Abstract: This article discusses the design, development, and implementation of a distance-delivered master's degree program leading to licensure as a teacher of students with visual impairments. The evolution of the program, based on improvements in technology, growth in faculty expertise, and students' enhanced performance, is described.

The shortage of teachers of students with visual impairments has reached crisis proportions (Mason, Davidson, and McNerney, 2000). At the University of Northern Colorado (UNC), the number of traditional, full-time enrollments declined during the early 1990s. In response, UNC developed a summers-only on-campus program and several extension programs in neighboring states. Whether the cause or the result, the enrollment of alternative students, those who came to the campus only in the summer or who attended classes at out-of-state sites, gradually increased. The demographics of the student body changed as well, from first-career professionals with new baccalaureates to more experienced individuals who were either changing careers or adding a new endorsement to their teaching credentials, many of whom were employed as teachers of students with visual impairments on emergency credentials.

As the decline in traditional on-campus students continued, UNC was faced with a dilemma: It could (1) maintain the status quo, continually justifying courses with low enrollments and hoping that the university would not cancel them during the academic year; (2) discontinue the academic-year program in favor of the extension and summer programs, which were funded differently and offered no security for either the programs or the faculty; or (3) find a way to reach the alternative students while maintaining the academic-year programs and funding. Had the faculty tried to maintain the status quo, they would have eventually been forced into the second option anyway, and they already had concerns about the quality of the extension programs. The university had different concerns because the extension programs did not generate student full-time-equivalents (FTE) that led to state appropriations. After 30 years of preparing personnel in visual impairment, the program risked closure if it did not develop a way of attracting students that also generated revenue to support it.

In late 1996, the faculty envisioned a distance-delivered version of the campus degree program for the master's degree in Special Education, Severe Needs: Vision that would expand the enrollment base, provide security for the program and the faculty, and operate year round. Earlier that year, the program had achieved status as a Western Regional Graduate Program from the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education (WICHE). This status, which required review and approval by the state departments of higher education in all 14 western states, was essential for any effort to build the student base, since residents of these 14 states would pay in-state tuition (a savings of nearly $400 per credit hour) to acquire the degree. The university agreed to this loss of revenue because students in a technology-based program would still generate student FTE that would be reimbursable by the state.

In 1996 the primary technology for interactive distance delivery of instruction was compressed video. The World Wide Web (hereafter, "the web") was just emerging as an information resource that would allow relatively easy access to the Internet via new software applications called "browsers." Consequently, a proposal was written to request federal funding for the master's degree program in visual impairment that would be delivered primarily through compressed video technology to the 14-state WICHE area. By the time the proposal was funded by the U.S. Department of Education in January 1998, the web had exploded as a delivery medium for distance education. This article describes the intervening three years until the grant project ended in December 2000 (the program has been ongoing since then)--what was learned; the challenges faced; the critical questions that emerged; the results of choices, decisions, and evaluations; and the authors' perceptions of the advantages, disadvantages, and cautions related to distance delivery of an academic degree program.

The delivery of a complete degree program required the participation of many special education faculty and specialists in educational technology. A project development team was formed that included the project director, a project coordinator with expertise in adaptive technology, special education faculty who would redesign their courses, an educational technology faculty member with experience in instructional design (ID) and distance education, and two educational graduate students with experience in multimedia development and ID. This project was the first of its kind for all the parties involved, and some special education faculty members were dubious that their courses could be taught other than in the traditional face-to-face lecture format. Others had unsuccessful experiences with other methods of distance-delivered course work and were reluctant to participate. These perceptions engendered long conversations about teaching and learning in distance environments and required considerable investment by the educational technology faculty and students, who simultaneously had to teach the special education faculty about ID and learn about the unique pedagogy for teaching children with visual impairments.

