What is "Distance Learning?"
When I first think about “Distance Learning,” I immediately bring my current education to mind – online school where everyone is in the “cloud,” and we all meet in one place but not at one time. But reading about the evolution of distance learning, I am reminded that people have been learning – and teaching – at a distance for a very long time.
My perspective grew while reading Tracey & Richey’s work
on how distance education has evolved over the past few centuries (2005) .
They talk about distance education from its beginnings when people would learn
by correspondence. This type of learning was used by both of my parents in
different ways. During the Korean War, my dad enlisted in the Navy as a SeaBee,
a member of the Naval Construction Battalion. While stationed in Adak, Alaska,
he was told that he could make the next rank if he learned how to run a water
purification system. The system in question did not exist in Alaska, but my dad
was determined. At nearly 9,000 miles from home, he was about as distant from
learning as he could imagine. He asked my grandfather, his mentor in plumbing,
to send him books about his topic. He studied diligently through the endless
Aleutian winter, and when it came time to return stateside and take the exam,
Dad aced the test; he was faced with the actual equipment for the first time in
his life.
Years later, my mom answered a magazine ad for a
correspondence course in interior decoration. She’d always had a flair for
design, and there were no local opportunities for her to go to school. I
remember well the books coming in the mail, mom doing her homework on many
sheets of graph paper, and her excitement when her work came back with high
grades. Her work took hours of her time, just as it would have in a regular
classroom. Her only communication with her teachers was by mail. But she
pursued her studies with the same vigor that she would have if someone had
suggested she went to a top flight university.
In my own life I’ve has various experiences with
correspondence learning. When I’ve wanted to learn a language and no one was
available to teach me, I’d get tapes, and later CDs, and learn on my own. When
we think about distance learning, we have to keep in mind that there is
distance teaching as well. While I never saw any of these faceless foreign
language teachers, they were nonetheless part of my learning experience. There
was, as Moore puts it, a “transactional distance” between these teachers and me
– that space between their input and my understanding. This distance was by
necessity expanded by the absence of interaction between us. If I didn’t
understand their input, my understanding would suffer from this transactional
distance (Moore, 2011) . Fortunately for me,
my understanding of foreign languages tends to come easily.
From time to time I’ve had to learn to use a new type of software
for work, and this has also created a need for distance learning, usually in
computer-based tutorials of a few or many lessons. These are often boring, but
usually sufficient instruction, where I would learn a task, answer some
multiple-choice questions about it, and then go on to the next task. These are
rarely great examples of instructional design. They are usually deeply embedded
in old shades-of-gray database default colors, with little or no audio
component and absolutely nothing exciting or even mildly innovative. For
someone like me who is highly motivated, they work. I wouldn’t recommend them
to others, if there were some other way to teach them the skills.
I’ve had the opportunity to observe a different sort of
distance learning in a synchronous, video conference-based format. In Moab,
Utah, a friend of mine attended Utah State University’s local campus, which
consists of some computer labs and a couple of big rooms with video displays.
Instructors somewhere else up north televise their classes live, and students
in Moab are connected by audio in order to ask questions and contribute to
discussions. They can see the instructor and the students at the other site,
but the instructor cannot see them. Students must identify themselves, such as “Susie
in Moab here… how do we…?” It’s cumbersome, but for people who are four hours
or more by car from the nearest town with a college, it’s a start, and offers
more interaction between teachers and students than they originally had when
everything was online.
For the past year I’ve found myself in a contemporary
distance learning situation with my studies at Walden University. The work
requires self-discipline, but I am highly motivated to complete my degree. As a
result of my recent readings, I’ve greatly expanded what I thought of when I
considered the words “distance learning.” What I would love to see in the
future is this type of education available to everyone, everywhere, regardless
of ability to pay. I am a proponent of open education, and I believe this can
take many forms. For most people these days, this will be online learning, but
with my expanded view of what distance learning can be, it could also include
hands-on work by mail or even conference by phone.
My daughter briefly attended a state-run online high school
when illness kept her out of regular classes. To say that her program was bland
and boring is an understatement. My own vision for the future is to design
online learning for high school learners that is really engaging. What she
experienced was what can be expected when a school tries to use the “craft approach”
and turn a classroom course instantly into an online course, with no
consideration for the differences encountered in online education
I came into the current class thinking of distance learning
as exclusively connected to the Internet. I no longer see it this way –
distance learning can be any learning where the person with the information is
separated by place, and possibly by time, from the person wishing to gain this
information. Teaching can be entirely anonymous as it is with “how-to” videos
and audio tapes, or it can be very interactive as it is with online school such
as we are using now. I can see an explosion of information through all the
threads of the World Wide Web where anyone who wants to know anything can
simply connect to the Internet and learn. Beyond this, the wide exchange of
information such as takes place in MOOC’s (Massive Open Online Courses) can
mean that not only an instructor, but an entire community of both teachers and learners
can exchange knowledge, ideas, and visionary experiences (Cormier, 2010) . This is the learning world I wish to
join. I look forward to a time when everyone learns whatever they want to know
by simply logging on and beginning an information exchange with others,
exploring together and discovering new information together. This is how I see
distance learning in the future – and it is beginning now, and growing every
day.
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| An Evolution of Distance Learning |
References:
Cormier, D. (2010, December 8). What is a MOOC?
Retrieved February 24, 2012, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW3gMGqcZQc
Huett, J., Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Coleman, C.
(2008, September/October). Implications for instructional design on the
potential of the web: Part 3. TechTrends, 52(5), 63-67. Retrieved from
Academic Search Complete Database
Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008a,
May/June). Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web:
Part 1. TechTrends, 52(3), 70-75. Retrieved from Academic Search
Complete Database
Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008b,
July/August). Implications for instructional design on the potential of the
web: Part 2. TechTrends, 52(4), 66-70. Retrieved from Academic Search
Complete Database
Moore, M. (2011). Distance education theory. American
Journal of Distance Education, 5(3), 2-8.
Tracey, M., & Richey, R. (2005). The Evolution of
Distance Education. Distance Learning, 2(6), 17-21. Retrieved from
Education Research Complete Database
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