Cyberfolk Friendly Guided Web Site Tours

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Distance Ed: A Short Trip to Cyberspace U

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by Reed Barker

Salutations cyberfolks... I'm a 30-year-old writer and entrepreneur by career. These days, most of my time is spent working on different business projects, writing about them or cruising on the Internet. I live just outside Monterey, California, except when I'm existing out of a suitcase at a horse show (my sport of choice is show jumpers) or on a business trip.

Distance education - especially of the online sort - is a big deal for me because there have been times when I just can't get to a physical classroom, and instead of getting that old "brain atrophy feeling," I fire up the computer and look for a course to take.

Usually I either need one (in pursuit of a higher degree) or I just plain want to take one (in pursuit of some fun). I hope you'll enjoy this little tour I've put together of some of my favorite Distance Education sites.

If you're looking to get a higher education in an unorthodox way, this should be your first stop. The surf shack is a veritable bevy of information on distance education with an exstensive list of links covering everything from accredidation to newsgroups and mailing lists.

It bills itself as a "friendly and helpful" starting point and it really is. You can jump to virtually any one of the distance education links worth looking at from this very site.

This site is littered with a really interesting array of papers on the subject of online distance education. According to the powers that be, the materials presented here are the "result of a University course about online resources in learning."

They aren't kidding when they say there's enough here to fill a book. There are chapters on the "Internet's potential for self-guided learning," "Environments and Education," all the way down to "Isolation and Motivation involved with distance learning online."

If you can get past the dull gray background with that ever-so-blue hypertext, the wealth of information is worth the monotony of the design. It's an especially good place to find out if distance education is something that would fit into your life.

This site is a "helper site" for people looking for information on distance education. It even boasts an online catalogue of courses and degree programs worldwide. It's clear and to the point and better yet, if you can find the course you want, you can even buy the book for it here! Gee, at most colleges they're always out of stock:-)

One of the best features of this site, however, is the discussion forum they host for distance educators. They say they are "Helping distance learners find what they're looking for," and they are. It's built in such a way that it's very easy to peruse to find whatever your heart desires as far as a cyberspacian higher education goes.

The World Lecture Hall is where I usually go if I'm looking to find a course to take. It contains links to pages created by faculty worldwide (we're talking the WORLD OVER here) who are offering classes via the Internet. On this site you'll find course outlines, assignments, summaries of past classes, calendars, textbooks, exams and much more.

Just to give you an example, a class being offered right now is "American Science Fiction." Toto isn't in Kansas anymore... No, he's taking this class through the University of Texas at Austin. Students create an interactive science fiction time line and various hypertext links dealing with American Science fiction from the 1800s to cyberpunk. Yes boys and girls, cyberpunk is part of this "for credit" higher education course.

Even though this says California, don't be fooled. I may be biased living here, but there's a great amount of information for anyone interested in furthering their education through distance education.

The project includes great links to more information and resources as well as the promised California stuff. All this on a page with a few colorful bells and twirls makes for a nice site to do some research if you're in the market for some more schooling. Especially if you find you can't make it to regular university classes.

Wow! This is my favorite site for distance education. In fact, it would be my favorite site for any kind of education and apparently I'm not alone. The hit-O-meter says 39 million and counting. I guess a lot of people out there are heading to school these days.

This site, along with being by far the most well designed of the list as far as ease of use goes, is like the champagne of information for educational opportunities. Just press on the distance education button and you'll find yourself hurtled into cyberspace at warp speeds where you will come face to face with every dust bunny of information you could ever need or want.

And, along with all the distance education materials, you'll also find vast amounts of information on physical colleges and classrooms throughout the United States, loans, scholarships and more. It's a true "Educational Buffet."

I hope you enjoyed this little assembly of links I like. It's been a pleasure:-)