Help students to see what’s in it for them to become better at time management: Help them to work out the benefits of well-developed time-management skills. Help them to see that personal productivity, personal efficiency and personal effectiveness are all connected to their ability to manage time. Allow them to work out that time-management skills have lifelong value and enhance all their other skills and aptitudes – and in due course enhance their empoyability too.

Get students thinking conciously about learning pay-off: Ask them what kinds of activity have a high pay-off in terms of learning. These can include discussing, explaining, summarising, problem-solving and quizzing each other. Ask them what kinds of activity have low learning pay-off, these can includ writing in copying mode, reading passively, and appearing to listen. Time is too precious to squander on actions that have only low learning pay-off.

Help students to stop and look back: Get them to reflect on things they have learned, rather than simply hope that the learning has happened by magic. Ask them to work out how their learning happened, exactly what they learned, exactly when the learning happened, and how it can be made more efficient next time.

Help students to spare themselves from the effects of procrastination: Show them how wasteful and miserable just thinking about work can be – compared with simply getting on with it. Time spent thinking about work has associations with a guilty conscience, and looming tasks. Time spent after work has been successfully completed is high-quality time – the most enjoyable sort of time. But recognise that this is a counsel of perfection, which we ourselves don’t always abide by!

Encourage students to get stuck in straight away: Remind them how often 90 percent of things tend to get done in the last 10 percent of the time available. Point out that it is therefore logical that most things can be done in the first 10 percent of the time available – leading to the luxury of having much more genuine ‘free’ time. Hint at the positive feelings and confidence that come with always having things done well ahead of schedule – and indeed the security of knowing that there is room to accommodate the odd unexpected hiccup or crisis.

Get students to set stage deadlines for themselves: Encourage them to set several stage deadlines rather than one final deadline. Encourage them to break large tasks into manageable chunks. Encourage them to set deadlines ‘early’ to allow for the unexpected.

Help students feel positive about getting ahead of schedule: Point out the benefit of doing half an hour’s work on a non-urgent task each time before starting an urgent one. The urgent one will get done, as there is pressure to complete it. The practice of doing a little non-urgent work gradually leads to a situation in which there are fewer and fewer urgent tasks. Point out that human nature is such that ‘urgent’ is often synonymous with ‘late’, but that this situation can be countered by conscious adjustment of study patterns.

Get students to do a risk assessment: Help them to identify the consequences for them of poor time management. Help them to see where their own particular risks lie. When they are aware of the risks and the consquences, they are much more likely to adjust their study habits to compensate for these.

Help students to maximise their use of peer support: Get them to use each other in setting and monitoring deadlines. Show them that the more people know about a deadline, the more likely it is to be met.

Convince students that minutes can count for more than hours: Few people have many free two-hour windows in their week; everyone has lots of five-minute windows. Using just some of the short time slots for study related tasks can pay much higher dividends than putting everything off until a two-hour window comes along.

• Web-based materials are cheap and quick to produce and need not require a high level of technical expertise.
• These materials can be of very high quality, and can easily incorporate colourful text and graphics.
• As the technology becomes faster, more stable and more sophisticated then sound, video and animations can be exchanged with ease.
• Web materials can be amended, added to and uploaded in minutes ensuring that the content is always accurate, up to date and relevant.
• The materials can be constantly reviewed and revised in the light of student feedback.
• There is no need for the providing institution to reproduce and distribute learning materials.

Online courses are widely accessible

• Computer and Internet technology is becoming cheaper and ownership more widespread.
• There are increasing opportunities for people to get on to the Internet even if they cannot access at home – Internet-linked computers can be found at work, in libraries, in cybercafes and in community centres.
• Students from a wide mix of backgrounds, countries and cultures can take part.

Who are the potential learners?

What sort of students are likely to be attracted to online courses? Well, naturally, they will need to have access to a computer that is connected to the Internet, and they will need the know-how to use it. Most of your students will be those who find it inconvenient or impossible to access a course face to face, and you will certainly find that they are willing to try out studying in a technologically innovative way.

Here is a snapshot of Jim Buchanan who might feel that an online course is for him.

The situation: Jim is a single parent with two daughters both in primary school. He was an unskilled worker in the steel industry but was made redundant. He supplements his small income from state benefits by being the junior school’s lollipop man. He would like to find a full-time job now his daughters are old enough to go to the after-school club.

The problem: Jim’s lollipop job means that he has to be on duty twice a day, and this makes getting to a day course an impossibility. He cannot join an evening class because he hasn’t got anyone to look after his daughters. He needs a job that will give him time off during school holidays. He hasn’t got a computer and he can’t afford one.

The solution: Jim finds out that there is an online course that could train him as a classroom assistant. The school his children attend is keen on parental involvement and the headteacher agrees that he can access the school’s computer. He will ‘pay’ for this privilege by going into the school once a week to help with reading. This will also provide him a with additional relevant experience.

As soon as information could be disseminated to a mass audience then distance education could take place, and thus distance education can be counted as beginning with the development of Gutenberg’s printing press, which provided the technology for widespread distribution. More recently the postal service has allowed communication to take place between separated tutor and student. The first instance of a correspondence course is in the nineteenth century, when Isaac Pitman realized that the universal postal services would enable him to deliver the teaching of shorthand to a wider audience.

