IRMA2000

IRMA2000: Abstract

A COMPUTER MEDIATED TEACHING AND LEARNING SCHEME FOR BANGLADESH OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.M. MURSHED, G.C. KARMAKAR, S.M. RAHMAN, AND M.H. RAHMAN

M.M. MURSHED, G.C. KARMAKAR, S.M. RAHMAN

Gippsland School of Computing & Information Technology, Monash University

Gippsland Campus, Churchill VIC 3842, Australia

Tel: +61-3-9902-6835, Fax: +61-3-9902-6879

E-mail: {Manzur.Murshed,Gour.Karmakar,Syed.Rahman}@infotech.monash.edu.au

M.HAKIKUR RAHMAN

Computer Division, Bangladesh Open University, Gazipur-1704, Bangladesh

Tel: +880-2-9800820, Fax: +880-2-865750

E-mail: hakik@bou.bangla.net

ABSTRACT

In this paper we outline the current teaching and learning methods of Bangladesh Open University (BOU). We then present a computer mediated teaching and learning scheme, under the current context of BOU and Bangladesh, to improve two-way and peer interactions among the students and the teaching staffs.

INTRODUCTION

Distance education was primarily introduced to reach those disadvantaged people in the community who find it very difficult or have limited access of getting in touch of any conventional on-campus teaching and learning facilities due to various factors such as financial hardship, over age, job and family responsibilities etc. From the very beginning, information technology is playing an important role in shaping up the future trend in distance education. Although distance education was never intended to compete with let alone to replace the conventional on-campus education system, the gap between these two extremes may not be so distinct in the next millennium when cyber schools, distance education in its best form, will be functioning in the cyber space.

By offering 10 formal and 12 non-formal programs Bangladesh Open University (BOU) is playing a key role in providing affordable formal education, from the secondary school to postgraduate level, to a large portion of the population of Bangladesh with various forms of hardships as mentioned above.

Six important factors (Harasim, 1990) to be considered in defining distance education programs are: the separation of teacher and learner, the influence of educational organization, the use of technical media to unite teacher and learner, the provision of two-way communication, the possibility of occasional meetings, and the participation in an industrial form of education. It is almost impossible to achieve these six criteria without applying computer mediated teaching and learning in distance education.

The paper is organized as follows. In the next section the student support structure of BOU is presented. The current teaching and learning methods of BOU is outlined in Section 3. In Section 4 we have proposed a computer mediated teaching and learning method, under the current context of BOU and Bangladesh, to improve two-way interactions between learner-teacher and learner-learner. The paper is concluded in 5 Sections.

Full Paper: hakik@bou.bangla.net

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