Everything is going high-tech, the Internet is expanding ever more… but how is Distance Learning going along ? Is it the future ? Or was it the future ?
How can I learn more about the experiments in this area ? Any specialists here ?bump
Well, maybe you might want to expand on your question more. Do you mean at the college level, for example?
Technology certainly makes this stuff feasible, but an important driver has been institutions’ desire for new revenue streams. Not exclusively, of course. I know some of the distance learning my employer has been considering (or employing) are about meeting very real community needs on more remote areas.
I think it’s been quite successful for some programs. I do not know if student outcomes are the same (or if distance learning credentials are as widely accepted). Someone else will have to speak to that.
I’ve taken a graduate course that was jointly offered between U-MD and U-MI and used video conferencing so students at both locations could take it simultaneously, and that was almost ten years ago.
The university where my wife is a prof has quite a bit of distance learning using a product called WebCT. There are a number of classes being taught in this format where the professor’s lecture is available over the net in realtime and in archives. Professors interact with students primarily in online forums and via email. It seems to work quite well, but the majority of the students are accessing the content from the university LAN, so bandwidth is not nearly the problem it would be if you were remote and using the Internet. The classes are available over the Internet, so it’s technically distance learning even if most of the students are already on campus. As far as I can tell, the student reviews have been good and the classes are effective.
They’re also participating in an inter-University lecture series where lectures at various universities are available in real time using Internet II. This program has been quite successful in exposing professors and graduate students to work at other universities.
I’m in charge of distance learning software (Blackboard; it and WebCT are the two big players) at the college where I work. At this point, we’re not offering any classes, but are gearing up to do so.
Expect it to be a big thing in the next few years. If nothing else, it allows students at a college to take courses during the summer even though they are home. That means that income isn’t lost because a student takes a required course at a local college instead of at ours.
It also will be used more for Continuing Education, especially as training courses for businesses.
Some colleges have gone in for it in a big way (Phoenix Online University), and more will in the future.
My mom teaches for extra cash at one of the distance learning schools. I’ve taken a few courses at a different place and loved it, I just wish more schools would offer it.
Frankly, the biggest problem I’ve seen is snobbery. There’s this idea that just by going and sitting in a classroom, you’re going to learn more than you would if you learn at home. But my distance learning classes have been a LOT harder than my classroom courses, because they expect you to do more work. Just IME.
Thanks… still I wonder why it’s not more common. I will check into these links and names given.
I tried to take first year calculus online through a Johns Hopkins program for high schoolers. Tried, being the important word. I had trouble spending so much time staring at a computer screen and it was hard to keep motivated when my tutor was all the way in Maryland. Working on a computer that way was also really distracting because it’s so easy to be listening to music, writing email, IMing, while doing class work. I ended up just waiting until next semester when i could take it at my school. That was just my experience though.
Lots of reasons, including: [ul]
[li]It takes a substantial investment by the university, not just in hardware but in personnel who can support the hardware and training profs to use the systems. Many universities are in a budget crunch these days and can’t justify the expenses even if it would potentially increase enrollment. [/li][li]In many cases, professors oppose distance learning because they view their course materials as their own intellectual property, and after a distance learning course has been taught once, the course could be repeated in subsequent sessions without the professor’s input. I believe there have actually been some lawsuits where professors sued their university to retain the rights to their course material, but I don’t know how they’ve been resolved.[/li][li]Academia tends to be very traditional; while university research labs may do cutting-edge research, teaching methods are much more staid.[/li][li]Tenured professors have very little incentive to change their methods. While many professors (young and old) are excited by the possibilities of distance learning, many see no reason to make the extra effort.[/li][/ul]
That said, it is becoming more common. MIT has put a great deal of their coursework online as distance learning archives and many other universities are following suit.