March 25

Chapter 7 is on distance learning. I chose to write about this because I feel there are different kinds of distance learning and various pros and cons. The pros are that it makes education available to many different people who may not have the time to go to class because of jobs or family. They may not have the money to attend face -to-face schools because some distance learning programs are cheaper than tradtional. You must personally be highly motivated to succeed in tradtional distance leraning. Russell says that students have the same achievement from distance leraning as they do from face-to-face instruction. However, earlier the book said there is NO substitute for a real teacher. I feel like Russell may be used incorrectly as a source here because they do not tell what age group he is talking about and exactly what type of distance learning he is discussing. By taking a short look at the faculty office page of blackboard, WE hve way more problems in this distance education class than we probably would fae-to-face. Luckily, we have a good instructor who answers all of our questions in a timely manner. However, that is not true for all distance learning classes. Personally, I feel that the traditional form of distance learning with no face-to-face, or very few, meetings is best for college and graduate students because t really takes a highly motivated individual to be successful at these. However, remember reading an artcile about a local High School participating in distance learning. However, they had a distance instructor as well as a classroom supervisor who was there to personally help them whenever they needed it. I thnk this type of distance learning is good for upper elementary, middle school and high school.