Distance Education: History and Peculiarities - Research Paper Example

Distance Education History: Unlike traditional educational ways involving a room and a teacher, Distance learning does not involve direct confrontation with a teacher and does not provide the environment of a classroom. In most cases, distance learning involves a media center or a computer laboratory. Therefore, distance learning is a field of education that combines technology with teaching methods and techniques to provide an opportunity for students to learn without being physically present in a classroom. There has been a recent explosion in the field of education of distance learning but the history of distance learning dates back to as early as 1728, when Caleb Phillips, who was a teacher of Short Hand method, published an advertisement in Boston Gazette to seek students to whom he would send lectures on weekly basis. (Distance Learning 2007).The Pioneers of distance learning relied on postal services in the 19th century to provide educational opportunities to students who were not able to seek education by attending conventional schools. An Englishman, Isaac Pitman, is regarded has an early pioneer in providing distance education. In 1840s, Isaac Pitman taught Short Hand using correspondence in the Great Britain. The University of London established its Eternal Programme in 1858, and became the world’s first university to provide the opportunity of attaining distance learning degrees to international and national students. In the United States, the concept of extended education through satellite colleges was established in the University of Chicago, by William Rainey Harper, who was the University’s first president. In 1829, William Rainey Harper further promoted education by encouraging the concept of providing school courses through correspondence, an idea that was originally put forward and practiced by Columbia University. In 1911, the Department of Correspondence studies was established in the University of Queensland in Australia. In America, Charles Wedemeyer of the University of Wisconsin-Madison encouraged the use of methods other than the postal service in providing distance education. In the UK, Open universities were established in 1969, which initially provided distance educational courses through radio and television broadcasts and now some of these open universities have attained the status of ‘mega universities’. In the United States, Jones International University was established in 1996 and is the first university to provide all its educational services online. The University is accredited by an accrediting association. Today, undergraduate and post graduate distance education is provided by many private and public, as well as by for- profit and non-profit educational institutions. Following the recent explosion in distance learning, national government authorities such as Quality Assurance Agency in UK and Distance Education and Training Council in the US, have been established to provide accreditation to distance education providing institutions. (Lau et al 2000). Virtual High School: Virtual High Schools or online high schools refer to the institutions which provide K-12 courses, in which the instructor and students are not only separated by time but by distance as well. The instructor provides the course by employing various methods such as multiple course management applications, internet, and resources relating to multimedia and video conferencing. The students communicate and interact with the instructors by using these same methods. (Distance Learning 2004). Types of Online High Schools: I. State Sanctioned Online high schools: In America, online high schools in fourteen states have been sanctioned by the state government and are designated as the State’s own virtual high schools. Such as the Florida Virtual School which in terms of enrollments is the largest virtual school and has been providing online educational services since 1997. Since its establishment the institution has been funded by the state government as an independent entity. The institution does not provide a diploma but offers a complete online curriculum to national and international students. II. College and university based virtual schools: Certain institution’s independent study high schools have taken their K-12 courses online and offer continuing education programs based on video conferencing. Upper division high school students can access hundreds of college level introductory virtual courses though both dual and concurrent enrollments. The independent study high school of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln offers federal granted online diploma programs which are marketed through for-profitclass.com. (Distance Learning. Lawrenceville, N.J: Peterson's). III. Regionally based and consortium high schools: Numerous consortia of virtual high schools have been established. These consortia are of various types including national, multi state and state level virtual school consortia. Most of these consortia provide online K-12 programs and share courses with other member schools while some act as brokers to external providers. The most successful and powerful collaborative example of virtual schools is the Massachusetts nonprofit Virtual High School Inc which was formerly known as Concord Virtual High School. IV. Local Virtual high schools based on agencies: Online high schools have been established by many local public schools and school districts, which employ their regular K-12 teachers to provide online educational services to home school populations. An example is the HISD Virtual School. V. Chartered Virtual High Schools: Chartered virtual high schools are operated by public school districts, for-profit and non profit organizations. In Kansas, Basehor-Linwood Virtual Charter School offers K-12 programs which are funded by the state. VI. Private Virtual High Schools: Similarly, most private schools have established and operate private virtual high schools. These schools provide supplementary courses and instructional sources for home school populations. The Christa McAuliffe Academy is accredited by regional accrediting association and has been providing online K-12 educational services since 1995. In the United States of America, there are approximately 100 Virtual high schools in which more than 1,000,000 students are receiving online K-12 education. Issues and major concerns: Establishing a virtual K-12 school system requires consideration of various issues and modern trends. One of the major concerns is the independence and autonomy of the school system as well as funding. A Virtual high school has to provide K-12 courses through an intuitive interface. The Virtual school system should have the capability of operating at any place and have to provide services even if only a single student enrolls. (Dale et al 1986). The institute has to realize that virtual education places a greater learning responsibility on the students, thus courses have to be designed meticulously. The institution that is about to establish a virtual high school has to realize that their school will be expected to offer wider course opportunities for students by utilizing different formats and methodologies. The virtual high school is also expected to use effective teaching methods and combine different forms