1. Preliminary concepts and history of distance learning

• History of media technology

• What we can learn and improve using Internet and Web technologies




2. SCORM: Sharable Courseware Object Reference Model

• XML-based course structure

• Learning Object Metadata

• Simple Sequence Specification

• Run-time Environment




3. Demonstrations of SCORM-based distance learning projects

• The MINE SCORM Authoring Tool V 3.0: a SCORM 2004 compliant authoring tool enables creating content aggregations, video presentations, flash clips, and sequence templates.

• The Pocket SCORM LMS V 2.0: a mobile SCORM LMS, which runs on PDAs, Smart Phones (cellular phones), and wireless-connected notebook computers. The LMS allows an on-demand-based downloading of learning objects, via 802.11 or GPRS.

• The MINE SCORM LMS V 1.0: a .net-based web service architecture to support SCORM LMS on PC, PDA, and Smart Phone.




4. Summary and References

• Distance education in the near future

• Distance education journals

• Distance education books

• Distance education Web sites

Biography:  Dr. Shih is a Professor of the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at Tamkang University, Taiwan. He is a member of ACM. As a senior member of IEEE, Dr. Shih joins the Educational Activities Board of the Computer Society. His current research interests include Multimedia Computing and Distance Learning. He was a faculty of the Computer Engineering Department at Tamkang University in 1986. In 1993 and 1994, he was a part time faculty of the Computer Engineering Department at Santa Clara University. He was also a visiting professor at the University of Aizu, Japan in summer 1999, a visiting researcher at the Academia Sinica, Taiwan in summer 2001, and an adjunct faculty member of Xidian University, China. Dr. Shih has edited many books and published over 340 papers and book chapters, as well as participated in many international academic activities, including the organization of more than 30 international conferences and several special issues of international journals. He is the founder and co-editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, published by Idea Group Publishing, USA. He is also the associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Multimedia and ACM Transactions on Internet Technology. Dr. Shih has received many research awards, including research awards from National Science Council of Taiwan, IIAS research award of Germany, and several best paper awards from international conferences. He also received many funded research grants from both domestic and international agencies. Dr. Shih has been invited to give more than 10 keynote speeches and plenary talks in international conferences, tutorials in IEEE ICME 2001 and ACM Multimedia 2002, and talks at international conferences and overseas research organizations. Publications, demonstrations and contact address of Dr. Shih can be retrieved from http://www.mine.tku.edu.tw/chinese/teacher/tshih.htm.