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Who needs DL?
The Student
Although all students (or prospective students) can derive
immense benefit from a properly designed and implemented Distance
Learning program, there are several special groups that should
be noted. Of course, some individuals may fit one or more
categories:
- Isolated Individuals, such as:
- Children in rural communities with limited access
to specialized instruction. Rural schools often find
it difficult to provide a variety of much needed courses,
due to low enrollment and budgetary constraints.
- Individuals whose jobs isolate them from educational
opportunities (i.e., traveling salesperson, corporate
transferee, night workers, etc.). Many people cannot
pursue or continue their education due to the time and
distance constraints imposed by their jobs. Paradoxically,
failure to maintain an up-to-date education often adversely
affects these individual's careers.
- The uneducated and rapidly increasing populations
of under-developed third world countries, especially
in the Asian and Pacific region, who are isolated from
conventional educational facilities. A 1986 study concluded:
There are at present over one billion children and youth
under 15 years of age in this region (Asian Development
Bank, 1987: 45). The problems these nations face are
so vast, that the need for education often takes a back
seat to the more pressing issues of poverty and starvation.
However, these governments are recognizing the correlation
between education and economic prosperity. Often with
non-existent educational infrastructure, these nations
may find DL the most cost-effective solution for their
immediate educational needs.
- Corporate/Industry trainees. Corporations are realizing
the benefits of training and/or retraining their existing
employees, and the military has done so for years. DL often
provides the only quick, up-to-date, and cost effective
means of educating these workers.
- Women. Although women's influence in the workforce has
dramatically increased in the past thirty years, a large
group still exists that have not pursued educational goals
due to family concerns. Women who are homemakers, responsible
for the care of children or aging parents, can update their
job skills, pursue alternative career paths, and prepare
for integration into the job market through the use of DL.
- Physically Handicapped. Physical disabilities can bring
tremendous challenges for those individuals attempting to
obtain an education through conventional means. DL can overcome
the access problems of the physically handicapped and provide
them with the skills to become productive members of society.
- Social/economically challenged. Individuals who cannot
afford conventional educational systems often find the costs
of DL more palatable. People whose early-learning skills
are somewhat deficient can find a means for catching up
at their own pace through DL; and the use of DL in prisoner
reform is being used to reduce repeat offenses by giving
prisoners the skills to integrate into society.
These student's feelings about distance learning and its
benefits are best exemplified in the comments of Tracy Marks,
a recently enrolled student in a class offered by the Cambridge
Center for Adult Education on Marketing on the World Wide
Web:
First of all, there's the convenience factor. I am
able to take the course at two in the morning if that's
when I can take it. Plus, the email interaction allows
students to get to know each other in a way they wouldn't
face to face. (Kornblum, 1996)
The Faculty
Properly designed DL courseware can reduce or eliminate the
repetitive labor tasks performed by educators each semester,
such as preparation of lectures. When properly structured,
the DL program courseware (especially computer based courseware)
would evolve through continuous improvement by the authors.
Faculty would not have to "reinvent the wheel for each
week's lectures" (Massy, 1995). Exam preparation and
grading time can also be reduced, since this function can
also be incorporated into the courseware. Finally, this reduction
of repetitive labor tasks frees time for faculty to pursue
their own continuing education, thereby ensuring that their
wealth of knowledge is continuously increased and up-to-date.
Discussions with educators reveal that many teachers find
themselves scrambling during the "off" summer months
to attain the required number of continuing education credits
mandated by their respective State. However, internet-based
distance learning programs enable teachers to obtain their
required credits at their own pace, during the school year.
This ensures that the "teacher/students" put information
gleaned from the courses to immediate use. Many programs incorporate
group-based learning and group scheduled chat rooms. Often,
the traditional time-constrained, lecture-based teaching environment
does not afford the same opportunities for one-on-one teacher-student
interaction or student-group interaction.
In our society with the constantly changing knowledge
base, to remain a competent professional, people must update
their education much more often than in the past. It is conceivable
that the average person will need to utilize three entire
generations of information in their professional careers.
We're not going to be able to accomplish this feat by everyone
quitting their jobs every 10 years and returning to school
for 3 years. I believe that this learning process will have
to happen via some type of distributed learning.
(Swisher, 1997)
The Administrator
Governments, corporations, and the administrators of educational
institutions are constantly striving to provide a quality
education within budget constraints. The use of information
technology and distance learning programs can result in increased
productivity and decreased costs.
Using information technology
will increase the ratio
of capital cost to labor cost in the academic budget, whether
or not overall costs can be reduced. Larger capital-labor
ratios represent a shift away from the handicraft mentality.
They offer three major advantages.
First, real labor costs tend to rise with economy-wide productivity
gains
, whereas technology-based costs tend to decline
due to learning-curve effects, scale economies in production,
and continued innovation
Given the differential growth
rates of labor and technology, one can expect positive long-term
returns on investment even when returns are negligible during
the first few years.
Second, technology-based solutions also tend to be more
scalable than labor-intensive ones. While our model does
not address economies of scale, one should expect that additional
students could be accommodated at lower cost with technology
than with traditional teaching methods.
Finally, technology provides more flexibility than traditional
teaching methods once one moves beyond minor changes that
can be instituted by individual professors
The "retraining"
of IT equipment (for example, reprogramming), while not
inexpensive, is easier and more predictable than retraining
a tenured professor. Within limits, departments will gain
a larger zone of flexibility as the capital-labor ratio
grows. (Massy, 1995)
As early as 1974, a cost analyses of distance education was
performed using actual data from the Open
University of the United Kingdom ("OUUK"), one
of the first successful large-scale distance education programs
in the world. (Started in 1971, this maverick in the field
had already enrolled 76,592 students by 1974 and over 375,000
students by 1989. By the late 1980's, its annual enrollment
was over 100,000 per year). The study concluded that "the
real strength of the OU system is the potential economies
of scale which can be reaped by substituting capital for labour"
(Keegan, 1990: 165). The study determined that with the Open
University's high level of operation and enrollment, the average
cost of providing an education to each student was lower than
that of a conventional university. Note that this study was
conducted nearly thirty years ago at a time when the cost
of technology was substantially higher than today.
Another issue potentially helped by DL is the general shortage
of faculty which commenced in the 1990's, particularly in
the U.S., as the number of students interested in teaching
careers declined, and the teachers who entered the field during
the 1960's retired. This faculty shortage presents even greater
challenges for governments, and society in general, to provide
innovative education delivery systems that utilize resources
to their fullest capacity. Distance Learning can provide not
only a means for this full utilization of resources, but can
be used as a tool to solicit the interest of potential teachers.
By explaining the benefits, challenges, and personal satisfaction
derived from this new, technology-based, distance teaching
method versus the "conventional education", perhaps
interest in the field of education can be reinvigorated with
the coming wave of technology oriented students. For example,
Thom Foulks, an educator previously accustomed to traditional
classroom based teaching, had the following to say about his
job as an instructor at ZD University, a web-based virtual
university:
"It's been one of the most invigorating experiences
of my lifetime," Foulks said without a hint of sarcasm.
"In my first class I had a student body that ranged
from Paris and Australia and all across the United States.
The interactivity, although it's not face to face, is still
there," he said. "All my students are pretty much
mandated to at least introduce some personal comments about
each other. You do get to know the people. You really do."
When he first started doing it a year ago, "I was awed
by looking at my student body and the very fact that we
could interact and communicate and everybody got something
done. There were times I sat here, and I'm serious, I had
tears in my eyes. It was joyous to see it actually works.
There can be a worldwide community for this type of thing."
(Kornblum, 1996)
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