Week 11: Chpt 9 and 10

Week 11: Chapter 9 and 10
Question #3- What is distance education? What type of support are critical to the success of distance education? Why?
While distance learning has been in existence since the mid 1800’s when correspondence courses in Europe used a mail system, distance learning has become extremely prevalent since the late 1980’s into the 1990’s. (Lever-Duffy and McDonald, 367) Using this class as a perfect example, distance learning is defined as “education when the teacher and student may be working from different locations and/or different times” (Lever-Duffy and McDonald, 364). This deliverance of instruction has grown extremely popular in recent years with the evolution of the internet, and the full time working student. In distance education technology is without question the key for this type of learning. Without internet access and sometimes even webcam capabilities make distant learning impossible. According to Lever-Duffy and McDonald, distance learning was originally developed to deliver education to students in rural areas (364). Online learning has allowed full time workers to further their academic growth without sacrificing their careers. According to the text a number of states have developed online high school programs that offer credits state wide. In the past twenty years distance learning has grown drastically.
The support for distant education is extremely important, and depending on what type of instruction you are dealing with the support will be different. Synchronous and Asynchronous instruction are your two options in dealing with distant education. Synchronous technologies are for instant communication, while asynchronous is for non-instant communication. Synchronous technologies are tools such as telephones, broadcast videos, radio broadcast, internet chat, or video conferencing. All these tools allow students to interact instantly with teachers regardless of location. Asynchronous technologies are as important for that type of education. These tools consist of voice mail and fax, video and audio cassettes, internet conferencing, and email. These tools allow student to work at their own pace and not always be obligated to a certain time or location for class. Overall distant education is one of the fast growing learning tools in America, from the University of Phoenix to online classes at the University of Southern Mississippi students across the globe are enrolling in classes with students who speak different languages and have different cultures.