3 Thoughts

In referring to the prestige and perceived effectiveness of distance education, the author states: "This issue still has not been resolved, despite the rapid growth of distance education among universities in recent years, and overwhelming research evidence there is no “statistically significant difference” between the effectiveness of distance and face-to-face instruction."--I found this to be an interesting statement. Though I don't disagree with it in principle, I have a few musing on the statement. I wonder what research is being referenced here... as the daughter of a statistician I always wonder about the efficacy of the studies that prompt such remarks, and as none were referenced directly I don't have the ability to make such determinations. I would say however, that I doubt this statement would be true for ALL groups of learners. I would imagine that different age groups and different types of students would be either more or less effective based upon the learning scenario they were in. Of course, my grounds for making this statement are only based on experience, and my study of different learning styles--which of course can not be construed as evidence. (As a note: I wrote this statement towards the begin of my reading--as I was proceeding sequentially, there is more discussion to the research supporting this statement in subsequent pages.)

In referring to the emergence of the "knowledge economy," the author states: "Businesses were able to eliminate middle managers whose primary function were relaying information between the top management and front line workers. Organizations went “flat,” when leading managers could directly communicate with front line workers using information technologies." I think this is a very interesting but logical repercussion. I am floored by the ways in which technology can make certain structures so much more simple and then so much more complex at almost the same time. As middle management disappears, the roles of the players who still exist become that much more robust. I end up seeing this juxtaposition in other areas as technology improves and changes the processes we use to do common tasks. Currently, my company is in the middle of an LMS implementation, we are analyzing our business processes to determine how they will be affected by the launch. In many ways, steps and entire people will be removed for the equation of delivering an online course--but at the same time the steps within the program and the level of structure needed to maintain the new system are much more robust.

Transactional distance... my last thought is of this concept... I am not 100% sure if I don't understand this concept or if I am not buying into it yet. This is where I am at: I understand that there is an inverse relationship between autonomy and structure... as structure decreases autonomy increase, that part is fine. What I don't understand is how this results in a change of transactional distance. The way in which people transact is affected by autonomy and structure, but I understand that a large amount of either element can detract from a learners likelihood to interact. As such, if a person is allowed complete autonomy in their learning choices, they are just as likely to choose to remain solitary in their pursuit of knowledge as they are to interact with others in order to learn. Conversely, as we all have seen, highly structured courses often REQUIRE that learners interact even when they do not want to; forcing discussion and group projects where the learners might prefer to work alone or at least have the choice to. So I am not sure that I really understand transactional distance...