The definition of distance learning for me a week ago would be any program of study offered by an institution, or an individual, with the purpose of providing a degree, certificate, or just a skill or knowledge, where a student and a teacher interact by correspondence, either by mail or online, without meeting in person; the instructor (or school) provides instructional materials by either mailing them or offering them online for the student to utilize in preparation for the student-teacher interaction, which may be ranging from a mere test to an extensive dialogue, or even collaboration, thus, making instruction either a standard set of lessons or a highly individualized guidance that could be either self-paced or limited in time.
Turns out, my definition is too all-encompassing. It is closest to one by Hilary Perraton (1988) listed in our textbook: “Distance education is an educational process in which a significant proportion of the teaching is conducted by someone removed in space and /or time from the learner” (as cited in Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009, p. 33). However, this definition is also the most general and does not specify (and narrow down to) all four elements defined by the authors of our textbook (Simonson, et al., 2009) as necessary for something that could be called distance education. According to them, distance education must include the following: (1) it must be institutionally based; (2) the teacher and the learners must be separated (geographically and/or in time); (3) interactive telecommunications must be involved; (4) learning resources must be carefully designed into learning experiences. In my initial definition, the elements of separation, interactive telecommunication, and the distributed learning resources are present. I, however, do not limit the instruction to offerings of a formal organization. The reason why most definitions in our text insist on the institutionalized instruction has probably something to do with the need to trust in the instruction, making sure the learner gets the true, the best knowledge or skills. The rest of activities are called “self-study”, or “private study or teach-yourself programs” (Simonson, et al., 2009). By not limiting the distant instruction to an organizational enterprise, I was including instruction done by a single mentor (an artist, a scientist, etc.), such as correspondence between a master and an apprentice, which, in my eyes, is very valuable. But that, I guess, is called “private study”.
Desmond Keegan lists five essential elements of distance learning: (1) separation of teacher and learner; (2) organizational planning, designing and implementing of learning material, as well as providing learner support; (3) the use of technology to create bridge between the teacher and the student; (4) two-way communication, and (5) individual study and absence of a learning group (Simonson, et al., 2009).
The last element is rapidly becoming obsolete in the new Internet-dominated environment with its emphasis on social learning, which is a socially constructed understanding of the content through discussion and collaboration (Brown & Adler, 2008).
The distance education is ever evolving. Now, it is possible to talk about “the traditional view of distance education”, one of characteristics of which, as described by Otto Peters, is the possibility of “reproducing of high-quality teaching material” for use by a lot of students at the same time, which makes it “an industrialized form of teaching and learning”(Simonson, et al., 2009, p.34). The new view of distance education reflects instability of the modern world in the midst of technological explosion and exploration. It requires tremendous flexibility and open mind from both educators and learners, and hence is termed “open learning”. It is the opposite to the industrialized form, as it is trying to adjust as much as possible to the individual conditions.
Thus, my new definition of new distance learning is this: Distance learning is an evolving form of instruction offered by accredited institutions in a form of a variety of multimedia learning materials, when individual study may be reinforced by constant sharing of ideas among the teacher and the learning group of fellow students meeting synchronously and/or asynchronously in the online virtual environment.
As the distance learning evolves, I envision a tighter and tighter blend of face-to-face meetings with online instruction—to the point that physical convergence of teachers and students might become unnecessary and will happen only occasionally or not happen at all, depending on the type of students, or program, or project. That, of course, will happen if designers find ways to make distance learning a better learning experience than one in a traditional classroom. Distance learning has to be made comfortable for people preferring to “read” their opponents’ facial expressions and tone of vice and those enjoying socializing in face-to-face meetings. Already, travelling is becoming partially replaced by virtual tours. In the near future, simulation techniques will improve to the point of competing with the actual experiences. Those are techniques, however— by themselves, they might mean, say, convenience of not having to travel to school. In order to actually improve learning and understanding of new knowledge, they must become a part of a well-designed learning experience. The task of instructional designers, therefore, is staying informed of the new inventions with the potential for instructional use and figuring out how these inventions can be incorporated into the instruction to improve learning.
References:
Brown, J. S. & Adler, R.P. (2008). Minds on fire: Open education, the long tail, and learning 2.0. EDUCAUSE Review, 43(1), 16–32.
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.
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