From the start, the focus of the project was on the content and the students. On the basis of an analysis of students and a needs assessment (who were potential students, where were they, and what they needed to know first), two courses were identified for redesign and delivery in fall 1998--literary braille and the medical and educational implications of visual impairment. Professional standards drove the redesign of the courses, and performance-based assessment drove the evaluation of students' learning. The team was committed to the premise that the content would determine the instructional method and that the instructional method would, in turn, determine the delivery technology (Persichitte, 1996). The primary delivery technology was changed to the web, with multiple other distance delivery media (such as CD-ROM, text packs, compressed video, e-mail, videotapes, listservers, and e-reserve) planned to support distance instruction. This commitment forced the issue of customized versus vendor-produced online courses. Expertise in ID and customized applications was critical to the success of the project, so the option of purchasing a readily available web vendor was set aside. Furthermore, none of the template courseware at that time was accessible to individuals with disabilities.

It was expected that 5% of potential students would be visually impaired (i.e., would be blind or have low vision). These students would be particularly challenged by the web, since the medium had not been used to any great degree at that point. A baseline ID decision was made that would become the overarching premise of the entire project: Regardless of the technology, the content, the technological skill level of the student, or the disability, all instruction delivered as a part of this distance project would be accessible to all students.

As the course analysis continued, the team determined that some content could not be delivered in distance formats: individualized instruction in orientation and mobility (O and M), clinical practice in O and M, and the part of the technology course that required hands-on practice with adaptive technology. This content was scheduled for summers and required students' residence on campus for 1 to 16 weeks over two summers. The special education faculty felt strongly that these courses contained some content that could be delivered with distance technologies, but that some content required face-to-face instruction. Individualized instruction in O and M cannot adequately be simulated with today's technology, regardless of whether it should be. Similarly, the high-end specialized adaptive technologies that exist in the campus distance learning facility are rarely available to remote learners for hands-on training purposes.

There were also issues associated with the facility, since no distance education classroom existed in UNC's College of Education. The team wanted to create an environment that supported interactive teaching, faculty practice, and students' interaction within distance delivery technologies. Therefore, the Bresnahan-Halstead Distance Learning Laboratory was developed as a multiuse classroom facility that allows for small class lectures, small-group activities, computer-based instruction, compressed video, and access to specialized adaptive technologies (such as braille printers, braille displays, text enlargers, screen readers, closed-circuit televisions, scanners, and braille translators) for instruction and for testing of materials prior to use in the distance education project. Also in the laboratory are a web server and four Mac and four PC computers, fully Internet capable, a high-end development station for the creation and editing of customized digital videotapes.

In addition to this technology, the Bresnahan-Halstead Laboratory is also equipped with three video cameras (one with infrared remote control), four monitors for the instructor and students, ceiling-mounted button microphones, a custom-designed instructor's station (with a PC and Mac computer, an Elmo for projection, a whiteboard, a VCR, a fax machine, and a telephone), and a facilitator's station (with two minimonitors to view incoming and outgoing videos; a VCR to capture outgoing instruction; audio- and video-control panels for the cameras and microphones; and the wireless connection to the compressed video COC, located in a nearby campus building).

The laboratory was totally funded by private donors; like most federal personnel preparation grants, the budget contained no funds for equipment but was devoted primarily to assistance to students and the personnel needed to implement the distance program. But the laboratory turned out to be critical to the success of the project. As the project evolved, the laboratory was used less for compressed video transmission than as a developmental, testing, instructional, and adaptive technology facility, primarily because the geographic location of the students made compressed video unfeasible.

Two immediate, significant challenges were program design and development. These challenges actually became cyclical, since each semester the team worked with new faculty, new courses, and/or new distance students. First, the team created a faculty training and support system that capitalized on the expertise and pedagogical experience of the special education faculty as the team worked with them to redesign and reconceptualize their courses for distance delivery. Second, the team developed a student support system that allowed the remote students to focus on the content of their course work instead of on the inevitable technological problems. Because students must complete 30-62 semester hours of course work (depending on their previous training and whether they are pursuing O and M endorsement and/or teacher licensure), some of the support was transient while some was ongoing, given the rapid change in distance technologies and increased access to computer-based technologies in the home.

The anchor technology for the project became the project's web site. Every course had its own site linked to the project site, and the extent to which that site was used for the purposes of delivering instruction varied. Over the three years of the project, the web site grew to encompass many of the student support functions as well.

