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NEWS: WAOE changed to a different ISP in 2000, which caused some delay and a change in the address and subscription commands for WAOE VIEWS (see above left).
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The World Association for Online Education (WAOE) is an educators' organization dedicated to turning online education into a professional discipline. WAOE has already been recognized as a non-profit public benefit corporation (NPO) by the state of California, although WAOE operates almost entirely online. Moreover, officers hail from nine countries thus far, so WAOE is not dominated by any geographical region. WAOE is open to all those who are committed to pedagogical principles and interested in networking with other online educators worldwide.
Educators concerned with online education in the broadest sense see their institutions making deals and their scholarly judgement over the curriculum undercut. Web-literate educators have their regional and disciplinary organizations, but when they reach out to the wider world through the Internet, they sense that the new medium holds great promise, but at the same time essentials are lacking in comparison to the face-to-face medium. Wandering from list to list, Website to Website, like so many nomadic masterless samurai, what online educators have been missing is a real organization.
This need was realized at the Third Annual Teaching in the Community Colleges Online Conference based at the University of Hawaii <http://leahi.kcc.hawaii.edu/org/tcon98/keynote/mccarty.html>. Conference discussions continued for months, resulting in an international Steering Committee. The State of California soon approved epoch-making Bylaws stating that WAOE will be fully operational in electronic media <http://www.waoe.org/npo/bylaw.htm >. It may therefore be fitting that WAOE is pronounced "Wowee!"
Since being widely announced in late November of 1998, about a thousand participants from fifty countries have shown that a need was answered. WAOE brings online educators together for mutual support as well as to evaluate online courses and resources in any branch of education. With the cooperation of many educational institutions already, a minimum of expenditures on material items, and the voluntaristic spirit of educators, dues are minimized and expertise can be provided in lieu of dues <http://www.waoe.org/web/vol1no9/index.htm>.
WAOE aims to be global and accessible to non-Westerners and non-native users of English, promoting multilingualism <http://www.waoe.org/web/vol1no10/news.htm> and intercultural understanding. Furthermore, WAOE is a non-profit organization of the membership type, less common and more challenging than organizations employing staff. WAOE founders believe that the aspirations of educators can best be reflected in a participatory democracy.
On top of all the concrete progress in a short amount of time, WAOE has afforded social opportunities among its multicultural membership. The first annual meeting for members in 1999 was combined with a world culture festival <http://scout18.cs.wisc.edu/NH/99-02/99-02-09/0026.html> synchronized by the global standard of GMT. While the meeting took place asynchronously via e-mail and Web forms, synchronous MOO and Web chat sessions were also conducted. From 2000 WAOE is collaborating more closely with the Child Research Net in Tokyo <http://www.childresearch.net/>.
Officers have been discussing how to conduct the whole organization like a global virtual university, reflecting the interest of members in mastering online educational environments. One such benefit of membership will be a teacher training course on international collaborative tutoring online, which has completed the piloting stage. With so much happening, in March 1999 a fortnightly e-mail newsletter entitled the WAOE Electronic Bulletin or WEB was inaugurated by WAOE Membership Chair David Wyatt in Australia <http://www.waoe.org/web/>.
WAOE is also blessed with the WWW Journal of Online Education (JOE) based at New York University <http://www.nyu.edu/classes/keefer/waoe/waoej.html>. Editor Julia "Evergreen" Keefer has developed a creative and colorful journal that is diverse in both cultures and genres.
WAOE Internet sites are decentralized and can be found in a rapidly increasing number of countries and languages. WAOE information is beginning to become available in many languages, and WAOE Chapters functioning in Spanish and other languages are being launched. WAOE has a flexible process to encourage members' initiatives, which are unlimited with so many cultures represented. Online Course and Resource Evaluation Workgroups (O-CREWs) can be based on any field or level of learning; cultural, linguistic or geographical chapters; and project-based or oriented to timely online issues of interest to members. See the WAOE Opening Page for details <http://www.waoe.org/>.
TO JOIN the World Association for Online Education, please go to the Membership page [Dues have been abolished for the time being].
Focusing on online education since the advent of Web-based approaches, WAOE is working to turn online education into a new professional discipline. For an overview of WAOE and how to get actively involved, see the WAOE Organizational Page in Japan: <http://www.waoe.org/president/WAOE-founding.html>.
Collegially,
Steve McCarty <mccarty@mail.goo.ne.jp>
Professor, Kagawa Junior College, Japan
President, World Association for Online Education: <http://www.waoe.org/>
Multilingual publications (an Asian Studies WWW Virtual Library 4-star site): <http://www.waoe.org/steve/epublist.html>Updated on 9 August l2002
