Principles of Distance Education

As you all may know I am in school at Walden University. Currently, I am taking two courses. One course, Principles of Distance Education is allowing us to use our blog to discuss our assignments. We have been placed in groups. My group consists of 3 members including Peggy Creighton and Erin Mitchell, and me.

Assignment
After reading the three articles by Moller, Huett, Foshay, and Coleman, and watching or listening to the Simonson videos, compare and contrast the reasons these authors believe there is a need to evolve distance education to the next generation. Do you agree with their positions? Why or why not?

My Response
Moller, Huett, Foshay, Coleman, and Simonson believe there is a need to evolve distance education to the next generation because as time moves forward learners become more advanced. Coleman stated that distance education has been around for centuries or decades. For instance, the matchbook covers (be a detective online), correspondence schools, and distance education have offered e-learning to assist those people that want to learn other than using a conventional system.

Simonson says, today, distance education is widely adopted and approaching critical mass in society. With this growth, education is going to have to fit the learner. As a society, we are moving toward individualized learning, and distance education will provide that for the individual. In the k-12 environment, years ago there were no computers in the classroom, now each room has at least five. The education has to be geared toward the learner. The youth of today have the Internet, cell phones, video games, just to name a few. Having the variety of technologies, the education will have to adapt on order to meet the needs of the learners.

I do agree with their positions. The students that I teach are somewhat advanced and in order to grasp their attention the education needs to fit their interests. These student use the Internet and cell phones to interact with one another. Why can't they use these mediums when it comes to education?

Distance Education: The Next Generation

Resources
Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008, May/June). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web (Part 1: Training and development). TechTrends, 52(3), 70-75. Use the Academic Search Premier database, and search using the article's Accession Number: 33281719.

Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008, May/June). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web (Part 2: Higher education). TechTrends, 52(4), 66-70. Use the Academic Search Premier database, and search using the article's Accession Number: 33991516.

Huett, J., Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Coleman, C. (2008, September/October). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web (Part 3: K12). TechTrends, 52(5). 63-67.