Things I didn't know that I didn't know about distance education...

Comments on “An Introduction to Distance Education and eLearning”

I thought that the paper was an interesting summary of the development of distance education. I hadn't realized how the COMET program is actually a step in the evolution of distance learning that began with correspondence education. Although I’m part of the generation that at one point didn’t have access to the internet, it has become such an integral part of my life that I can’t remember what it would be like to enroll in one of the correspondence courses that I remember seeing in ads when I was growing up.

I can also attest to the stigma that has followed distance learning in the recent past. Even now, with the advent of new learning platforms and interactive courses, people still have a sense that taking classes online are still “second-rate” when compared to classes taken at a brick-and-mortar institution. When I reflect on the work that Deb Lawson, Kim McCain-Correll and I did on the feasibility of implementing mobile learning through cell phones, we came across a great deal of research that shows that we must begin to find solutions beyond the classroom if we are to meet the educational needs of the future.

One of the more interesting points of the paper was the section on Educational Television and its effect on young learners-

“Evaluation results indicated that youngsters exposed to Sesame Street had a clear advantage in learning elementary reading, writing, math, and social skills over those who were not exposed to the program, or had less exposure to it.” (pg 10)

I found this statement to be quite shocking as most of the current research keeps telling us how bad television is for our children. Perhaps it’s not necessarily that watching TV is bad for children, but rather what children watch and how their parents use the television that affects their development.

I had a little difficulty wrapping my head around the section on Future Trends (pg 20). The language was hard for me to process until I read it a few times. I didn’t realize how the institutions were treating the distance learning method as a physical science rather than a social science. So as stated by Moore, transactional distance is a function of structure and autonomy. Rather than looking at distance learning traditionally, as in proximity between instructor and learner, it is more about what does an instructor need to provide for a learner to be successful and how much control does a learner need in a course to become successful. I’m wondering if this definition of distance learning could then be applied to any course, whether in a classroom or in a virtual classroom? I suppose then this definition is the best argument for equal weight between traditional learning and distance learning.

Another interesting point that is food for thought is the “covert curriculum” mentioned in the section, Consequences for Organizational Structures. While reading this section I had a weird feeling that there was a conspiracy going on about how the people in power are trying to control the masses-

“It demanded workers who would take orders from a management hierarchy without questioning, and it demanded men and women prepared to slave away at machines or in offices performing brutally repetitious operations.” (pg 24)

I began to wonder if my job secretly trains my students to do the exact same thing. And then again, how do we work toward a goal without structure? When we think of these consequences, I think the key word is “we”. Distance learning can be completely autonomous and still be successful. I am thinking of the Adobe certification method where a person can study for as long as they like, and take a certification exam on their own schedule. This breaks away from the organizational structure but it is also based on the fact that it is solely an individual effort and reward. If there were any type of group dynamic involved, there would naturally need to be some type of organization in order to be successful. Besides, this type of learning for factory labor is really outdated – especially since we’ve shipped most of these jobs overseas.