Distance learning offers particular benefits to the disabled learner, who might otherwise experience difficulty with travel to a centre for education or training as well as requiring special facilities whilst at that centre. However, in order to prepare such a person for the workplace, a distance learning programme must address other issues specific to the needs of such a student/trainee. The disabled learner will generally have little or no direct experience of business processes or transactions. Equally significantly, they are unlikely to be conversant with the social context of the workplace, assimilated unconsciously in the normal course of events and essential to effective working in any environment involving teamwork or interaction with others - ie virtually any industrial or commercial undertaking.
These considerations are most pertinent to the task domain of software engineering, the subject of the programme of study described here.The learner must become technically competent in the field of programming, and understand the associated skills of systems analysis and task decomposition. They must further appreciate the way in which their specific problem-solving skills intermesh with the wider aspects of company activity. Not least, they must be able to work co-operatively as a member of a team.
Multimedia resources offer the opportunity to create a simulated virtual workplace, a computer-based counterpart. The authors have been responsible for the development of a programme designed to provide such a learning environment, giving training in software engineering and 'C' programming within the simulated context of a practical commercial operation.
Grahame K Blackwell (BTech PGCE PhD MBCS CEng) obtained his first degree at Brunel University. After some years in both military and civil aviation as a real-time systems programmer he moved into education. His early work in educational computing includes highly successful educational software and computing handbooks, as well as a major educational initiative backed by the DTI, IBM and BP. As Director of Ivybridge Educational Computing Centre his responsibilities included in-service training in computing for large numbers of primary and secondary school teachers.
On transferring to higher education at the University of Plymouth (then Plymouth Polytechnic), he pursued a research interest in intelligent robotics. As a member of the Ship Control Research Group, this interest was directed towards the hazards of maritime navigation. His PhD "An Expert Systems Approach to Collision Avoidance" was completed in 1992. His interest in graphical user interfaces, a major feature of this work, led to his becoming actively involved with multimedia-based computer aided instruction.