education will suffer if they are overused. What are factors you can cite in support of each of these positions?
Distance education is a boon for the many people who are not traditional students. The awesomeness of distance education is that, for many, it is their opportunity to continue education without the boundaries of time and location. They can make the class work around the life they already lead. The reality of being able to participate in a conference or a class without the necessity of travel or relocation is phenomenal. This technology has enabled the rapid sharing of ideas for executives by allowing more frequent, short updates whether on legislation or industry standards. Students benenfit by having access to classes or forums that may not be available in their local area as well as if they are wanting to sample or get an introduction to a program without the commttment of time and travel.
There are definite downsides to distance education. The most important would be the ability to share in the dynamics of being in a classroom together and having the ability to feed ideas off of each other. Speaking from a personal perspective, this is the most interesting part of a class. The lecture can be listened to on an ipod, laptop, tv, etc. The dynamics of sharing ideas with a peer group of learners cannot be replaced. Additionally, the ability to inquire for additional information, to stay after class to continue a discussion cannot be disrespected.
The overuse of distance education is very possible with the promotion of technology and cost effectiveness. the greatest analogy of I can think of relates to the company 3M. 3M felt the idea of their employees being able to have discussions outside of strict work environment was so important, they designed their office buidling around this theory. There are no long, straight hallways at 3M. Instead, the company purposely made hallways with pocket spaces for conversations. They found that some of the greatest ideas of their company came from their own employees having the ability to have side conversations with one another throughout the day for brief intervals. Different departments found out what each other was doing, and quite often found a way to share this information for new research and development.
Education works this way as well - we need time and space to share ideas -and being perhaps old fashioned- being face to face is the greatest way to communicate.
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and students alike for twenty plus years. I am of the camp that not all education has to be formal classroom education. The teleconference has, for years, supported executives and students alike who were inneed of being updated or perhaps having participated in
Molly, I like the business analogy. I think distance education is somewhat akin to working from home. While it works for some positions, most companies believe that the personal interactions between employees are so important that a lot of companies require people to be in the office one day a week or come in for face-to-face meetings once a week. If it was all just about reading some information, we could all just go to the library and become brilliant. It just doesn't work that way for most people.
ReplyDeleteMolly, I couldn't agree more with your point that distance education allows nontraditional students opportunities that traditional classrooms do not offer. I agree that the opportunity to participate at a distance allows more students access to the education that they are seeking. Distance learning has the danger of being overused by institutions, and I think is not as effective as face-to-face classroom experiences. Dorothy made a good point, that face to face experiences are necessary. Most people cannot learn the material without a classroom and teacher.
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