Nowadays, distance learning is not that far away to everyone. Many schools, including universities and high schools, are offering distance courses. Different people may have different view of this technology, some may hold passive opinion, and others may think it is a good way or new way to teach? Or there are even other ideas at this point. However, no mater how you think about distance learning, it is growing now. And more and more people are involving distance learning, especially in recent years. So, in my opinion, we need to think about why the distance learning is increasing, instead of arguing or doubting.
First, what is the effectiveness of distance learning comparing with traditional class? This is the most important way can prove whether the distance learning is passive or active.
Second, let us talk about the importance of distance learning. As I said in the first paragraph, it is the content decides the teaching effectiveness, not the media that instructors used for delivering. So the distance learning can do as well as traditional class. In fact, the distance learning can do more than traditional class. As we all know that, students have to live around schools for attending a class in traditional class. Otherwise they have to drive a lot. Many people were suffered from this before. Even sometimes they have to give it up. It is also a problem for some part-time students because there are always some conflicts between the work schedule and the course schedule. Traditional class can do nothing with this. However, there are no problems with distance learning under those situations. In fact, we can also find other ways to prove that distance learning is important, such as higher effectiveness, unlimited enrollment, and flexible schedules.
Third, what is the difference between distance learning and traditional learning? I think there are many differences between distance learning and traditional learning. The most obvious difference is that students and instructor do not have to meet physically during a class. Some other differences are distance learning is not like traditional class that teaching and learning process have to take place at the same time, there is almost no limited enrollment in a class, and distance learning can offer more freedom to learners, etc.
Another thing I am thinking about the distance learning and traditional learning is the relationship between them. Will the distance learning take the place of traditional learning? In my opinion, with the development of human education and technology, there will be more and more new ways of education, such as mobile-learning. All these new ways of teaching and learning have their own advantage and disadvantage. We cannot say one is better than the other. As an educator we should have the abilities to take advantages of all kinds of methods of education and maximized the effectiveness of learning and teaching.
Distance learning has a long history and its definition has been changing all the time. In my opinion, distance learning is a way of media-based, teachers and learners are separated and institution-based education. Here media-based means that the content is delivered by a kind of system, such as internet, radio, TV, satellite, or mail. The media through which a course is delivered kept changing all these years. And this is one of the reason that why the definition of distance learning is always changing. Here separate means that teacher and students do not need to meet each other physically like traditional classroom does. They can communicate at the same time and the learners still study under the help of teachers. Here institution-based is important because distance learning is different from self-learning. Self-learning is the way that students study by themselves without the help of instructors. However, learners are still learning from instructors in distance learning, instructors just do not have to give the lecture to learners face-to-face.
About the changing of definition, I think, the definition has to keep changing. This “changing” always means growing or moving forward. With the development of technology and educational theories, distance learning are becoming more and more effectiveness and popular. Of course, in the future people will explore more advanced technologies and theories which must push distance learning move forward. So whenever the distance learning moves to a new stage, the definition will change. Improving the effectiveness of distance learning will never stop.
The distance learning was developed from the correspondence course which appeared more than one hundred years ago. At the beginning, the courses had to be delivered by mail and the effectiveness was limited by the media: mail. Later on, at the beginning of last century, educators and researchers began to use radio to deliver the courses. This was a big progress because distance learning came into electronic time and distance learning began to be familiar to the Americans. The TV began to be imported into distance learning area after radio. People can not only listen to the instructors, but also see instructors. Furthermore, learners can see the instructors demonstrating instead of reading or listening. The universities and high schools which involved at the beginning distribute a lot for developing distance learning. During World War II the educational technology had a great chance to be developed because of the need of training thousands of soldiers in a short time. So after war researchers began to use those technologies into education including distance learning. Especially, when PC was developed in the early 1970s and internet in 1980s, distance learning became global, not only
It seems that when we are talking about the distance learning we always talk about changing, such as technology changing, theories changing and effectiveness improving. However, no all the stuff the involved distance learning is changing. Learners, for example, did not change that much. At the beginning of distance learning, such as correspondence course time, learners had the freedom to control the studying pace and learning was not limited by time or place. Nowadays, learners can communicate with instructors synchronously or asynchronously because of the advanced media that employed in distance learning area, which is not different from the correspondence courses time that learners could only contact instructors through mails. However, I think this is the technology changing, but not learners changing. Learners still need to learn by their own, but the just distance learning makes learning more convenient and easier.
Simonson, Michael R. (2006). Teaching and Learning at a Distance. 4-29.
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