During its evolution, distance learning was not alone. Technology has held its hand along the way and is the reason distance learning continues to evolve today. According to Simonson et al (2009), distance learning has gone from a correspondence study, to an electronic study, now to distance teaching universities. With each advancement in technology, distance learning morphs into a wider-reaching concept with potential to enhance the educational experience of any learner.
Walden’s Distance Learning Time Continuum (2010) agrees with Simonson et al (2009), each grounding the roots of distance learning in Europe nearly one hundred sixty years ago. A Swedish Newspaper offered mail correspondence courses on writing. The idea visited England as Sir Isaac Pitman (1840) taught short hand instruction via correspondence and later established Correspondence Colleges, and it went to Germany where Charles Toussaint and Gustav Langenscheidt (1840) taught language via pen and paper.
Drifting across ocean waters, distance learning ran aground in America, where Anna Eliot Ticknor’s (1873) encouragement toward home schooling gained clout in the Boston area and lasted a little more than a couple of decades. The development of telegraph communications (1897) contributed to correspondence study sending communication faster than ever via wire. Radio (1922-1933) and television (1934-1964) are also notable advancements in technology that contributed to correspondence study as both were able to reach a wider audience than ever.
Electronic Communications, like some Europeans using audio recordings for educating the blind, helped make advancements in distance learning, Simonson et al (2009) relate. Educational radio stations and television programs capable of reaching unprecedented numbers were being utilized at many major American universities as early as the 1930s, but it was satellite technology (1960s) that allowed “the rapid spread of instructional television” in the 1980s (38). Live two-way communication with clear video and crisp sound due to technological advancements in fiber optic cable (80s and 90s) paved the way for many educational institutions to turn their communications electronic where the long-term monetary savings makes distance learning more enticing. Now that computers and the Internet (90s to present) have been introduced, distance learning in the electronic communications age has unlimited potential.
In last couple of decades there has been a growth in Distance Teaching Universities, which Simonson et al (2009) would say can be traced back to the University of South Africa (1962) and Open University of the United Kingdom, two of the first degree-giving distance learning institutions of higher education in the world. Distance Teaching Universities offer a variety of students, traditional and non-traditional, opportunities to learn more deeply about a multitude of subjects. We can all benefit from distance learning today because distance learning focuses on the learner. Whichever theory guides the process, the learner, their time, their focus, their learning style, is central to the purpose of distance learning. Knowles’ (1990) Andragogy, Holmberg’s Interaction and Communication, Moore’s Independent Study (2007) and Wedemeyer’s Independent Study (1981) all maintain the importance of effective and positive communication between student and teacher. While much of the responsibility is place on the learner in a distance learning environment, having a positive mentor throughout the process is obviously paramount.
Distance learning, while always evolving, is individual-based learning, separated from, yet guided by an instructor through technology throughout the learning process, which includes a demonstration of a variety of skills that reinforce a system-based instructional curriculum. I believe the direction of technology dictates the direction of distance learning. As technological advancements continue to emerge, distance learning will continue to evolve into something that reaches unprecedented numbers in such a way that individual learners’ needs are met as their educational experience is deeper, more enriched than ever. The hope is that proper instructional design practices are followed when developing distance learning materials.
References
Distance Learning Time Continuum. (2010). Interactive Multimedia Program. Walden University.
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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