The team chose to implement a basic ID model at three levels: project implementation, faculty support, and student support. The model selected, called ADDIE (analysis, design, development, implementation, evaluation), was a well-known, basic ID model whose author was unknown. Each design decision was based on an analysis of the content, the students, students' and faculty members' access to the delivery technology, and the strengths and weaknesses of the given technology in supporting specific content and instructional strategies. The design phase focused on the incorporation of professional standards; the creation of interactive, engaging learning environments that leveraged the strengths of the Internet; and the encouragement of special education faculty to "think out of the box" about constructive learning activities with performance-based assessment components.

The development phase took on a rapid prototyping aspect as the graduate students in educational technology worked closely with individual faculty on course conversions that began with analysis and design discussions and then moved to the special education faculty's review of efforts in the development of educational technology. This iterative developmental process allowed for continuous input from the content expert and a quick turnaround at each step of the course redesign.

Design efforts began one semester before the semester a class was scheduled for delivery to discuss several ID questions:

1. What is the critical content of this course?
2. Are there activities that were incorporated previously that must be included in this distance course?
3. Are there alternative activities that may accomplish the same objectives, but make better use of the capabilities of the technology?
4. What special or unusual content is in this course?
5. Is there content with which students typically struggle?
6. What instructional problems were encountered previously when this course was taught on campus?
7. Can the content be sequenced and parallel instructional activities, readings, and relevant information be identified?

Educational technology personnel then moved to the development phase, in which instructional materials and environments were actually created. At periodic junctures during this phase, educational technology personnel met with special education faculty to review the emerging products and to suggest revisions before the course was completed. This level of collaboration is not widespread among users of rapid prototyping, but it was effective for this team.

At the course level, the development phase consisted of creating a course web site (linked to the project web site) with standardized support for students and navigation for each course. In addition, every course was supported by a class listserver, synchronous chats, a threaded discussion area, and links to a variety of content supplements. Other instructional materials, such as digital videotapes, interactive computer-based simulations, and tutorials, were custom created for this project. Case studies and computer-based quizzes were also developed. Once Acrobat Access became available, many instructional resources were converted to Adobe PDF files for easy downloading and screen-reader access from the web site. For materials that were copyright protected, educational technology personnel worked closely with the project director and special education faculty to obtain appropriate permissions. (Most copyright holders were accommodating, once they were assured that the site was password protected.) Access to browsers and digital braillers (like Netscape and Perky Duck) was negotiated with software companies. Graphic images were manipulated for individuals with visual impairments and tagged for screen-reader accessibility. By far, the greatest developmental challenge was to ensure that every resulting instructional material or environment was fully accessible to students regardless of their disabilities.

Development also included the evolution of an internal tech support system for the remote students and special education faculty. This system evolved from a conceptual redesign of the project's web site to incorporate remote students' access to the university's library, the graduate school, financial aid office, university bookstore, general program information, faculty advisers, and a virtual "commons area" for students to meet and socialize. As the project evolved, students became more dependent on these delivery technologies for academic, professional, and peer-communication purposes. The educational technology staff also provided the technical support that ensured students and faculty nearly round-the-clock access to instruction, information, and communication via a wide variety of technologies. Since most of the students worked during the day, the educational technology staff monitored the server at night, usually via remote server software, and sometimes had to visit the university late at night to reboot the server.

The first implementation (delivery) of course work occurred in fall 1998 with two courses. By the fourth semester, seven courses were delivered to 73 students in 18 states, using campus-based special education faculty. Fourteen courses have now been redesigned for distance delivery and, in most cases, revised and substantially updated in subsequent semesters to accommodate changing distance environments. The project has been online for eight consecutive semesters.

It became apparent that distance delivery did not require a campus-based instructor. When more instructors were needed in the fifth semester of implementation, a highly skilled adjunct faculty member was hired whose residence would have prohibited her teaching a weekly on-campus course. Recently, an adjunct from a neighboring state joined the faculty. Distance delivery allowed the program to hire the best instructors, regardless of where they lived and regardless of their disability. Online content, e-mail, and the electronic transmission of students' papers and assignments also meant that instructors who are blind were no longer dependent on others to assist them in some of their teaching functions (such as reading papers). Distance delivery also permitted invitations to experts and mentor teachers to participate in courses via both synchronous and asynchronous discussions with students.

