A summary of Distance Education

1. MCS-3103 Distance Education
[Summary]
Thiwanka Makumburage
13440481

2. 1
Distance Education – [Summary]
 Distance Education is depends on the technology, which connects the students and the teacher.
 It requires more time, planning and money.
 Students need different study skills and different communication skills.
 Sometimes, to implement effective distance learning, need to setup new institutions and
departments.
 Distance education is not only about learning, it’s about teaching as well.
 When it comes to distance learning, it should be planned, not accidental like in the class room
learning.
 Distance learning normally in a different place from teaching.
 When using distance learning teacher and students both have to communicate through various
technologies.
 ODL: Open and Distance Learning gives open access to the learning process and it gives greater
autonomy to the student.
 There are multiple levels of distance education
o Single mode institutions
o Dual mode institutions
o Individual teachers
o Virtual universities and consortia
o Courses and programs
 There are several type of media which we could use for distance education.
o Text
o Images
o Sounds
o Artifacts
 Following are some common mistakes we do when we are using technology for distance
education.
o Overinvest in a particular technology
o Attempt to load more and more media without concerning the quality of them.

3. 2
 Policy makes at institutional level and government levels have introduced distance education to
meet what they perceive as certain needs, which include:
o Increasing access to learning and training opportunities.
o Providing opportunities for updating skills.
o Improving the cost effectiveness for updating skills.
o Supporting the quality of existing educational system.
o Enhancing the capacity of the educational system.
o Balancing inequalities between age groups.
o Delivering educational campaigns on specific target audiences.
o Providing emergency training for key target groups.
o Expanding the capacity for education in new subject areas.
o Offering combination of education with work and family life.
o Adding and international dimension to the educational experience.
 Following diagram shows a conceptual model of the distance education.

4. 3
 Components of a working distance education system:
o Source of knowledge
o Design of courses/programs
o Delivery of course material and interaction via technologies
o Interaction: the role of instructors
o Learners in their learning environments
o Management and administration
 Following diagram shows a systems model of the distance education.
 We can look in to the interrelationships of the components in a distance education system using
system modeling perspective, viewing the system in terms of inputs and outputs. Following are
the inputs and outputs of distance education.
o Inputs
 Student characteristics
 Instructor experience
 Understanding about distance learners

5. 4
 Quality of course design skills
 Quality of course production
 Cost of course production
 Technology chosen for the course
 Accessibility of support devices
 Frequency and quality of evaluation data
 Financial investment
o Outputs
 Student satisfaction ratings
 Student achievement scores
 Student completion rates
 Total enrolments
 Quality assessments
 Accreditation results
 Tuition and other revenue
 Staff reputation and turnover
 Distance education organization should be studied and evaluated as systems. These systems
contains many other important sub systems as well. Integration of these sub systems is the key
to provide a better and effective distance education experience for all.

6. 5