Empire State College
State University of New York
www.esc.edu

"John Dewey worked to restore education to its primitive, pre-print phase. He wanted to get the student out of the passive role of consumer of uniformly packaged learning. In fact, Dewey in reacting against passive print culture was surf-boarding along on the new electronic wave."

Increasingly, the society in which we live depends on the flow of information ... and the knowledge we can derive from it. This is"the Information Age." It is the first time in world history when information is the raw material for technology.
The growth of Distance Learning¹and its effects on pedagogy should be of great interest to educators. Potential benefits are: Sharing of Resourcesand Access to Instructors, instructional resources at one school used to teach courses at another; Access to Students, instructional access from multiple locations; Enhanced Curriculum, bringing instruction to students is an economic advantage allowing small schools to offer more courses and larger schools to augment their offering;Improved Educational Quality, the additive effects of growing the missions and goals of an organization through access to remote locations, in-the-field data gathering, off-campus resources, and more.
Empire State College has offered Distance Learning as one of it distinctive curricula for more years than most colleges or universities. A recent addition is SLN (SUNY Learning Network). This has now evolved into an online bachelor's degree program. Parallel with SLN is the Alliance Program, where Empire State partners with businesses to design courses for employees. Often these classes are "just enough and just in time"... classes designed as needed, and for just what is needed.

Philosophy
Two characteristics make ESC become distinguished. The president of ESC, Altes, J. W., states the alternative educational program is designed to meet the needs of those persons who require alternatives form of higher education. Furthermore, the curriculum at ESC is democratic value-based, which concerns with the development of persons, and faith that people will make the right decisions for themselves given the necessary information and support.
Several issues compose the heart of the planning program at ESC. Mentors mainly are facilitators assisting students to develop their study plans, coordinate a course of study, provide a tutorial instruction, and evaluate overall quality of students' work. The learning process, therefore, is one-to-one independent study which is organized through and tied in with learning contracts. The contract will specifically describe plans for learning a particular period of time or content. In the contracts, the students can state objectives in their own words; therefore, it results a sense of responsibility and a degree of creativity that is absent from the traditional instructional styles.
There are two curricular foci: general learning and concentration study.