ABSTRACT

This chapter provides an overview of the planning, development, implementation, and evaluation — by the faculty, participants, and their employers — of two multimedia distance education projects conducted by Elizabethtown College's Department of Communications in conjunction with media organizations in two Sub-Saharan African countries.

The projects reviewed in this chapter include the following projects:

1. The Swaziland Distance Learning Project was made possible in part by a grant from the U.S. Information Agency’s Distance Learning Initiative and a grant from the Elizabethtown College President’s Fund for Distinction. The program was delivered through a combination of interactive Internet video, a newsgroup, and a course website. An in-country field experience concluded the program.

2. The Media in Africa Education Program: Project Butterfly was made possible in part by the Polytechnic of Namibia and a grant from the Elizabethtown College President’s Fund for Distinction. The program was delivered in three segments: two in-country experiences with the participants and a five-week educational program delivered via a website, e-mail thread discussions, and lecture narratives.

This chapter provides a review of these projects and the use of multimedia in the delivery of these two successful distance education programs delivered by a small liberal arts college. These programs may be used as models for developing other distance learning projects.\

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