Challenges to the project's implementation included the following:

• Maintaining a focus on and commitment to total accessibility without accepting an "alternative" as appropriate (like "text-only" web sites linked to graphics, slide presentations, or audio files). The project staff fervently believe that "separate but equal" was declared unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education (Ferrell, 1999, 2000) and have strived not to perpetuate it electronically.
• Keeping pace with the rapid changes in software versions and hardware capacity, while recognizing a broad spectrum of access among our remote students.
• Helping faculty test the compressed video environment so they understood the limitations (such as students' access problems, same-time scheduling conflicts, multisite transmission delays), as well as the possibilities of the technology.
• Working in an environment that demanded specialized support for students on a nearly round-the-clock basis.
• Finding and supporting the expertise in the educational technology staff to develop, support, and implement their efforts each semester while managing their overlapping time lines.
• Learning to use synchronous technologies like Internet chat and compressed video when students were distributed across multiple time zones that differed by up to six hours.
• Funding the recurring costs of practicum supervision, technology infrastructure, maintenance, and upgrading.
• Supporting students in practicum placements that were dispersed across a broad geographic area, particularly when mentor teachers were not available and when the UNC faculty's time was constrained by the greater amount of time required for online instruction and interaction. Supervisory visits to out-of-state practicum students were limited because state funds normally used for supervisory travel could not be used, and funds from the federal grant were insufficient.
• Developing a collaborative working environment for the special education faculty and the educational technology staff that emphasized cooperation, innovation, risk taking, and mutual dependence.
• Providing ongoing faculty development for changes in pedagogy required within interactive distance education environments.
• Identifying external resources that supported the use of technologies and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Vocational Rehabilitation Act. (See Box 1 for some examples of such resources.)

The evaluation component of the ADDIE model incorporated both formative and summative strategies. At the midpoint and end of each semester, the students were asked to complete an online course evaluation form that elicited responses to queries about the quality of instruction, effective use of technology, instructional and technical support, and satisfaction with the distance learning experience.

Demographic data indicated that the students in this project were generally middle aged (80% were aged 25-49), predominantly female (typically 90% or more for each course), and lived more than 100 miles from the UNC campus (typically over 60% of each course's enrollment). Part-time students outnumbered full-time students 2 to 1 each semester. Over 75% of the respondents reported that the distance courses required "about the same amount of effort" as an on-campus course (in contrast, the faculty's response was that more effort was required). Also, over 80% of the respondents reported more than six individual contacts with the instructor during the semester, in addition to the instructor's use of the course listserver. The cumulative data from the students' evaluations were overwhelmingly positive (over 90% of the respondents each semester) regarding (1) satisfaction with their distance learning experience, (2) the likelihood that they would take another distance-delivered course after this experience, (3) the quality of the instruction, and (4) the effectiveness of the course structure and delivery. An evaluation of on-the-job teaching competence is planned for the coming year, now that the project has produced a critical mass of graduates sufficient for analysis.

Evaluation data at the end of each semester were used to launch the next semester's discussions about design and to focus on developing and implementing revisions. The special education faculty were also asked to complete evaluation questionnaires periodically that provided data for the improvement of the design process and the elaboration of the faculty development initiatives. The evaluations served the dual functions of providing data to drive decisions and allowing the students and faculty to have input in the decision-making process.

Results and unintended consequences

Table 1 compares the admissions and enrollment data for the three years immediately preceding the grant period, during which the program was delivered on-campus during the summer and academic year, and the three years of the grant period. Because some students overlapped the two periods, data for those whose total program has been or will be delivered using distance methodologies are also given in the right-hand column. New admissions to the program increased 14.5% during the life of the grant, but significantly, the number of admitted students who eventually enrolled increased 42.9%. This admissions yield appears to have been maintained among the distance-delivery students, suggesting a better and perhaps more deliberate match between applicants and the program.

