Distance Education

Distance education is nothing new. Traditional correspondence courses fit under the definition of distance education, and many distance education programs have shown success long before the advent of new technologies like personal computers and the World Wide Web, "Distance education technologies have been primarily used, historically, to extend access to classroom instruction to rural or isolated sites. For the most part, adult education programs have done that with high levels of success long before the Internet or computer networks were cost effective" (Hopey and Ginsburg, 1996, 22). However, the advent of new technologies have greatly enabled distance education to expand the scope and reach of traditional distance education programs.

Many forces are driving the push toward increasing distance education program offerings. Interactive technologies like personal computers, the Internet, the World Wide Web, video-conferencing, digital cameras, Web-Cams and a host of others has fueled the growth. However, other factors have also been adding fuel to the fire. A decreasing enrollment in universities and institutions across the nation, an increasing number of adult learners, and the need for more skilled, better trained employees have also promoted distance education. The desire to increase market coverage on behalf of colleges and universities, the desire to offer access to education to those who are constrai

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network connections. They must be more self-motivated, instead of taking an entertain me attitude and passively waiting for actions from instructors. Learners need to learn the skills necessary to interact with instructors and fellow learners electronically. For example, they must learn to understand written information more efficiently and be able to express themselves effectively through electronic modes of communication. Finally, they need information-searching skills to effectively synthesize information from the almost-unlimited online sources." Despite some of the above obstacles and challenges to distance education technology, there are many who support its evolution who argue that the quality of learning from distance education technology is comparable to or better than conventional methods of instruction and learning. One of the biggest reasons for this is because of the unique nature of distance education technology in that it is multi-sensory. Distance education technology has the unique advantage over conventional instruction and learning methods of being able to offer a rich, multi-sensory integration of text, sound, graphics, and video. According to the literature, a multi-sensory approach to instruction and

Category: Science - D