appreciation for the interaction of these tissues related to seed dormancy. Laboratory exercise materials and methods This laboratory exercise can be performed as an on-campus activity or easily fit into a distance education format by mailing individual
, roads, and structures were also included as part of professional services. In the 20th century, landscape architects expanded further into subdivision development, regional planning, and highway construction. Education in technical skills needed to
horticulture concentration. Six masters-level programs in horticulture or in plant science with a horticulture emphasis were offered by distance education: four by LG and two by NLG. Only one institution offered a thesis option M.S. in plant science with a
The University of Florida College of Agriculture and Life Sciences offers the Bachelor of Science degree program in Environmental Horticulture at the Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center (FLREC). Instructors at the FLREC deliver course work and course work is also presented using a variety of distance education (DE) technologies. These DE technologies include interactive video conferencing, videotape, and web-based courses. The question often arises as to how many courses should be delivered using DE versus live onsite instruction. This survey was conducted to ascertain how students perceive the quality of education they are receiving using a mixture of delivery methods.
Proponents of distance education encourage the migration of courses and entire degree programs onto the web. To this end, vast amounts of time, energy, and funds are directed to the development of new courses as well as the enhancement of traditionally taught courses. The question now begs to be asked, “Are we getting what we truly want from distance education?” Using a web platform provides a framework with excellent options to develop audio and visually rich courses. Distance programs also provide access to students not able to participate in traditional on-campus degree plans, providing the potential for a boost in enrollment. However, there are serious considerations that need to be balanced, including student satisfaction/dissatisfaction, enrollment management, faculty time commitment, and technical support. In this presentation, some of the benefits and liabilities of web courses will be discussed and program management suggestions will be explored.
University of Florida's Department of Environmental Horticulture offers undergraduate and graduate courses at seven locations throughout the state. To ensure students have access to a sufficient variety of classes, many courses are delivered by distance education. Distance education has significantly expanded student enrollment while unifying lecture content and minimizing duplication of faculty resources. However, delivering hands-on laboratory portions of courses continues to be a challenge, thus necessitating the need for web-based supplemental learning tools. An interactive, web-based tour of the 1-acre Indian River Research and Education Center (IRREC) Teaching Garden was created, allowing students at all distance education sites to learn similar plant material and landscape design principles. The virtual tour was developed by converting digital panoramic images of the landscape to movie files. The movies are navigated using a computer mouse, and plants within the tour are hyperlinked to information sheets highlighting plant characteristics. Although the website was initially developed for a Florida native landscaping course, it can be utilized in other plant identification and landscape courses, as well as by those who wish to virtually explore the garden.
As the horticulture industry enters the 21st century, advances in horticulture science will continue to be more rapid and frequent creating the need for more innovative approaches in information delivery. Moreover, decentralization continues to be a widespread trend. Land-grant universities have a long tradition of providing outreach, but with the development of new telecommunication technologies, larger audiences now can be reached. Many universities throughout the world have developed distance education programs through the use of modern telecommunication technologies. However, the University of Florida has responded to the needs of place-bound students by developing off-campus resident Bachelor of Science (BS) degree programs in horticulture at three locations in the state. These off-campus programs combine on-site instruction augmented with distance education courses to giveplace-bound students a flexible, efficient, and interactive alternative to degree programs offered at the main campus.
How can HortBase and other electronic information systems benefit horticulturists in developing countries? If Nation-wide distribution of the workload and costs of creation, review, revision, and distribution of individual information files to produce an electronic information system for decision support can be achieved in the U.S., can this collaboration occur world-wide? The European Agricultural Multimedia Network (http://www.stoas.nl/mmnet/), established in 1995, is an international network of more than 37 European institutes and organizations that are active in agricultural education. Its goals are to exchange knowledge and ideas and foster cooperation in development and exchange of agricultural education and extension multimedia products. EUROPEA, created in 1993, is a network of about 500 agricultural colleges and institutes in Europe to optimize transnational cooperation in development of distance education and lifelong learning and to provide an international dimension to students. The international membership of ASHS coupled with global communication technology facilitates global collaboration on information development and access.
The software package Macromedia Dreamweaver™ and learning management system WebCT™ are becoming de facto standards used to develop university distance education courses. NC State Univ. adopted these tools as part of its extensive support program for creating new distance courses, transforming existing classroom presentations into distance courses or upgrading existing distance courses. While production tools are becoming standardized, a “standard” course framework does not exist because most faculty believe that “no other course is like mine”. However, initial course placement online and course maintenance thereafter would be facilitated if a standardized course framework could be adopted and widely implemented. We developed such a framework, readily adaptable to many courses, by using the Libraries feature in Dreamweaver™ to create a model for easy navigation and standard course formatting for distance courses. Library items can be easily changed for use in different courses, and the entire framework can then be uploaded into WebCT™ for delivery to students. The model is used for several graduate level horticulture courses at NC State Univ.. Using this framework will allow any faculty member to easily fit his or her course into a replicable framework.