The total enrollment also increased by 52.7% during the grant period. The enrollment of minority-group members increased by 50.0% (from 4 to 6 students), and the enrollment of persons with disabilities increased by 40.0% (from 5 to 7 students). The enrollment of these two groups of students remained stable at 8.9% for total distance-delivery enrollment.

Program completers (degree program graduates, plus those seeking endorsement only) increased by half (52.4%) during the grant period. Overall, the distance-delivered program seems to produce a slightly higher graduate yield (completers as a proportion of enrollees) at a slightly faster rate, since students in the distance-delivered program complete their studies in a mean 6.4 semesters (a little over 2 full years), rather than the mean 7.6 semesters (over 2 1-2 years) for the on-campus program. Although withdrawals are high in the distance program (10.7%), they are not as high as they were in the on-campus program (16.4%).

Out-of-state enrollment increased dramatically during the project period and continues to make up two thirds of the distance program. During the on-campus program, a larger proportion of completers were from out of state (80.9%), but during the project period, completers were almost evenly split between Colorado and out-of-state residents. The greatest proportion of students taking the distance program, however, are out-of-state residents.

As a result of this project, students, special education faculty, and educational technology staff have learned much about the creation of distance delivery systems that are robust enough for graduate degree programs. They have also encountered some surprises. While the distance education research and literature of the 1990s focused largely on delivery technologies and development with those technologies, this project focused on the theoretical bases of distance education: content, pedagogy, and communication. The early decision to focus on content and instructional method paid huge dividends in the motivation of the special education faculty, the quality of the instructional product, and the completion rate of students. The special education faculty consistently reported that this experience had improved their pedagogy in on-campus and distance settings and described feelings of invigoration and currency with the content. They also believed, with a sense of pride, that the extra effort put into this project returned significant professional dividends in the number of certified professionals who now work with visually impaired children.

Most of the unexpected consequences occurred among the students. On their own initiative, the students developed miniclusters that communicated online regarding a wide variety of professional, academic, and social topics outside "class" and organized their own synchronous discussions to work on assignments in teams. Many described a newfound reliance on academic resources because those resources were now accessible anytime and anywhere. The professional isolation that many initially reported because of their geographic dispersion was reduced, since they were able to "talk" with peers and faculty members when they needed advice, and many used the technologies to socialize and connect in meaningful human interactions. Finally, the students reported that the distance learning experience brought them a new understanding of how children with visual impairments learn--and how much they relied on visual input when teaching--because now they, too, were not able to see the instructor or each other.

Another set of unintended consequences occurred as a result of the decision to make the program completely accessible. Blind instructors, using adaptive technology, competed on an equal level with sighted instructors when teaching online. And though students with visual impairments have always been enrolled in UNC programs, the enrollment of persons with disabilities now constitutes almost 9% of the student body. Both these unanticipated consequences are encouraging for the future of a field in which only about 5% of the current faculty are visually impaired (Corn and Silberman, 1999), and both directly address the personnel preparation requirement in Part D of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, to "give preference to institutions of higher education that are successfully recruiting and preparing individuals with disabilities" (Section 673(g)(3)(B)).

This project has been successful according to a number of criteria. First, UNC met the objectives stipulated in the original grant proposal, contributing to the preparation of 84 new professionals and 32 graduates, 56.3% of whom lived outside Colorado, over the three years of the grant. During the previous three years, UNC graduated only 21 teachers, 80.9% of whom lived outside Colorado, thus demonstrating the increased capacity of the distance program to meet both in-state and out-of-state needs. Second, UNC has involved all faculty in the program in the redesign and implementation of their courses, and this training has spilled over to other special education faculty in the department, such that even core courses in special education are now available online. Third, students have been satisfied with their training and appreciate the efficiency and accessibility of the online format. And fourth, the distance-delivered program is sustainable now that federal funding has ended.

