First task

We'd like you to read this first text which provides a good overview of developing technologies and identifes some of the themes that we will be exploring from hereon.

Belderrain, Y. (2006) Distance Education Trends: Integrating new technologies to foster student interaction and collaboration. Distance Education, 27(2), 139-153.

To guide your reading, identify:

• what the writer terms as first and second generation communications technologies and what distinguishes these;
• the specific roles that Belderrain suggests each tool might play in distance education;
• any challenges to integrating such technologies in specific contexts;
• what appear to be some of the key theories/terms/themes in the arguments for interactive approaches to distance learning.

We will then think about the roles of specific types of online tools that we may individually use on a daily basis, or which may be be less familiar to you. You will be using some of these during this course unit.

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