Class 2 was an overview of the scope of distance education. After watching the video, there were three interesting points.
First, the video mentions the Keegan (1996) definition of distance education. According to Keegan (1996), distance education is “a coherent and distinct field of educational endeavor. it embraces programs at a distance at primary and secondary, technical and further, college and university levels in both public and private sectors” (p. 12). Does this mean distance education is a separate program from brick-and-mortar schools? For context, I am thinking about K12 schools that were forced to create a virtual “hybrid” model due to COVID-19. Perhaps a lot of the primary and secondary school struggles originated from the misunderstanding about the logistics of distance education. Following Keegan (1996) distance education is an entirely different program with its own administration, operations staff, and asynchronous/synchronous course design. According to the Class 2 recording, distance education requires “special course design, instructional techniques, communication through various tech, special organizational and administrative arrangements”. This implies in order to create and effectively implement a distance education program, a lot of logistical planning and staffing must take place. These processes take significant amounts of time and were rushed in 2020 for most schools. Also, in Class 2, it was helpful to understand systems theory and distance education following the Moore and Kearsley (2005) definition. According to Moore and Kearsley (2005), distance education is composed of 7 systems and multiple subsystems. In their book, the researchers explain that the systems of distance education are similar to the systems that work together to make up the human body (Moore and Kearsley, 2005). I am curious to read more about systems theory to better understand how each system and subsystem highlights a challenge or gap in distance education. Finally, it was interesting to hear the distinction between media and technology in Class 2. Media, for Simonson, means “text, images, and sounds”. Technology is the vehicle that “carries media”. That distinction between media and technology helps me better understand Clark’s claim that technology is a mere vehicle. If technology is responsible for carrying media from the original space to the learner or the teacher, there really is no magic involved that will help the student learn better, faster, or more efficiently. If anything, the magic is science and careful planning. Distance education professionals need to understand technology, media, and instructional design well enough to craft courses and programs that will help students learn in a deep and meaningful way. Class 3 Reflections In Class 3, Simonson describes the 5 generations of distance education. This video reviewed the history of distance education starting with correspondence study in the mid-1800s. It seems that correspondence schools and distance education allow a greater number of students to attend institutions of higher education. One question is whether there the distance education programs should have lower to no-tuition due to lower overhead costs compared to brick-and-mortar institutions of higher education. For many of the examples in the video, the universities were public or the governments provided tuition assistance to attend. For instance, Athabasca University (AU) has an annual operating budget of $130 million (Athabasca University, 2021). There is a tuition that can be paid by the Canadian government if the student is a Canadian citizen. While it would seem that there are less capital costs, I know that the overhead must be substantial to create, implement, and maintain the vast technology systems for distance education institutions. For instance, the recurring expenditures for Florida Virtual School (FLVS) is $278.4 million dollars for 2021 (Florida Virtual School, 2021, p. 2). Recurring expenses include faculty and staff salaries/benefits, virtual infrastructure, and investment in cybersecurity (Florida Virtual School, 2021). There is no tuition for Florida students; however, there are membership fees, technology fees that are factored into the budget. It is not yet clear how public virtual primary schools, secondary schools, and colleges/universities receive their funding, but that question will tie into the ability for these programs to grow and become more popular in the coming years. References Athabasca University (29 March, 2021). Athabasca university at a glance. https://www.athabascau.ca/aboutau/glance.html#:~:text=AU%20has%20a%20%24130%20million%20annual%20operating%20budget., Florida Virtual School (2021). Financing the strategic vision. Florida virtual school. (1-44).https://www.flvs.net/docs/default-source/district/financing-the-strategic-vision-fy2021.pdf?sfvrsn=6059472a_2 (Links to an external site.) Keegan, D. (1996). Foundations of distance education (3rd Ed.) New York, NY: Routledge. Moore, M.G. & Kearsley, G. (2005) Distance education. A systems view. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
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