Elements of Distance Education Diffusion

The area that I think Distance Education (D.E.) has made the greatest impact is global diversity. I am amazed at the speed in which news and information can now travel. When I went on my first Navy deployment in 1982 it took as long as 6 weeks to get news from home. I had an aunt pass away and I finally found out a month later when my father sent me a telegram! The only way to communicate with him was using the ship's radio and talking to a Ham radio operator who linked the call (only after my father agreed to accept a collect call)! Now we email and use cell phones practically anywhere in the world.
The world has gotten smaller, and I for one think it's a good thing. We are all in this together and D.E. is one way we can hopefully start to accept ourselves as ONE race: Human. The tools that help us conduct D.E. globally and specifically are: the World Wide Web; smaller, more advanced electronic devices; collaborating sites; and, institutions like colleges that not only encourage online collaborating, but insist on it.

My two blog comments

#1 Kellie @ http://kscott317.blogspot.com

#2 Cynthia @ http://shelcy316.blogspot.com

The need to for Distance Education (D.E.) to evolve is made clear by all five authors (Moller, Huett, Foshay, Coleman, and Simonson) and that is that as students expect instruction to include electronic technology, educators need to learn how to effectively incorporate meaningful uses of it. If a student simply observes streaming video or clip art pasted to an overhead projection it is not going to make them feel that the instructor has truly grasped the power of this technology. On the other hand, as the authors point out, students also want what they are paying for. In other words, if an instructor is primarily using electronic media and not lecturing or otherwise personally engaging with he students, especially in a classroom setting, the students may feel like the instructor is not doing their job.

These are all valid points and I agree wholeheartedly with the need to provide training and education for instructors to learn how to use the electronic sources properly in the classroom and that the institutions, both brick and electronic, need to adjust and grow to fit the changing student paradigm that has come with he new technologies.

The Evolution of Distance Education: Implications for Instructional Design on the Potential of the Web by Moller, Foshay, and Huett; Volume 52 #3, pages 70-75, Volume 52 #4, pages 66-70, Volume 52 #5, 63-67.