Twentieth century
Correspondence courses became more widespread in the twentieth century and continue to be popular to this day. However, in the second half of the century new technologies began to be used to supplement and enhance paper-based materials. Here are some examples:
1951 – In Australia two-way radio was used for tutor-student communication by the Alice Springs Schoor of the Air.

• 1960s – Telephone conferencing was used by the University of Wisconsin to supplement paper-based learning materials.
• 1970s – The Open University of Great Britain was established, which allowed people to study for degrees without physically attending a university. The Open University used paper-based materials, and also radio, TV and, later, video to supplement thsese. It proved phenomenally successful.

Why distance learning?
The popularity of traditional distance education in the twentieth century shows that it has fulfilled a need for many people. There are a variety of reasons for its popularity:

• It gives acceess to a wide range of knowledge, skills and qualifications.
• People who find it difficult to commit themselves to regular time slots, such as people who work shifts, can study whenever they want, day or night.
• People whose work involves travel away from home can take their coursework with them wherever they happen to be.
• Courses can be undertaken by people who have a multiplicity of commitments and demands on their time, such as those caring for young children or in full-time employment.
• It allows people who live in remote areas to study, even where there are no local educational institutions.
• Time isn’t wasted in travelling to an institution, finding a parking place or waiting for a bus.
• People who have disabilities that prevent or deter them from accessing face-to-face education can participate.
• Students can choose for themselves the best time to embark on a new course.
• In many cases progress through the course can be at a pace determined by the student and can be compressed into a few weeks or spread over years.
• It may prove a cheaper option for students since money can be saved on fares and on childcare costs.
• Students can work towards higher qualification without loss of income because they do not have to leave employment.
• Specialist courses that may not be available locally can be undertaken.
• Distance learning materials, such as text books, video and audio, usually have a high standard of content and presentation.
• The quality of teaching may be less dependent on the skills of the teacher.
• Students can be judged by the quality of their work along – prejudice based on their class, ethnicity, age or speech is less likely.

There are advantages, too, for the organization offering distance education:

• Specialist courses can be offered that would not otherwise be viable if they could only be undertaken by local people.
• Savings can be made on accommodation (including cleaning, lighting and heating of rooms) and student services such as refrectories.

However, distance education has clear disadvantages:

• Students may feel socially isolated and so may find it more difficult to stay motivated.
• There are few opportunities for students to develop their ideas through discussion with others on the course.
• Student collaboration on specific tasks is not possible.
• There is no peer group support.
• There may be little flexibility in the content of the course
• Learning materials that have been expensive to develop may quickly go out of date.
• Feedback from tutors is slow and students may have to wait weeks to find out if their work is meeting the required standards.
• Clarifications and queries cannot be dealt with speedily.
• Misunderstandings may not come to light and be quickly cleared up.
• Tutors cannot ‘read’ body language and so are unlikely to detect boredom or confusion.

Face to Face
Face to face is the most traditional form of delivering education, and the one with which people will have had direct experience since mainstream schooling throughout the worls is taught in this way. Face-to-Face education is teaching and learning where a significant component requires the presence of both learner and tutor in the same physical space at the same time. The definition includes such activities as lectures, demonstrations, tutorials, presentations and seminars. It is likely that a course delivered primarily face to face will also have some elements that involve independent study, such as supplementary reading, research and writing of assignments. As a general rule as learners mature, and as their study skills become more sophisticated, the ratio of independent to classroom-based study increases. However, tutors and students are not likely to be based very far apart geographically and regular timetabled meetings between tutor and student allow learners to access support as they need it. So this would still fall within the definition of Face to Face education.

Open Learning
Open learning has been developed in recent years to allow learners more flexibility than they would normally encoutner in a face-to-face course. Learners attend some sort of learning centre at times that suit them and work through course materials at their own pace. They will still meet up with a tutor, perhaps on a regular basis or perhaps on request, and may have access to additional support whilst in the learning centre. Open learning has often been used to enable learners to develop core skills such as literacy and numeracy, information technology and study skills.

Traditional Distance Education
This term is used to describe teaching and learning situations where the significant component does not require the presence of both learner and tutor in the same physical space at the same time. For the most part the time, pace and location of the learning is determined by the learner. The teaching is delivered using correspondence, books and other paper-based materials, increasingly supplemented by audio-visual materials such as video and TV, and by radio. Indeed there may be some element of computer-enhanced learning, for example in the use of CD-ROMs. It may be that occasionally events are organized that do involve a same time/same place ineraction, such as tutorials or a summer school.

Online Learning
Online learning is a kind of distance education, but it makes considerable use of information and communication technologies such as e-mail, Internet conferencing and the World Wide Web. Course materials can be mounted on to a web site. Speedy interactions can take place between tutor and learner using e-mail, and, perhaps most significantly of all, collaboration between learners can easily take place, allowing for the building of a learning community which allows learners to work and socialize together, as they would in a face-to-face course. It has been said that online learning takes the ‘distance’ out of ‘distance education’.