One argumentitive paragraph due in an hour

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The Information Revolution Has Improved Off- Campus Education The Information Revolution, 2004

In the following viewpoint Kathleen B. Davey claims that the Internet is helping "distance learning," or education that occurs away from campus, reach its full potential. According to Davey, distance learning has taken several forms throughout history. However, she argues, these earlier approaches, which included the use of videotaped lectures, did not allow for timely discussions between students and instructors. In contrast, Davey maintains, Internet tools such as bulletin boards and chatrooms allow for such communication while enabling students to learn at their own pace. Davey is the dean of instructional technology at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers.

As you read, consider the following questions:

What is the oldest form of distance learning, as stated by Davey?1.

In Davey's opinion, why were interactive video systems problematic?2.

According to the author, what are the three tools that personal computers and networked3. technologies provide to faculty and students?

Distance learning is frequently held up as a beacon for extending the opportunity for larger numbers and more diverse groups of people to participate in higher education, thus furthering the achievement

of their personal, professional, and economic-development goals. However, probably as much confusion and concern surrounds the phenomenon of "distance learning" as does excitement and hope.

Key Claims Distance learning is a new and universally desirable phenomenon.

Distance learning will totally supplant campus-based learning in the future.

Distance-learning methods are ineffective for most university-level learning goals.

Distance-learning experiences are inferior to campus-based learning experiences.

Let us examine these claims to develop a more realistic understanding of what distance learning is and what it is not and to make better judgments on its shortcomings and its promise.

A commonly accepted definition of distance learning is any formal educational process that occurs with the teacher and the student separated by either time or distance. A restatement of this definition is any time a teacher defines, constructs, and organizes learning experiences directed toward specific learning goals, outcomes, and experiences that can be accomplished with the teacher and the student(s) separated by time and/or distance, then distance learning is occurring.

How Distance Learning Has Developed

Given the definition above, distance learning clearly is not a new phenomenon.

Almost anyone who has completed any formal education has at some time engaged in distance learning. The oldest and most common form of distance learning is probably homework. A teacher constructs a learning activity that can be accomplished without the presence of the teacher, and the student completes it independently, or with the assistance of someone other than the teacher. Typical homework, by itself, does not constitute a distance-learning course, but it does constitute distance learning. In most respects, a distance-learning course can be thought of as a set of carefully constructed homework assignments. Cumulative, acceptable completion of the entire set of assignments constitutes a course for which official course credits can be earned.

The correspondence course is one of the oldest forms of this kind of distance learning. Educators develop learning experiences that can be described in printed materials and completed independently by students who return written assignments. The assignments are graded and returned to the student, and a certain number of these completed and graded assignments constitutes a course. Historically, correspondence courses were most often directed toward technical skills rather than the general-education learning goals of a four-year degree.

However, within four-year and graduate-education programs, another common form of distance learning has been occurring almost as long as institutions of higher learning have existed: the independent study course or program. Most graduates of either a liberal-studies program or a program in graduate studies have taken one or more independent-studies courses. The teacher and the student agree on a set of readings, written assignments, and/or field experiences that are customized according to the student's interests and then completed independently. Except for occasional face-to-face discussions between the teacher and the individual student, most of the instructional experience occurs not in a classroom with other students, but with the teacher and the student separated by time and distance.

Broadcast video and home video playback equipment provided yet another means of constructing a distance-learning course and allowed the learning goals that could be addressed through independent learning to be expanded. During the late seventies and throughout the eighties, telecourses became a common distance-learning format. Several major telecourse development projects were funded during that period by the Annenberg Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and some community colleges and universities. The resulting materials, when used

along with a textbook, other print materials, homework assignments, and tests, constituted a course. Through the video medium, several lower-level general-education learning goals were able to be addressed quite satisfactorily as distance-learning offerings.

Challenge to Distance Learning

If this is the case, then one might ask why distance learning or independent study was not embraced more widely by colleges and universities as a means of offering degree programs and by students as a mean of participating in higher education. The answer to this question probably can be found by answering two related questions: Are distance learning methods effective for addressing university-

level learning goals? Are distance-learning experiences inferior to campus-based learning experiences?

Most university faculty would probably describe the most significant goals of higher education as those that challenge students to examine their held beliefs, to learn to think critically about issues, to generate new solutions to problems, and to develop the written and oral communication skills necessary to contribute to social, political, economic, scientific, and artistic knowledge-building and endeavors. These same faculty would be likely to describe in-class and out-of-class discussions between the instructor and the student and among students as critical to the achievement of these higher-order learning goals. Most university graduates would likely agree that such opportunities for discussion were among some of their most meaningful educational experiences.

Historically and typically, timely discussions between and among students and the instructor have not been possible through correspondence, traditional independent study, or telecourses. Hence, synchronous two-way, interactive video systems (in other words, compressed video systems) excited many faculty during the late 1980s and early 1990s. This technology allows a teacher to be in one location with students at one or more other locations. The sites are interconnected through audio and video networks, and the students at each of the sites see and hear the instructor and vice versa. Correspondingly, several states invested in statewide interactive video communication systems with the promise that salary and capital building expenses could be reduced by using one faculty member to simultaneously teach students at multiple sites throughout a state. Unfortunately, the "inter-activity" aspects of these video communication systems frequently turned out to be more video than interactive. The systems also failed to support one of the most desirable attributes of distance learning: asynchronous participation.

The Advantages of New Technologies

The personal computer and associated networked communication technologies have finally provided college and university faculty and students the tools they need to incorporate the convenience and flexibility of time and distance-free learning opportunities with the learning power of effective instructional strategies, such as: 1) student-to-student discussions; 2) faculty-to-student inquiry, clarification, and elaboration; and 3) continuous and timely performance feedback. Thus, almost every two- and four-year college and university in the United States is rapidly developing courses and, in

some cases, complete degree programs, that can be delivered and completed using the Internet as the primary communication vehicle.

Using World-Wide-Web-based (www-based) email, bulletin boards, listservs, and chatrooms, distance-learning courses can now be designed that replicate the face-to-face communications of classroom instruction. When these asynchronous, yet interactive, communication tools are combined with web-based information resources, video and audiotaped materials, on-line testing applications, and telephone communications, there are fewer and fewer instructional objectives that cannot be accomplished through distance learning. When carefully planned, constructed, and monitored, Internet-based courses can effectively address many of the same learning goals of campus-based instruction, while allowing students to engage in their learning experiences asynchronously, or according to whatever daily schedule their other personal and work obligations allow.

Will distance learning totally supplant campus-based learning in the future? I think it is probably safe to say not in our lifetime. The learning goals of higher education are diverse and complex, and as such require a diverse and complex array of instructional strategies. Likewise, the learning needs and life circumstances of students are diverse and complex, requiring options for the time, place, and method through which they might participate in higher education. These desired options include face- to-face classes for some purposes and circumstances and distance-learning options for others.

Even so, it is equally safe to say that as we progress through the next century, distance learning will continue to be done:

more frequently

through ever-changing methods,

by a broader range of educational organizations,

toward a broader range of learning goals, and

more effectively.