Distance Learning is a part of education that is expanding rapidly. Not long ago the idea of going to school online would be thought of as rediculous. Now thousands of students go to school online or have some sort of web-blended class. This is not only evident at the college level, but it has spread down as far as high school and the middle school level.
In Margis Pohl's article Guidline for E-Learning- Advantages and Disadvantages she states that the biggest issue with Distance Learning, or Online Learning is that all educational situations may not be the same. Any given student can have any given exceptionalities, and how will those be handled with over an internet connection? Just from expierencing distance learning myself, I can say that it is hard to pay complete attention to the matter at hand. That is where the digital divide comes in. When the student is not engaged he/she will not grasp the matieral entirely. Doug Valentine of Oklahoma University has said that the majority of the teachers who instructed an online course said they would do it again; however, the quality of the course is only seen as equal or lower than the in-class instruction. (www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall53/valentine53.html)
Amongst the issues in engaging students, students also have to socialize with one another. Electronically interacting with someone is different than having a normal conversation.
Distance Education is a trend that is becoming more and more common but if the issues of not having equipment, teacher attitude and lower engaging cirriculum is not fixed we will be doing our young people a grave injustice.
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It seems to me that we have always had matters of injustice in education- ie. "not having equipment, teacher attitude, and lower engaging curriculum." This is an issue that educators have dealt with almost from the beginning of its existence. I agree that electronic interaction is different than face-to-face interaction- I'm still trying to decide if it can be equal or better to human interaction. Definitely some things to think about here.
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