I was working on my last assignment this week for my current course and every time I searched for information on various topics (course work: limiting multimedia, facilitating communication, student time management, healthy online communities, student increased responsibilities, variety adds appeal, fostering critical thinking, and learning from peers) I kept coming across really great and useful information from all sorts of Australian links.
My curiosity was not piqued wondering why Australia, why do they have so much to share. So I started digging around to see what I could find out.
Australia started printed distance education at a secondary level in 1909 and a primary level in 1914. By 1931 1.5% of all elementary school children we being schooled by correspondence. 6% (17,000 people) of national enrollment in higher education in 1975 was by distance education. “1982 saw that distance education was the fastest growing sector in higher education, with total enrollment of 334,000” (Stacey, 2005, p. 225).
Electronic interaction began in 1951 by the use of two way radios. Teachers would use them as a way to bring interaction to children enrolled in their correspondence courses. Later they continued to expand using audio and video recorders and created a network that combined speaker phones and computers linked together. This connection was called the telematic network.
The Australian government posts that “the IDC estimates that Australia’s corporate elearning sector has the largest revenue in the Asia-Pacific (outside Japan) earning over $60 billion 2005-2006.
On Monday, June 18th the Minister of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts announced “That the Australian Government will ensure 99 per cent of the population has access to fast affordable broadband by June 2009…and provide speeds of 12 megabits per second.”
Australia Connected is a comprehensive and complete broadband solution for Australia that involves:
- A new national high speed wholesale network : The awarding of a $600 million competitive grant will deliver a mix of fibre optic, ADSL2+ and wireless broadband platforms to rural and regional areas. This rollout has been boosted with an additional $358 million in funding to ensure coverage to 99 per cent of the population;
- A new commercial fibre optic network : Facilitating a fibre network build in cities and larger regional centres via a competitive bids process and subsequent enabling legislation;
- Australian Broadband Guarantee : A safety net that ensures Australians living in the most remote or difficult to reach areas (the remaining one per cent) are entitled to a broadband subsidy of $2750 per household;
- Creation of BroadbandNow: A new one-stop consumer help centre with telephone and web information to assist consumers understand the technology options available to them and provide ready information about how to get connected; and the
- Preservation of the $2 billion Communications Fund : To ensure the funds are protected in perpetuity by legislation for the benefit of regional and rural Australians and to provide for an income stream for future upgrades.
All sounds pretty good to me, but here’s some links to some other commentaries on the announcement:
Full Duplex by David Braue Australia Connected … a political football?
iTWire, Alex Zaharov-Reutt reporting: Australia Connected’ sounds pretty good – now what?
And if you can get your hands on a copy of The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, Volume 6(3), 2005, pp. 253-259 you can read Elizabeth Stacey’s Deakin University, Australia) “The History of Distance Education in Australia”.