My reflections on WEEK 1 readings

My first thought was….shhhish I made it through Week 1!  The readings in this week basically reiterated my belief that DE is in great demand and is here to stay and that new pedagogies must be invented to deal with the changing demands and needs of society.  It is amazing the demand for this type of learning.  Today’s DE supports real time correspondence as opposed to its predecessor, correspondence education where delivery was through mail correspondence.  Seemingly for the most part DE is accessible and affordable and will always need to be developed according to its times.

I started this week by reflecting on my understanding of the term DE.  The term “distance education” is a multidimensional concept that includes the concept of technologies.  Not only does the term include the concept of technologies but it is dependent on some form of telecommunications to connect the teacher and learner.  Distance education is a wider concept because it incorporates other terms including, but not restricted to, “distance learning”, “online learning” and “open distance learning”.  I totally prefer the term “distance education” as it is a much wider concept that includes both online learning and distance learning.  So according to this definition and my experiences of last semester, I have also learnt that DE is a pedagogy different than that of the classroom and it has a long history.  DE’s history includes a distinctive philosophy of open access to learning and it has a distinctive organisational form.

In my opinion, the term “DE” correctly reflects a relationship that has two sides in that the subject for study involves both the teacher and the learner because one is teaching and the other is leaning.  The terms “online learning” or “e-learning” presupposes that the only form of technology that is used is via online or only the internet.  In DE the forms of technologies that can be used is varied and can include hand held devices or mobile devices.  These terms are too restrictive in what the purpose of studying via distance is meant to achieve. 

Another term that is commonly causing confusion is “blended learning”.  Now bearing in mind that DE is dependent on some form of technology, “blended learning” in such an environment means that teaching and learning is complimented by some form of technology and not dependent on it and therefore does not incorporate the concepts of DE as a whole.

Many other terms have been used over the years, but what remains important is that even though any technologies can be used in education but when it is used as “the sole or primary means of teaching” then it is a form of DE

 What makes a distance education course is that it has both learners and a teacher, content organised around a set of learning objectives, some designed learning experiences, and some form of evaluation, and not necessarily advanced technologies only.