Educamps in Distance Education: Professional Development and Peer Learning for Student Teachers in ICT

Abstract

Some distance education programs offer campus sessions in their courses. That has been the case at the University of Iceland – School of Education (UISE) for the past decades. The question is how such sessions are best organised. Lectures and seminars have been the hallmark of university teaching for centuries but can now easily be available online in various formats including more interactive styles for example with (recorded) synchronous webinars. Already in 2008 there were indications that distance learners at the UISE who had were exposed to online recordings of lectures were less likely to want to spend face-to-face meetings on lectures (Jakobsdóttir, 2008) than those who were not used to watching lecture recordings online. This was not true regarding online asynchronous discussions. Students tended to appreciate f2f discussions during campus sessions regardless of their exposure to online asynchronous discussions (Jakobsdóttir, 2008; Jakobsdóttir, Jónsdóttir, Valsdóttir, Frímannsdóttir, & Jóhannsdóttir, 2008).