UNESCO Publishes Distance Learning Guidelines
UNESCO has published Teacher Education Guidelines: Using Open and Distance Learning to help teacher-training colleges decide how to use distance learning to improve teachers' skills. The handbook describes how to plan for distance learning, how to choose the appropriate technologies, how to fund them, how to teach classroom skills and how to assess them. It also suggests other reports and Web sites that provide information and help. The guidelines draw on a set of 11 case studies carried out for UNESCO by the U.K.-based International Research Foundation for Open Learning, an independent nonprofit institute affiliated with the Commonwealth of Learning. The countries studied include Brazil, China, India, South Africa and the United Kingdom. The handbook can be downloaded from the UNESCO Web site at http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001253/125396e.pdf.