Distance
learning has changed over the years alongside technology advancements. Distance
learning about 20 years ago and before that was through mail correspondence and
paper and now it can be done online and in a more timely fashion (Simonson et
al., 2012). With things rapidly changing, of course, there are going to be
differing opinions about distance education.
Perceptions of distance education
among educators is different that those of the students. Educators seem to
believe that distance education is at a lower quality than traditional courses; however, students were
satisfied with their courses (Hannay & Newvine, 2006). Hopefully as the
years go on and technology becomes even more dominant in our culture educators
will see that it is necessary to incorporate it into their teaching and schools
will incorporate distance learning into their curriculum. Fortunately, the
future is fast approaching. When Hannay and Newvine (2006) did their study,
things were looking lowly, but now things are beginning to look up.
“In 2007–08, about 4.3 million undergraduate students, or 20
percent of all undergraduates, took at least one distance education course”
(Distance learning). There were nearly 4 percent of undergraduate students who
participated in a solely online program (Distance learning). I hope that
perceptions and quality of distance education continues to rise as the future
takes hold. According to Dr. George Siemens (Laureate Education), the
increase of acceptance of distance learning is due to “the increased in online
communication and practical experience with new tools.”
As
an instructional designer, I hope to help bring more positive perceptions to
distance education discussions. I would also like to bring more rigor and
quality to my courses to help perceptions to continue to improve. Technology is
always emerging and I want to bring that into my classroom as a teacher as
well. I want students to know that distance education is able to help them
throughout their lives either through paid courses or open courses available to
them. Not only do the students need to realize that technology will be a tool
for them to be educated but teachers as well need to embrace this thought.
Hopefully,
as an instructional designer, I can work with school districts to educate their
teachers in the realm of distance learning. The district where I work is going
towards a 1:1 program but the teachers do not understand how to get their
content online in order to teach their kids in the proper way with discussion
boards, assignments, and other tools (Simonson et al., 2012). I hope to be able
to do this for them and to do it for other districts to bring technology to our
K-12 students rather than only college students and those training in the
private sector.
References
Distance learning. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=80
Hannay, M., & Newvine, T. (2006, March 1).
Perceptions of distance learning: A comparison of online and traditional
learning. Retrieved from http://jolt.merlot.org/documents/MS05011.pdf
Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d.). The future of distance education [Video file].
Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu
Simonson, M.,
Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and
learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.)
Boston, MA: Pearson.