In spite of, and with the reluctant participation of, many skeptics, this effort has not only met the objectives stipulated in the grant proposal, but has surpassed the radical idea first discussed in 1996. The following principles, derived from UNC's experience and practice, may be useful for other programs that are planning a distance delivery system:

• Content determines methodology (Ferrell, 1999, 2000; Persichitte, 1996). Decide what needs to be taught first and then decide how best to teach it. The goal is not simply to teach online, but to teach students who live at a distance from the campus.
• Instructional methodology drives the selection of the delivery technology. Distance delivery is more than use of the Internet.
• Professional standards drive the course design (including objectives, structure, sequence, articulation of the curriculum, and assessment).
• The working environment needs to leverage the expertise of all participants and be team oriented.
• The right people are needed to get the job done--content specialists (special education faculty), ID specialists (educational technology faculty), multimedia specialists, and distance education specialists.
• Performance-based assessment that is closely aligned with professional standards drives the evaluation of students' learning.
• A facility is needed to support instruction, development, and student interaction.
• Instruction that is accessible to all students, all the time, should be created from the beginning of the design effort to avoid revising courses later in response to individual needs. Alternative text files not only double the files needed to deliver the course, they double any efforts to revise or update as well.

The authors invite the readers to visit the program's web site, now located at the National Center on Low Incidence Disabilities www.NCLID.unco.edu, and they challenge the reader to explore the potential for distance education to provide greater access for the next generation of professionals in the field.

Preparation of this article was supported, in part, by Grant H029A70113 from the U.S. Department of Education, Personnel Preparation for Individuals with Disabilities, CFDA 84.029A. The authors thank other members of the staff who contributed to the success of this project: Charles Wright, project coordinator; Lucia Hasty; David Kappan; Carol Love; Madeline Milian; D. William Muir; and Sandra Ruconich. They also thank AFB, the American Printing House for the Blind, and the Hadley School for the Blind for their generous permission to incorporate portions of their copyrighted materials into the web site discussed in this article.

Accepted July 18, 2001.

Adaptive Technology Consulting -- www.adaptivetech.net

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) -- www.w3.org

Equal Access to Software and Information (EASI) -- www.rit.edu/~easi

We Media Inc. -- www.wemedia.com

Trace Center -- www.trace.wisc.edu

LEDATA -- www.abledata.com

Center for Applied Special Technology -- www.cast.org/bobby/

There are 5 main column heads in this table: Criterion, Spring 1995-Fall 1997: On campus, with subheads N and %; Spring 1998-Fall 2000: Project period, with subheads N and %; % change; and Spring 1998-Present: All distance education with subheads N and %. Under Criterion there are 12 rows: New admissions, Admissions yield (admitted who enrolled), Total enrollment, Minority enrollment, Disability enrollment, Total completions, Graduate yield (completions as proportion of enrollment), Average time to completion (in semesters), Withdrawals, Terminations, Out-of-state enrollment, and Out-of-state completers.

Note: This table does not reflect enrollment in the O and M extension program that was implemented between 1996 and 2001.

-- means not applicable, no value entered.

Criterion: New admissions for Spring 1995-Fall 1997: On campus, N is 62; percent is --; for Spring 1998-Fall 2000: Project period, N is 71; percent is --; % change is +14.5; for Spring 1998-Present: All distance education N is 79; and percent is --.

Criterion: Admissions yield (admitted who enrolled) for Spring 1995-Fall 1997: On campus, N is 35; percent is 56.5; for Spring 1998-Fall 2000: Project period, N is 50; percent is 70.4; % change is +42.9; for Spring 1998-Present: All distance education N is 56; and percent is 70.9.

Criterion: Total enrollment for Spring 1995-Fall 1997: On campus, N is 55; percent is --; for Spring 1998-Fall 2000: Project period, N is 84; percent is --; % change is +52.7; for Spring 1998-Present: All distance education N is 56; and percent is --.

Criterion: Minority enrollment for Spring 1995-Fall 1997: On campus, N is 4; percent is 7.3; for Spring 1998-Fall 2000: Project period, N is 6; percent is 7.1; % change is +50.0; for Spring 1998-Present: All distance education N is 5; and percent is 8.9.

