History of Distance Education

Week 2. Discussion – History of Distance Education

Thank heaven for blogs. This week’s discussion board assignment is limited to 150 words – I couldn’t do it.  I wrote 202 words.  And even that felt incomplete.  So here is what I really wanted to say about the history of distance education.

DE started in the mid/late 1800’s with stenography by mail courses, morphing eventually college courses by mail. In the late 1900’s correspondence letters and books becomes CD’s.  Students mail in work, get it evaluated and then it gets mailed back to the student. The relationship is just between the teacher and the student and controlled by the teacher. The early days of online, speed up the process, but its still fairly static. The relationship remains exclusive between teacher and student.

Casey (2008) makes the argument that the development of DE parallels advances in technology.  While that is true, to me, it’s an argument that says the development of travel patterns parallels the development of the airplane.  I think what is more interesting to explore is the changes in pedagogic theory. 

How do we deal with social media within this historical context?  What does the history of distance learning suggest about the future of current technologies?

While the development of DE is enabled by improvements in technology (Casey, 2008); it is the changes in pedagogic theory that influence DE.  On-ground class has moved from monologic teaching to dialogic learning.  Social media is the next step moving online to social learning.  Early DE was characterized by monologic teaching with the teacher in complete control and initiating all interaction with the student. 

Teacher  --> Student (correspondence / radio / television / CD / tapes)

In the 1960s-70s, the use of manipulatives in elementary education became popular. The open classroom movement of the 1970s allows for a learning process that is student-centered, but still controlled by the teacher.

Teacher <--> Student (email / discussion board)

Evidence based learning, formalized in the early 1990’s and project based learning (PBL) make students responsible for their own learning. Social media allows students to control their learning and to become producers as well as consumers of learning materials.  Social media allows students to interact with each other without the mediation of the teacher.

“Web .20 methods have introduced interactive networking concepts that enliven educational activities with greater personalized meaning and socialized connectivity.” Web 3.0  “a more personalized connected web of education experience.” (McKee, 2010)

Student <--> Student <-->Teacher (wikis / blogs / youtube / facebook / twitter / etc)

Learning communities benefit from social media. The impact of technology on distance education is the greater presence of community in our learning and teaching.  Learning is no longer an isolating activity – CONNECTIVISM.

Student <--> Student (MOOCs)

Resources:

Casey, Denise M. “The Historical Development of Distance Education through Technology” TechTrends 52.2 (2008): 45-51.

McKee, Terralyn. “Thirty Years of Distance Education: Personal Reflections.” International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 11.2 (May 2010): 100-109.

Wenger, E., White, N., & Smith, J. “Technology and Community: a glimpse of history.” Digital Habitats: Stewarding Technology for Communities. Portland, OR: CPsquare, 2009. 13-21.