Distance Education
I remember one day hearing the phrase "...
tomorrow's technology is already here." When I heard this for the first
time I thought it was something silly, something impossible: Oh surprise, I was
wrong! Nowadays technology is advancing at an excessive pace; so fast that the
phrase I considered silly will become reality. Let´s recall then that the progress
of technology affects everything related to human beings, from the simplest to
the most complex factors. Within these complex factors we find “the education”.
Education is a human need that undoubtedly is affected with this "technological
boom". Proof of this is the massive increase in courses offered via internet
in different schools, and not only courses, but in recent years diplomas, bachelors,
masters and even PhD are offered via internet ... In other words, Distance education
is offered.
I will not say
that a degree obtained through distance education is bad, or that it is good,
because everything has its good side and its bad side. However, since we are
(myself included) used to a face-to-face education, listening to someone saying
that s/he is in a distance course, where there is no a “physical teacher”,
sounds weird for most of us. For this same reason one can misunderstand "distance
education" with "self-education" thinking that in distance
education the student is the one learning by his/her own. But this is not the
same because as mentioned by Schlosser and Simonson "... distance
education is institutionally based." (2010, p1) In other words, distance education
needs to be linked or rely on an institution.
As I mentioned
before, everything has a good side and a bad one. As for the open and distance
education we find the convenient situation of "learning while working
" because the ease of creating your own schedules that best suits the
student needs is something rarely found in a face-to-face class. A second
well-known benefit of this type of learning is the "pace of the teaching-learning
process." What do I mean by this?
Many times there are students who acquire knowledge faster than others. I´m not
saying it is bad, in fact it is great that everyone learns at his/her own pace
without feeling any pressure. This is another advantage offered by this type of
education since the "competitive" environment is not developed as in
the face-to-face classes, students feel more free to learn at their pace.
Something else I would like to mention is the cost of taking a distance class.
As we know, a face-to-face class requires students to be using transportation
from their home to the institution where the course is taught, every day you
have class. In addition, the material tends to be physically delivered, so the "investment"
tends to be higher. On the other hand, in a distance class there is no transportation
cost, and since most of the assignments are delivered via internet, there is no
cost for physical material either.
Looking now
towards the "bad" side of such classes, we find that feedback tends
to be slower, so students take longer to understand where they were mistaken (if
they made a mistake on an exercise) or it takes them longer to get answers to their doubts about
the class. For this reason, it is recommended that students who decide to take
this type of class are tolerant and autonomous as possible. Lack of
socialization is another well known distance education disadvantage. For some
people it might seem unnecessary; however, I consider that during the time
students are “students” it is good for them for create bonds among their
partners. These bonds may help them in the future in their personal and
professional life, so I consider this as a very harmful disadvantage. The third
disadvantage is not well known so this may lead to misunderstandings. I found
that not all the places that offer jobs accept degrees earned via internet. It
is true that the quality of the knowledge gained during a course depends on the
student and, for instance, someone that have had a " developing teaching
material " class via internet can be better than a person who studied the
same class in a face-to-face course, there are companies that still have the
"stigma" of giving distance classes a lower value, even when
technology is so advanced.
Moving on, let's
now talk about my personal experience with this type of classes. To start I
must make clear that I am a visual person and that I need to have someone in
front of me in order for me to be asking him/her as many questions as possible;
I like when feedback is given as soon as possible too. With that said, people
might think that I do not like distance classes, and in fact, I do not like
them. The first class I took this way was a total disaster: I had feedback from
my activities only twice in a semester; the instructions were never clear; the
grades for each assignment was not specified, etc. After that I did not want to
take this type of classes again. However, distance classes are needed in the
career I´m studying, so once again I was in the need of taking distance classes.
This second time was totally different: the instructions were very clear;
although the feedback was not immediate, it was given consecutively; etc, so
that class was very good. I was at that moment when I realized that the class
can be boring or "bad" if teachers do not have the necessary
knowledge to teach it. But these are problems that we, as students, will find
many times.
The solution to
this problem is simple, but laborious because it requires the willingness of
teachers who are considered "bad". If these teachers were trained in
a proper way by people who do know about the topic, the quality of teaching
would increase a lot, and this "stigma" of bad reputation could
radically change. On the other hand, it is also responsibility of the student
who decided to take these classes because they need to perform their
"role". Autonomy, as well as responsibility, is a essential
requirement that all students must have in order for them to get into distance courses.
That way if the teacher "fails" in his work students will not have
any choice other than learning by themselves.
These are the
books that helped me with this writing:
Moore, M;
Kearsly, G. (2012) Distance education: A
system view of online learning. USA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Keith, H. et al
(2001) Distance education: New
perspectives. New York: Routledge.
Sclosser, L;
Simonson, M. (2010) Distance education:
Definitions and glossary of terms. USA: Information Age Publishing.
These are some
interesting web pages:
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