3 interesting facts you did not already know about distance education

1) The history of distance education
It was interesting to discover that distance education can be traced back to colonial times in the 1600's through informal apprenticeship programs. Also interesting was that one of our founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, created the discussion forum, Junto, in 1727. In addition, self improvement groups such as Lyceum and the Chautauqua Movment in the 1800's were the basis of what we know as distance education today.

2) Public broadcasting Service (PBS)
I found it interesting that the civil rights movement and social reform brought awareness of the struggles of inner city children and their lack of resources and inadequate means of learning. If you're in your early 40's or younger, you probably grew up watching Sesame Street, a PBS show. It has become a part of "Americana".

3) Toffler's "Overt" and "Covert" Learning
I found Toffler's quote interesting because many things we do in education rely on cooperation and order. In order to teach our content area, you need to have the management skills. So basically the content is the "overt" learning but the management part is the "covert" learning part where sometimes the student that does everything he/she is asked to do is looked highly upon from a teaching standpoint but we may be doing a disservice because higher level thinking skills are not being taught or practiced. I've also found that there are many students that have trouble "thinking outside the box" and wonder if we are creating robots instead of independent learners.