THE POTENTIAL OF LIVE TEACHER SUPPORTED DISTANCE LEARNING - A CASE-STUDY OF THE USE OF AUDIO CONFERENCING AT THE UNIVERSITY-OF-ABERDEEN

With the spread of interactive technologies such as audio or video con ferencing, a new type of distance education-live teacher supported dis tance learning-is emerging. the experience of teaching a University of Aberdeen distance learning course to students in the Scottish Highlan ds and Islands using audio conferencing suggests that with these new t echnologies the benefits of distance learning can be preserved while t he problems of traditional distance courses can be mitigated. The init ial reservations of staff about the quality of distance students' lear ning have largely been overcome as experience of the use of audio conf erencing has increased. Moreover, the results of a specially conducted survey of the University of Aberdeen's distance students suggest that , while they recognise that their experience is different from that of conventional students, there are no signs that they think it is infer ior in quality.