Objectives Foundation of Distance Education

4.1. Explain why students demand to learn at a distance even though they prefer to learn in the classroom with the teacher and their classmates.

  Ø The students have the ability to learn where and whenever without the peer pressure of others like inside a traditional classroom, as well as being able to work at their own speed and pace.

4.2. Define distance education

Ø  Distance education or distance learning is the education of students who are not physically present at a school.

4.3. Explain Coldeway’s quadrants.

Ø  Dan Coldeway’s defines four ways in which education can be practiced: 1. Same-time and same-place (ST-SP) education is traditional classroom education; 2. Different-time and same-place (DT-SP) means that education occurs in a learning center; or students can attend classes at the same place, but at a time students choose; 3. Same-time and different-place (ST-DP) means that telecommunication systems are used. Teleconferencing or chat rooms are used to connect the students in different places at the same time. This type of education is called synchronous distance education which allows students to communicate in real time; 4. Different-time and different-place (DT-DP) is the purest form of distance education. Teachers and students may communicate asynchronously--at different times.

4.4. Discuss Richard Clark’s “mere vehicles” quote as it relates to distance education.

Ø  Instructional media were excellent for storing educational messages and for delivering them almost anywhere. However, media were not responsible for a learning effect. Learning was not enhanced because instruction was media based. Rather, the content of the instruction, the method used to promote learning, and the involvement of the learner in the instructional experience were what, in part, influenced learning.

4.5. Explain how Jim Finn might compare stirrups to distance education.

Ø  Stirrups, according to Finn, were an invention that permitted a person to ride a horse easier. However, Charles Martel took this simple idea and created something new and unique-the knight, who used the stirrup in a way that no one had ever thought of before. Distance education permits learners to take classes and courses at a distance, but it may prove to significantly change education, even if right now no one is quite sure how.

4.6. Give examples of how distance education is being used in several locations of the world and in the United States.

Ø In Sub-Saharan Africa, Distance education is seen as having the potential to contribute to national reconstruction by providing economically feasible educational opportunities to many people. Collaboration with a variety of international distance education organizations has provided expertise and support for the practice of distance education. As a result, distance education at a basic level, as it is practiced in many regions of Africa, has expanded quite sharply. However, while growth in distance education in Sub-Saharan African countries is evident, it does not yet have a wide impact. Lack of funding prevents distance education institutions from reaching many potential students; Distance instruction in the European Union uses a wide variety of media to deliver courses. These range from traditional correspondence delivery, to computer conferencing, to two-way audio and video virtual classrooms (Holmberg, 1995; Keegan, 1995). Using these technologies, the established distance education and training organizations of Europe will continue to play a significant role in education in and beyond the European Union; In the United States, the emergence of new technologies has brought on increased interest in distance education and learning. Electronic mail, electronic bulletin boards, facsimiles, and interactive computer networks now augment or replace mail carriers in delivering curricular materials, textbooks, and examinations to distance learners. New transmission media capable of providing two-way, full-motion, real-time (live) interaction between the student and teacher replace non-interactive, one-way systems.

4.7. Discuss telemedicine and relate the topic to distance education. Explain a vision for education and schooling in the future.

Ø The use of electronic information and communications technologies to provide and support health care when distance separates the participants. There are four major applications for telemedicine: remote consultation is the most common telemedicine application and what most refer to when they use the term telemedicine. This application implies one health care provider seeking the advice of a professional colleague or subspecialist to resolve a patient’s problem; remote monitoring is a long-standing application where the most common use is to access a patient’s vital signs at a distance using telecommunications technologies; remote education is increasingly important as the geographically concentrated expertise of a medical unit is redistributed to isolated practicing professionals and professionals in training; telementoring involves the development of techniques to share the output of surgical tools such as endoscopes and laparoscopes with distant locations.