This is a first post of many for my reflective process throughought my learning process in the course, OMDE603, Technology in Distance Education. I have currently created about as much internet traffic during my first month of graduate school as I did when I first started my undergraduate degree. Things have changed so drastically, that I am learning new avenues of technology everyday. I guess this is why this is called education.
When I first started this course, I was amazed at how little I knew about distance education. I just knew that distance education was a new phenomenon that had just recently took off. To my surprise, distance education had evolved already through five different generations of technology, from print (a technology taken for granted currently) to internet. During this process, I realized that distance education is not just for someone like me that travels and does not have a specific schedule which allows for me to continue school using the traditional methods, but rather it is to benefit some that are considered educationally unreachable. It is for the student that lives in a rural community without access to the most recent broadband widths; or the student that is deployed overseas that is starting to think of the future before the return home; or even for the student that needs to learn a trade so that they are able to provide extra income for their family.
Distance education progressed more and more with newer technologies. First being the postal system, which allowed instructors/teachers a means of communicating with students not within their general vicinity. Then came television which provided an additional visual component to the communication between teacher and student. Later, schools were developed based on just this practice, correspondence and broadcast communications. Eventually, the computer took distance education into the homes of almost any person that wished to further themselves educationally.
Distance education is really helping to provide a way for educational practices to be reviewed. I believe that it helps to broaden the traditional views of education - teacher, student, book. It takes the focus from the material being taught and places it on the student. Now education has a new lense, or frame of reference, by looking at how can I best reach the student. I am excited to see where DE where take education.
Tea
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You and I are on the same “boat” in regards to the creation of internet traffic. I have created so many wiki pages that I can imagine. I am grateful of knowing that this method of technology does exist which allow us to reflect on out day to day learning reflections. Duffy (2008) affirms that “Students today have grown up within a world of pervasive technology including mobile phone, digital cameras and the omnipresent internet.” As I read various articles regarding Web 2.0, I have to agree with you that technologies today have increase rapidly and creating greater opportunities than ever before. Today more households have recent technologies such as computers, satellite TV, IPODS, MP3 players, cell phone, PS3, and Xbox360. Pretty soon everyone will have a microchip implanted in their bodies.
ReplyDeleteDuffy, P. “Engaging the YouTube Google-Eyed Generation: Strategies for Using Web 2.0 in Teaching and Learning.” The Electronic Journal of e-Learning Volume 6 Issue 2, pp 119-130, Retrieved October 26, 2009 from, www.ejel.org.