Distance Education
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From a review of the literature it is obvious that it is not uncommon at all today to find a complete MBA program on the World Wide Web, a full degree available in engineering and myriad creative writing courses offered for college credit. New concepts and terms have become common rapidly. The virtual university is not as distant a reality as many once thought. Many new learning and teaching strategies have emerged as a direct result of the telecommunications explosion and the computerization of the world. While it will take time to fully comprehend and adjust to this unprecedented degree of innovation, one thing is certain, the changes in future will only occur more rapidly, “It took 20 years for cable television to reach critical market penetration, it will take five to ten years for the Internet to do the same. In turn, the Internet will accelerate the rate of diffusion for the next innovation, and so on. In short, things are happening faster and faster” (Saba 1). Yet, what about the quality of teaching, the quality of learning and the overall quality of education, when it comes to this new instructional method? By many accounts, they are negatively affected.Like many higher learning institutions, Penn State University is adamant that distance education is all about promoting access to students in need of education that offers flexibility with regard to time, place and pace of study. Their programs are learner-
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also bring with them a host of obstacles and potential difficulties that must be overcome on behalf of teacher and student in order to maintain a high quality level. Often professors need training to become familiar with new technology and instruction modes. When technical equipment malfunctions or needs repair, professors most often lack the technical expertise to perform the duties required. The professor may find that the transmission of knowledge is impeded from the loss of direct face-to-face contact inherent in traditional human instruction modes. Students also encounter difficulties and obstacles when encountering distance education technology programs: a lack of personal emotion in their education; lack of direct contact with professor; problems with motivation in situations where there is not substantial direct contact with the professor (Eddy, Burnett, Spaulding and Murphy 2). This is particularly damaging to liberal arts curricula because liberal arts are humanity based and lack of contact with other human beings may undermine the very goals of a liberal arts education.
Some of the benefits that accrue to students and educators are the ease of distributing materials and information and an increased capacity for
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1231
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)
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