Criterion: Disability enrollment for Spring 1995-Fall 1997: On campus, N is 5; percent is 9.1; for Spring 1998-Fall 2000: Project period, N is 7; percent is 8.3; % change is +40.0; for Spring 1998-Present: All distance education N is 5; and percent is 8.9.

Criterion: Total completions for Spring 1995-Fall 1997: On campus, N is 21; percent is --; for Spring 1998-Fall 2000: Project period, N is 32; percent is --; % change is +52.4; for Spring 1998-Present: All distance education N is 23; and percent is --.

Criterion: Graduate yield (completions as proportion of enrollment) for Spring 1995-Fall 1997: On campus, N is; percent is 38.2; for Spring 1998-Fall 2000: Project period, N is; percent is 38.1; % change is; for Spring 1998-Present: All distance education N is; and percent is 41.1

Criterion: Average time to completion (in semesters) for Spring 1995-Fall 1997: On campus, N is 7.6; percent is; for Spring 1998-Fall 000: Project period, N is 7.4; percent is; % change is -2.6; for Spring 1998-Present: All distance education N is 6.4.; and percent is

Criterion: Withdrawals for Spring 1995-Fall 1997: On campus, N is 9; percent is 16.4; for Spring 1998-Fall 2000: Project period, N is 8; percent is 9.5; % change is -11.1; for Spring 1998-Present: All distance education N is 6; and percent is 10.7.

Criterion: Terminations for Spring 1995-Fall 1997: On campus, N is 1; percent is 1.8; for Spring 1998-Fall 2000: Project period, N is 1; percent is 1.2; % change is 0.0; for Spring 1998-Present: All distance education N is 0; and percent is 0.0.

Criterion: Out-of-state enrollment for Spring 1995-Fall 1997: On campus, N is 30; percent is 54.5; for Spring 1998-Fall 2000: Project period, N is 53; percent is 63.1; % change is +76.7; for Spring 1998-Present: All distance education N is 37; and percent is 66.1.

Criterion: Out-of-state completers for Spring 1995-Fall 1997: On campus, N is 17; percent is 81.0; for Spring 1998-Fall 2000: Project period, N is 18; percent is 56.3; % change is -30.5; for Spring 1998-Present: All distance education N is 20; and percent is 87.0.

References Corn, A. L., and Silberman, R. K. (1999). Personnel preparation programs in visual impairments: A status report. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 93, 755-769.

Ferrell, K. A. (1999,July). Distance technologies for personnel preparation. Paper presented at the International Low Vision Conference, Vision 99, New York.

Ferrell, K. A. (2000). Technology as an aid for personnel preparation. In C. Stuen, A. Aditi, A. Horowitz, M. A. Lang, B. Rosenthal, and K. R. Seidman (Eds.), Vision rehabilitation: Assessment, intervention and outcomes (pp. 809-811). Lisse, The Netherlands: Swets and Zeitlinger.

Mason, C., Davidson, R., and McNerney, C. (2000). National plan for training personnel to serve children with blindness and low vision. Reston, VA: Council for Exceptional Children.

Persichitte, K. A. (1996). Teaching OUT distance education WITH distance education. In B. Robin, J. D. Price, J. Willis, and D. A. Willis (Eds.), Technology and teacher education annual (pp. 742-743). Charlottesville, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education.

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By Kay Alicyn Ferrell; Kay A. Persichitte; Nathan Lowell and Stephanie Roberts

Kay Alicyn Ferrell, Ph.D., assistant dean, College of Education, and executive director, National Center on Low Incidence Disabilities, University of Northern Colorado, Campus Box 146, McKee Hall 125, Greeley, CO 80639; e-mail: kay.ferrell@unco.edu. Kay A. Persichitte, Ph.D., associate professor and chair, Department of Educational Technology, University of Northern Colorado. Nathan Lowell, M.A., technologies manager, National Center on Low Incidence Disabilities. Stephanie Roberts, M.A., graduate assistant, National Center on Low Incidence Disabilities. Address all correspondence to Dr. Ferrell.