Distance Technology

1. ASSIGNMENT 2
MODULE 2
HALEY YASSES
APT 502

2. DEFINITIONS, HISTORY, AND THEORIES OF
DISTANCE EDUCATION
• The purpose of this chapter is to review the definitions, history, and theories of
distance education

3. DEFINING DISTANCE EDUCATION
• Distance education is an institution-based, formal education where the learning
group is separated, and where interactive telecommunications systems are used
to connect learners, resources, and instructors.

4. 4 TYPES OF DISTANCE EDUCATION
• Institutionally based
• Separation of teacher and student
• Interactive telecommunication
• Sharing of data, voice, and video (learning experience)

5. THEORETICAL DEBATE
• Fordism
• Neo-Fordism
• Post- Fordism

6. WEDEMEYER’S PERSPECTIVES
• The student and teacher are separated
• The normal processes of teaching and learning are carried out in writing or
• through some other medium.
• Teaching is individualized.
• Learning takes place through the student’s activity.
• Learning is made convenient for the student in his or her own environment.
• Thelearnertakesresponsibilityforthepaceofhisorherownprogress,with
• freedom to start and stop at any time.

7. FOUNDATIONS OF DISTANCE EDUCATION
• Theories of independence and autonomy
• Theories of industrialization of teaching
• Theories of interaction and communication

8. DISTANCE TEACHING UNIVERSITIES
• The need felt in many countries to increase the offerings of university education generally
• A realization that adults with jobs, family responsibilities, and social commitments form a large
group of prospective part-time university students
• A wish to serve both individuals and society by offering study opportunities to adults, among
them disadvantaged groups
• The need found in many professions for further training at an advanced level
• A wish to support educational innovation
• A belief in the feasibility of an economical use of educational resources by
• mediated teaching

9. BRIEF HISTORY OF DISTANCE EDUCATION
• Distance education seems a new idea to most educators of today. However, the
concepts that form the basis of distance education are more than a century old.
Certainly, distance education has experienced growth and change recently, but
the long traditions of the field continue to give it direction for the future. This
section offers a brief history of distance education, from correspondence study, to
electronic communications, to distance teaching universities.

10. THE NEED FOR THEORY
• Although forms of distance education have existed since the 1840s and attempts
at theoretical explanations of distance education had been undertaken by leading
scholars in the field, the need for a theory base of distance education was still
largely unfulfilled in the 1970s