Classic Theories of Distance Education (original) (raw)
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Theorizing in Distance Education The Critical Quest for Conceptual Foundations
Notwithstanding the increasing importance of distance education in contemporary society, studies of distance education often lack solid foundations to sustain theoretical advances in the field. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, to revisit five seminal distance education theories and reorganize their tenets into three broad categories: the context of industrial and post-industrial society, distance, and communication. Second, to extend the understanding of these three core concepts, delving deeper into their theoretical foundations which are often borrowed from the domains of philosophy and sociology. The aim of this critical and reflective analysis is to make a contribution to the advance of theory development in the distance education field.
Nummi, T., Rönkä, A. & Sariola, J. Virtuality and Digital Nomadism: Introduction to the LIVE Project (1997–2000). Media Education Centre. Department of Teacher Education. University of Helsinki. Media Education Publications 6, 1–22. ERIC ED428753. , 1998
The purpose of this article is to analyse and to explicate the subtle differences between some of the basic concepts related to what used to be called rather unanimously 'distance education'. What these different concepts have in common is a shared comprehension of a growing number of learning experiences meaningful to human beings taking place outside of the institutionalised educational systems. In distance education, and especially in the different variations now available, there has been a progressive increase in learner control of and widened access to resources, as well as in the emphasis placed on thinking skills and on metacognitive skills related to learning strategies. More and more teachers and teacher educators are becoming cognisant of the fact that these variations of distance education are constantly gaining ground as they are becoming located more centrally in the mainstream educational systems. Keywords: Distance education; distance teaching and learning; open learning; open and distance learning; flexible learning; distributed learning; flexi-mode learning; mixed-mode learning.
The premise of this article is that theoretical frameworks and models are essential to the long-term credibility and viability of a field of practice. In order to assess the theoretical challenges facing the field of distance education, the significant theoretical contributions to distance education in the last century are briefly reviewed. This review of distance education as a field of study reveals an early preoccupation with organizational and structural constraints. However, the review also reveals that the theoretical development of the field is progressing from organizational to transactional issues and assumptions. The question is whether distance education has the theoretical foundation to take it into the 21st century and whether distance education theory development will keep pace with innovations in technology and practice.
Re-inventing distance education, 19712001
International Journal of Lifelong Education, 2001
The choice of a time span within which to examine changes in the field of distance education is inevitably arbitrary. After all, the history of distance education goes back to at least 1840 when, capitalising on the development of a cheap penny postal service in the United Kingdom, Sir Isaac Pitman first began to teach shorthand using correspondence teaching methods. Nevertheless, there are good reasons for looking at the development of distance education in the last 30 years. Firstly, this has been a period of rapid technological change. The educational arena within which technology has been most spectacularly applied to education is distance education. The pace of technological change is accelerating, and with it -and this is the second development -have come applications that are changing the pedagogic assumptions upon which distance education is founded. Linked to this is the fact that the differences between distance and traditional approaches to teaching are eroding. Thirdly, distance education has been increasingly seen as an integral part of educational provision. This is true for governments, for educational institutions, and for corporate trainers. This arises in part from its ability to reach out to new sectors of the population, and in part from its ability to support mass education at a lower cost per student than traditional methods can achieve. With acceptance has come 1 expansion. Fourthly, with increased recognition, distance educators have become more confident that they have something to say that is worth listening to. Finally, distance education practice fits with a number of developments in post-modernist society, including consumerism, globalisation, and the emergence of the post-bureaucratic organisation. This article explores these trends in greater detail.
Formulating a Theory for Modern Distance Education
2010
This second issue of the year comes as usual just after the Annual Conference of the Asian Association of Open Universities that was hosted this year by President Pham Minh Viet, and Hanoi Open University http://aaou2010\. hou. edu. vn/. We continue to work hard to support this association. Also at this time, on the sidelines of the Conference, we hold our Board Meeting of the Asian Society of Open and Distance Education–held on Monday 25th October.
Revisiting the five generations of distance education: Quo vadis?
2010
The history of distance education (DE) has been documented and researched by many scholars in the past. Different scholars have attempted to categorise different phases of the development of DE, as it responded to changes in technology and learning theory. These genealogical models propose a number of generations, ranging between three and six. All of these models propose the advent of DE to be based in correspondence education in the early 1900s.
2019
As pragmatist, interdisciplinary fields, distance education (DE) and open and distance learning (ODL) transform and adapt themselves according to changing paradigms. In this regard, the purpose of this study is to examine DE and ODL from different perspectives to discern their future directions. The study concludes that DE and ODL are constantly developing interdisciplinary fields where technology has become a significant catalyst and these fields become part of the mainstream education. However, mainstreaming should be evaluated with caution, and there is a need to revisit core values and fundamentals where critical pedagogy would have a pivotal role. Besides, there is no single theory that best explains these interdisciplinary fields, and therefore, there is a need to benefit from different theoretical approaches. Finally, as a result of constant changes, we should keep the definition of both DE and ODL up-to-date to better explain the needs of the global teaching and learning ecosystem.
Reviewing the basic consepts in distance education
This paper explores a review of distance education literature focusing on the basic themes on open and distance education (ODE). The aim of this study is to figure out the current trend of the research in the field of distance education (DE). This investigation recognizes that distance education research was robustly dominated by strategic issues correlated to the historical development of distance education and the use of educational technology for current teaching and learning delivery modes. Besides, a basic theme of defining DE was also another important area in line with the dynamic concept of DE itself. Aligning with the evolution of DE, significant trend of research towards theories of DE has also been highlighted in the literature. Recently, however, research in the field of DE has been fashioned by more qualitative studies on quality and quality assurance; how these concepts have been interpreted and implemented in different educational settings. Keywords: distance education, review of distance education research
International and Inter-Institutional Collaboration in Distance Education
1998
Ladies and gentlemen: I am honoured that you have invited me to deliver this address. You are very kind, as I know there are many here who know more than I do about contemporary distance and open education. In one way or another, you, in Australia, have gained insight, knowledge and experience in developing partnerships with on and off shore colleagues. And, over the last ten years, Australians have also gained tremendous skill in being entrepreneurial with the delivery of knowledge products all over the world. Therefore, I will refrain from tiring you with details that you already know. Instead, I will share with you, a few specific challenges that confront educational planners, policy makers and practitioners as they aspire to move away from high cost, elite, institution-centred provision to where the focus is very much student-centred, affordable and mass in nature, in a global context. In doing so, one invariably must consider the practice of distance education as an important option in any attempt at coupling mass education and low cost (this may or may not be so, but it is the perception) in most parts of the developing world. 2. Driven by global issues such as trade, investment, population growth, environment, good governance, human rights, cultural preservation, economics and technology, educational systems are in transition today; their emerging opportunities are enormous as are the threats to them. The opportunities are driven by technology, demand, globalisation and universal interdependency while the threats appear in the form of competition, narrow linguistic and political nationalism. In the time allocated to me by the convenors of this forum, I will attempt to describe from a development point of view, especially in the context of the