Prof. Terry Anderson, Chair of the Distance Education Department of the University of Athabasca, Canada, gave a series of speeches on the topics related to distance education and held special discussions on distance education with the faculty and students of TKU Distance Education Center on the E-learning environment and the functions of distance education.

Prof. Anderson is currently on a visit to TKU at the invitation of TKU Founder Dr. Clement C. P. Chang.

In his first lecture entitled the “Impact of Internet toward Educational Research”, he mentioned the students’ reliance on the Internet and how to develop and apply the Internet in the future education. His second lecture on “Potential Courses within the Distance Education” will focus on the scope range of distance education.

His last lecture will emphasize on the exploration to the interaction between student and computer under the e-learning environment.

Prof. Anderson said that it is his honor to be invited to give lectures in TKU. “ Students have a little difficulty interacting among one another since they learn through Internet. But the well-equipped TKU will easily promote the e-learning environment of distance education,” he pointed out.

In addition to giving lectures, Prof. Anderson will offer his opinions on the contents or teaching materials of distance education courses of TKU.

Prof. Anderson called on TKU Founder Dr. Clement C. P. Chang and President Chang Horng-jinh on Oct. 21 to exchange experience and views on distance education and the trend of future education. He said that he was moved by the distance education carried so positively out by TKU. “I would like to try my best to help TKU as the innovation in the distance education is a good direction. He wrote down “A future where learning is everywhere of free” at the Exhibition Hall of Futures Studies while visiting the second floor of Chue-Sheng Memorial Library.

Meanwhile, he said that there are 50,000 enrollment students conducting their study by means of distance education at his university, the sole university in Canada offering such a course. Of which 25,000 enrollments come from outside of the University of Athabasca. Through the distance education, “students can not only obtain the credits but also the degrees.”

He went on saying that basically, the university’s faculty members all obtained doctorate degrees. If students asked questions through network, the lecturers with Master Degree will solve them for the students.

Athabasca University, in addition to emphasizing information technology, also emphasizes humanities education.

Prof. Anderson with an educational background knows very well about the importance of humanities education. The communication between two peoples needs consistent communications. Therefore, he believes that the cultivation of humanity will be very important. It cannot be ignored when the courses are being mapped out. “We conducted research through the assistance of computer in the past years, but now, due to the frequency of human contact, we need to see the human world through the view of sociology.

If you are accustomed to searching data you need through Web and are able to collect all the information in your homepage, it will help you a lot on the future studies, he said.

Noting that the TKU’s hardware equipment of distance education is very complete, he said that the concerted efforts by teachers and students would be a key to success.