Book Review - Sustaining Distance Education: Integrating learning technologies into the fabric of the enterprise. Edited by Zane L. Berge

• Main Author: David Passmore
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Athabasca University Press 2002-10-01
• Series: International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning
• Subjects: book review
• Online Access: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/99/178

I am an eager reader of the published works of Zane L. Berge. As director of training systems for the Instructional Systems Development Program at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County, Berge brings a strong intellectual perspective to any discussion of distance education. He has a wide and practical vision of practices in distance education through his extensive consulting experience. Moreover, much of his research and writing does not focus on the desiccated, hair splitting academic disputations in which distance education “theorists” engage frequently. His research and writing in the field of computer-mediated communication gets “down and dirty” with the difficult and often unexamined processes by which technology users collaborate and build community. It is no surprise to me, then, that Berge’s work is often so well received by his peers. He is the co-editor (with Deborah Schreiber) of Distance training: How innovative organizations are using technology to maximize learning and meet business objectives, a 1998 Jossey-Bass volume that won The Charles A. Wedemeyer Award.