of media and methods in teaching, so that maximum learning outcomes can be guaranteed. (Distance Learning 2002). The virtual high school has to be able to adapt to individual differences and encourage individuals to learn at their own pace. The school system has to provide administrative information such as session locations and up to date credit information on their websites. The school has to ensure that it is capable of offering student registration, tracking facilities, additional resources, automatically scored self assessment questions and formal assessments. A major pre requisite for establishing a virtual high school is electronic communication support. The school system also has to ensure differential access rights for its certified teachers and its students and all these facilities need to hyperlinked together. (Miller et al 1997). Competency vs. seat time ideological shift: I believe that attendance laws should be relaxed and competency should be demonstrated by students through self assessment and formal quizzes. The competency vs. seat time represents an important ideological shift in virtual school systems and should be implemented because this approach is more flexible. In addition, competency based learning encourages students to progress at their own pace. Competency based learning enables students to master the subject rather than progressing after spending a fixed seat time in the classroom. Moreover, proficiency based learning equally benefits students with different intellectuals which ensures that gifted students are able to progress at an accelerated rate and remedial students receive extra preparation time before advancing on to the next level. Comparison between two virtual high schools: Wyoming Virtual Academy: Wyoming Virtual academy is a local public virtual school which provides free online K-12 educational programs for the residents of Wyoming. The academy offers K-12 programs in five core subjects and provides a diploma as well. All programs have a semester system and enrollment is limited to teenagers only. The institute is accredited by Niobrara County School District # 1. The institute offers over 90 elective, core and Advanced Placement courses and its catalog is robust. Courses on mathematics, language arts, science and history are offered in various versions to fulfill the needs of different students with different goals. Wyoming Virtual Academy offers 4 levels of world languages. Students have the option to study either part time or full time. Teachers, counselors and coordinators are available round the clock to assist their students. (Moore et al 2003). The website: www.k12.com/wyva/ Wolf Creek Online High School: Wolf Creek Online High school is a chartered virtual high school and is accredited by Minnesota Department of Education and it is sponsored by Chisago Lakes School District # 2144. The chartered school provides free K-12 education for students in the Chisago Lakes School District and programs are based on semester systems. The school revolves around the philosophy of small community and provides academic and non academic guidance to its students. The curriculum is available 24/7 on the school’s website. Students have the option to study either full time or part time. The school offers courses on English, science, mathematics, art, health, careers and Phy- Ed. Teachers and other education personnel are available round the clock to assist the students. The website: www.wolfcreek.chisagolakes.k12.mn.us The role of teachers in a virtual high school: The misconception that ‘virtual teachers’ are not important is quite prevalent and people believe that teachers do not have the same role in virtual schools like they do in a traditional school. However, this is wrong as certified teachers and other educational personnel are actively engaged with their online students. The research suggests that the role of teachers in virtual schools is not different form their role in conventional schools. Like in traditional schools, teachers are involved in providing academic and non academic services to their students in virtual schools as well. Thus, the only difference is that there is no direct teacher student confrontation in virtual schools and apart from this there are no major differences in teacher student relationship. Online high schools are more effective than traditional schools: Online education is more flexible and ensures that students can learn and progress to advanced levels at their own pace. Online high schools are more effective than traditional schools because they provide an access to a broad curriculum so that students can enroll in multiple courses which they cannot in traditional high schools. Most virtual high schools provide courses that are enriched with challenges to help the students to attain high quality education. A recent survey conducted by a collaboration of Universities reveal that online students did better in all subjects except in Algebra 1 and Personal Financial Management. Recommendations: I believe that attending traditional high schools is more rewarding than online high schools. I do not recommend all high school students to take online classes due to various reasons. I believe that students studying in virtual high schools do not develop personal understanding skills like they do while studying face to face with other students in traditional schools. In addition, online student do not get the opportunity to develop life long friendships. Therefore, this can have a detrimental long term effect on relationships because we often meet people at school who remain important to us all our life. Thus, online schools lead to poor socialization which will inevitably lead to serious problems in the future. I do not recommend the school district to move forward with the idea of launching a virtual high school because of reasons related to poor socialization guaranteed by online schools. Despite tremendous benefits of studying online, that fact remains that same that socialization is an important aspect of human life and online students lack the opportunity to interact and communicate and build relationships with other students. This will have a detrimental effect on their future because organizations survive on successful teamwork and online students do not exhibit cohesiveness and cooperation, which considerably reduces their job placement chances. In addition, I believe that studying in a home environment makes it very difficult to stay on task, which considerably reduces the effectiveness of student learning process. (Dale et al 1986). References: Distance Learning. Fargo, ND: North Dakota Center for Distance Education, 2007. Print. Lau, Linda K. Distance Learning Technologies: Issues, Trends, and Opportunities. Hershey, Pa: Idea Group Pub, 2000. Internet resource. Distance Learning. Greenwich, Conn: Information Age Pub, 2004. Internet resource. Distance Learning. Lawrenceville, N.J: Peterson's, n.d.. Internet resource. Miller, Inabeth, and Jeremy Schlosberg. Distance Learning. New York: Kaplan Educational Centers, 1997. Print. Distance Learning. Fort Collins, Colo.: The Division, 2002. Print. Dale, Sheila. Distance Learning. London: Library Association, 1986. Print. Moore, Michael G, and William G. Anderson. Handbook of Distance Education. Mahwah, N.J: L. Erlbaum Associates, 2003. Internet resource. Read More