Teaching and Learning at a Distance : Foundations of Distance Education

Michael Simonson is a program professor at Nova Southeastern University in the Instructional Technology and Distance Education program. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in Instructional Systems. He works with schools, organizations, and corporations to assist them to integrate instructional technology and distance education into teaching and training, and on the development of virtual schools. Simonson has authored four major textbooks dealing with distance education, instructional technology, instructional computing, and instructional media. Mike has over 150 scholarly publications, and in excess of 200 professional presentations dealing with distance education and instructional technology. Simonson has considerable experience working with domestic and international businesses and industries, especially on projects related to instructional technology, virtual schools, and distance education. Technology planning, distance education/virtual school policy development and effective design of online instruction are current projects. He is editor of the Quarterly Review of Distance Education, Distance Learning Journal, and Proceedings of Selected Research and Development Papers presented at the Annual Conventions of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology. He has won the award for most outstanding research in the field of distance education presented by the United States Distance Learning Association. Most recently he has been an external evaluator South Dakota’s Connecting the Schools and Digital Dakota Network projects, and is a consultant for the U.S. Army Research Institute. Simonson was honorably discharged as a Captain from the United States Marine Corps (R).