welcome to
Address:
An electronic journal "Infofoorum"
Department of Information Studies
Tallinn University of Educational
Sciences
Narva Road 25
EE0001 Tallinn
E-mail: i-foorum@tpu.ee